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Most still oppose lifting the embargo, though, which means the White House must play a delicate game if it still hopes to attract Cuban-American voters in the crucial state of Florida. While Clinton has promised not to lift the embargo unless Cuba institutes free elections and other democratic changes, his Administration is open to easing some restrictions in return for partial measures from Castro. For now, the White House is thinking of making travel to Cuba easier for academics and religious figures, as well as lifting obstacles to the posting of Cuban journalists in the U.S. and American journalists in Cuba.
Teo Babun, 47, is one of those who thought Fidel would be gone by now. Just 13 when he fled Cuba with his family, he now advises American clients like Royal Caribbean Cruises and Baskin-Robbins on ways to prepare themselves for the post-Fidel market. But he formed his company five years ago in hopes of doing joint ventures in Cuba of the kind the embargo still forbids. Today he must study each shift from Havana and Washington for nuances affecting his clients, an obsession he admits is not shared by the younger generation of entrepreneurs. "It's not true that all Cuban Americans live and die by what's happening in Cuba,'' he says.
Other exiles, alarmed by what they see as a creeping erosion in the embargo, have got behind a bill sponsored by North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms. It would allow Cuban Americans whose homes or business holdings were confiscated by Castro to file suit in U.S. courts against foreign firms or individuals who do business in Cuba that involves their former properties. "Even if Cuban exiles cannot win back their property in the near future, we want to make sure no foreign investors get it either," says Nick Gutiarrez, a Miami attorney who represents a group of former Cuban sugar-mill owners.
To counter the softening of sentiment among his fellow exiles, Gutiarrez has also co-founded Puente, Spanish for "bridge," a group of Cuban professionals who aim to explain the older generation's anti-Castro fervor to younger Cuban Americans. He doesn't buy the claims by Menoyo and other dialogistas that they offer a centrist alternative to anti-Castro extremism. "What's a moderate?" asks Gutiarrez. "To say someone's a moderate because he'll talk to a brutal tyrant is a perversion of the label."
--Reported by Cathy Booth/Miami