BY ANITA SNOW
 Associated Press

 HAVANA -- When 40 influential women from Washington state met with Fidel Castro this week, the 75-year-old president spent several minutes chatting with each one, asking their names, their interests, their thoughts on Cuba.

 ``He obviously had read the biographies and knew who each person was,'' said Susan Jeffords, dean of Social Sciences at the University of Washington.

 Castro met with the group for three hours, and spent another two hours talking with Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. When she told Castro she feared she would miss her flight, he escorted her to the airport in his Mercedes Benz.

 The personal attention that Cuba's leader gave each woman demonstrated his great interest in Americans whose opinions could count in efforts to change U.S. policy toward the communist country. It also underscored what Castro has said all along: his beef is with the U.S. government, not with the American people.

 ``It was certainly exciting to meet with him. He is a very charming and eloquent man,'' said Jeffords, who accompanied a group from the university's Center for Women and Democracy. Their visit ends today.

 SEEKING INFLUENCE

 Castro learned the importance of courting average Americans during the fight for shipwreck survivor Elián González, who returned to the island in the summer of 2000.

 While Cuban exiles battled to keep the child with his Miami relatives, many other Americans supported returning him to his father on the island.

 The seven-month battle over the boy, who was rescued at sea off Florida's coast, showed that even if Americans don't agree with Cuba's form of government, they no longer view Cuba through a purely ideological prism.

 While the Bush administration and powerful Cuban exiles support the 40-year-old embargo against the island as a way to pressure Castro, both Democratic and
 Republican lawmakers have fought to ease or even eliminate the sanctions, saying Cuba could become a new market for U.S. products.

 Lawmakers across the political spectrum also have worked to erase U.S. restrictions against travel by most Americans to the Caribbean island.

 The Washington women -- bankers, business owners, government officials and others -- said they support freer travel to Cuba and hope to return next year. For this visit, they traveled under a Treasury Department license granted to the University of Washington.

 The trip was aimed at promoting understanding between U.S. and Cuban women leaders, said Laurie McDonald Jonsson, board chairman of the center that organized the trip and president of Stellar International, a Seattle investment firm.

 ``I first came here a little over a year ago with a vision that American women should have the chance to share with the women of Cuba,'' said Jonsson.

 OBSERVED GAINS

 The Americans said they were impressed by the gains women had made in Cuba, and particularly with individual women they met here.

 ``I've had the chance to meet some amazing women here. Some I will remember for the rest of my life,'' Jeffords said.

 Connie Niva, head of the Washington State Transportation Commission, said she will also remember meeting Castro, who chuckled when she shared a local joke about Cuba's huge buses, known as ``camels'' for their unusual shape.

 The common form of public transport is formed by two connecting trailers and drawn by a tractor.

 They are typically overcrowded, resulting in frequent disputes among passengers and complaints by women about groping men.

 ``How are camels like American movies?'' goes the joke. ``Sex, violence and bad language.''

                                    © 2002