Diplomatic Dance: Cuba's Religion Factor

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FIDEL CASTRO moved through the narrow streets of Old Havana, surrounded by television cameras. Polite security guards pushed ahead of him, asking those of us in the street to step inside our hotel lobby. Cuba's president was conducting a tour of a newly refurbished area when he stopped in front of the Hotel Ambos Mundos, one of the favorite haunts of Cuba's adopted literary son, Ernest Hemingway. With Castro was Jamaica's new prime minister, Percival J. Patterson, who later that evening would announce that Jamaica would upgrade its consulate in Cuba to an embassy.

That diplomatic gesture won't buy paint for the other buildings in the historic section of Old Havana still badly in need of repair. Nor will it solve the economic problems Cuba has experienced since losing financial support from its former patron, the Soviet Union. But the announcement does give Castro a morale boost as he gets ready for an even more significant addition to his diplomatic prom card: a visit from Pope John Paul II, scheduled for mid-January 1998.

The …