i believe the staff that worked on it was sean mccormick, i have always been impressed with the scholarship and the research that has gone on here. so it's great to be here this morning, it's never a bad time to review a policy that has failed to produce results for 50 years, but gain that, it's certainly a timely conference today given some recent developments. i have people often ask where my interest in cuba came from, i did mention that my early work in africa, cuba was always there somehow, the agreement for libyan independence to happen, as my wife and myself, we sent a year there the year that libya -- after an agreement for the cuban troops to leave an gola, so it seems to be an issue that's followed me around wherever i have been in my career. but people ask, an arizona senator, why are you involved like this? i tell them, well, i took a poll among cube cuban americans in arizona, and both of them said go ahead, we like what you're doing. arizona doesn't have farm produce that we sell, there's not a lot of trader travel back and forth, but for me, it's always been an issue of freed