As another American and I walked down La Rampa, a street in Havana, three little schoolgirls dressed in blue uniforms called out to us. “Tovarich, ” they said, using the Russian word for “comrade.” I approached one of the Cuban girls, a dark-skinned child of about ten. “Do you think we are Russian?” I asked her in Spanish. She nodded, grinning, her eyes shining in good fun. “But we’re not Russian," I told her. “We’re Americans.” The grin vanished. Her head pulled back. She frowned and tightened her eyes in fright. She was sorry that she had ever called out “tovarich.” It is not a pleasant feeling to frighten a child, but it is a feeling that an American ought to experience, or at least understand, before trying to analyze Cuba and the future of its relations with the United States. Relations will probably get better. Fidel Castro has sent out clear signals that he wants some kind of accommodation. In fact. I was in Cuba only because the Cubans need new channels for those signals...

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