Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

Inside Castro's Cuba

Aired May 13, 2002 - 05:47   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: During his presidency, Jimmy Carter instituted reforms in the U.S.-Cuban relationship.

CNN's John Zarrella reports on a Carter aide who secretly helped facilitate those reforms.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BERNARDO BENES, CARTER CUBA ENVOY: Chase Manhattan Bank and Association.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Bernardo Benes was handed this ledger by Fidel Castro in 1980, 306 pages of entries of all the U.S. companies and individuals whose properties were seized by the Castro government 20 years earlier.

(on camera): Why did he give it to you?

BENES: Gesture.

ZARRELLA: A gesture.

BENES: A gesture to the U.S. government.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): He should know. Between 1977 and 1986, Benes carried out secret diplomatic missions to Cuba on behalf of the Carter and Reagan administrations. Benes says he spent 150 hours in direct talks with the Cuban leader.

BENES: And Castro told me many times, whenever he spoke very highly of Jimmy Carter he always mentioned the word his religious values, moral and religious values.

ZARRELLA: Benes, a Cuban exile, came to the U.S. shortly after the revolution. A Democrat, he chaired Carter's Hispanic campaign in Florida. After the election, President Carter chose Benes to press the message of human rights with the Cubans.

(on camera): And this here is...

BENES: This is the (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

ZARRELLA: ... in Cuba when you met...

BENES: ... inside the political prison.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): In 1978, 3,600 political prisoners were freed. This too, Benes says, was a gesture to the president. Benes was there to bring the first ones out, but not before Castro held an impromptu news conference as the prisoners waited.

BENES: And I left Fidel to stop for a second and said, Fidel, let's cut this out because you know the prisoners are waiting. He says to me well let them wait a little longer, yes. And then my answer was yes, Fidel, but some of them have been waiting for 15 years.

ZARRELLA: The deal also gave Cuban exiles the right to travel home annually to visit their relatives. Those flights continue today. The agreement was a major human rights accomplishment for the Carter administration, but two years later came a major embarrassment.

(on camera): This is the fishing village of Boca De Camerioca (ph) on Cuba's north coast. In 1966, thousands of Cubans left from here to the United States. In 1980, Bernardo Benes says Fidel Castro warned him there would be another Boca De Camerioca.

(voice-over): Benes says he told administration officials but nothing was done.

BENES: We could have avoided Mariel.

ZARRELLA: Three weeks later, the first of some 100,000 Cuban refugees began leaving from the port of Mariel.

Benes says when Carter and Castro meet he hopes the former president will ask the Cuban leader if Mariel was also a gesture.

John Zarrella, CNN, Boca De Camerioca.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And a reminder, you can learn more about Cuba on our special "LIVE FROM HAVANA" anchored by Kate Snow. That's tonight on CNN at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com