by Don Feder

                 Jimmy Carter, who has nothing better to do with his time, aims to be the first
                 ex-president to visit Cuba, where he will urge Americans to throw a lifeline to
                 the decrepit dictatorship. The trip is awaiting State Department approval, a pro
                 forma matter.

                 Carter was invited down by Fidel Castro, who turned in a bravura performance
                 at the recent U.N. Development Conference in Mexico with his usual claptrap
                 about Third World poverty as a capitalist conspiracy. (Which raises the
                 intriguing question: How did Cuba get so destitute after 43 years of
                 supercharged socialism?)

                 In setting forth his rationale for trade and tourism with the stagnant utopia,
                 Carter demonstrates the endearing naivete for which he is famous.

                 ``I think the best way to bring about democratic changes in Cuba is obviously
                 to have maximum commerce and trade and visitation by Americans . . . and let
                 the Cuban people know the advantages of freedom,'' the former president
                 urged.

                 Carter sees millions of Americans flocking to the island, instilling a yearning
                 for representative government and civil liberties in the Cuban people. Thus
                 inspired, they will do what - support Castro's opponent in the next election?
                 Oops, I forgot, there are no elections.

                 The Cuban people don't have to be convinced that it would be great to get
                 Castro's boot off their backs. In March, dissidents submitted a petition with
                 10,000 signatures to the National Assembly calling for democratic reforms.

                 If the people didn't want change, Castro's goons wouldn't have to brutalize
                 them every other day. Everyone from Amnesty International to the U.N. Human
                 Rights Commission has condemned Castro's tyranny.

                 What Cubans want is irrelevant; what Castro desires is paramount. He's had
                 total power for more than four decades - since Ike was in the White House. He
                 is president of the Council of Ministers, chairman of the Council of State,
                 commander in chief of the armed forces and first secretary of the Communist
                 Party. His power over 11 million Cubans is as absolute as any tyrant in history.

                 And he has said that as long as there's breath in his septuagenarian body,
                 Cuba will remain a Stalinist state.

                 Tourism isn't a source of change but an engine for maintaining the status quo.
                 Last year, it generated an estimated $2 billion. Along with charity from Cuban
                 exiles, tourist dollars represent over half of all foreign revenue.

                 Tourists stay in segregated hotels, forbidden to Cubans who aren't cleaning
                 toilets or scrubbing floors. They eat at segregated restaurants, soak up rays on segregated beaches and shop in
                 special dollar stores. Medical tourists are even treated in segregated hospitals. (Ordinary Cubans have to bring
                 their own bedding to the hospitals reserved for them.)

                 You have a better chance of associating with an average Cuban in Miami than Havana.

                 Trade would allow American companies to join their European and Canadian counterparts in exploiting the Cuban
                 people. Foreign mining firms pay the regime $9,500 a year for contract laborers. Of that amount, the state keeps 98
                 percent and turns over the balance to the worker.

                 There's a name for this - slavery.

                 The commie caudillo wants capitalist dupes to subsidize his tyranny. In 1986, Cuba stopped making payments on
                 its long-term foreign debt (at least $11 billion - $1,000, or four years wages, for every Cuban).

                 In February, Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Trade asked a consortium of creditors to restructure its short- and
                 medium-term debt.

                 After 43 years of scientific socialism (the ultimate oxymoron), Cuba is a beggar caging spare change on
                 international lenders' street.

                 The U.S. embargo is a misnomer. Havana is free (no pun intended) to buy food and medicine here - if it pays cash.
                 But Castro wants credit sales, backed by government loan guarantees. If we're dumb enough to give it to him,
                 American taxpayers will end up subsidizing the world's longest-running anti-American regime.

                 Jimmy Carter is a nice but totally clueless fellow. Speaking of trade, perhaps we can trade him to Castro for a
                 dozen dissidents to be named later. Then he could devote himself full-time to explaining the benefits of freedom to
                 the Cuban people - for all the good it will do.