Your March 25 editorial "Cuba's Spring" does not make clear what solution your paper supports.

Impose sanctions? That's what the European Union did, but your paper derides them as "token." Tighten sanctions? That's what the Bush administration did, but your paper dismisses those as "cheap toughness" aimed at helping the president with the exile community in Miami. Congress voted to end enforcement of the travel ban, to send more Americans as apostles of their country's values, but your paper opposes that.

Our 40-year-old policy of isolating Cuba, diplomatically and economically, is a study in persistent impotence and failure. We have punished generations of Cubans for whom our penalties have yet to further their freedoms, and likewise harmed generations of Americans, whose liberties to travel, associate and engage in commerce with Cuba have been stifled. We recently tried funding the dissident movement, and we tainted the recipients of our funds and gave Fidel Castro a pretext to imprison them as tools of a foreign power.

What we can do -- and should do -- is take actions that will strengthen the strong bond that exists between our people. We should eliminate restrictions on travel to Cuba. We should remove the limits on the amounts of money Cuban Americans can send to their relations on the island.

We should welcome and not prohibit the import of cutting-edge Cuban medical treatments that would benefit the health and well-being of Americans, such as the Cuban-developed meningitis B vaccine.

Economic relations between U.S. corporations and Cuban entities should be encouraged, not thwarted, because the legal frameworks that govern commercial relationships -- concepts such as transparency and legally enforceable contracts -- form the basis of human rights and restrictions on the trespasses by government in a robust society's civil affairs.

These are principled and practical alternatives based on two simple but irrefutable ideas. The policy of quarantining Castro has done nothing to advance the cause of freedom in Cuba, and a policy of building bridges to the people waiting for the post-Castro transition holds a greater prospect of fostering a democratic Cuba than the wrecking ball of political and economic isolation.

-- Robert E. White
Washington

The writer, a former ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay, is president of the Center for International Policy.