Setting the record straight
As a general rule, a professor should not comment on letters from
students who have done poorly in his classes. It is a waste of
time, for there is no logical response to resentment. So it is
with Rakesh Sharma's denunciation of me in the
Letters column of
the September issue. More, the letter is so poorly reasoned,
shows so erroneous a grasp of history, and such confusing syntax,
that it discredits itself without comment from me. Its
description of me as "a man who leans his success on the
foundation of the proliferation of communism" is too absurd (and
the sentence too poorly constructed) to merit response.
At risk of breaking a sensible rule, however, I would like to set
the record straight on two points: First, the Partagas cigar I am
holding in the cover
photo is not contraband. One is allowed to bring back $100
of merchandise, including cigars, from Cuba. The cigar in
question was part of such a purchase. I wish it could have been
an Hoyo de Monterrey, but I can no longer afford those.
Second, I did not aid other individuals in circumventing U.S.
travel restrictions. Circumvention is not my style; rather,
during 1994 and 1995, I led three groups of academics on trips to
Cuba designed to challenge those restrictions, which we
considered, and still consider to be, outright violations of our
constitutional rights. We refused to get licenses and challenged
the federal authorities to take us to court. As I said to the
Customs official who met us at the ramp on the first trip: "We
respect the law and obey those that are constitutional. But if a
citizen believes a given law to be unconstitutional, then that
citizen, in an act of civic disobedience, should refuse to obey
it and force the authorities to take the matter to court, where
the offending statute can be overturned--or the citizen pay the
consequence of having been wrong."
Significantly, in all three cases, the authorities would not risk
taking us to court. Clearly, they didn't think we were
wrong.
Wayne S. Smith
Latin
American Studies Program
RETURN TO
NOVEMBER 1998 TABLE OF CONTENTS.