It’s hard to attribute anything but coincidence to the fact that
Cuban President Raúl Castro issued a major immigration reform on
Tuesday, Oct. 16, which was the 50th anniversary of the start of
the Cold War’s most harrowing moment, the Cuban Missile Crisis.
But the two things are nonetheless related. Castro’s
reform—eliminating the onerous exit visa requirement for Cubans
who want to travel outside the communist island—is a reminder of
how the missile crisis prompted both Washington and Havana to
shut down movement into and out of Cuba for the past half
century. And it’s one more sign among many that each side needs
to put that cold-war past behind it. Eight months before Oct.
16, 1962—the day U.S. President John F. Kennedy was informed of
the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles
from Florida—the U.S. had already imposed a unilateral trade
embargo on the regime of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. That’s
largely because Fidel, who ruled Cuba from 1959 until handing
the presidency to his youn