1000 Petit Upmanns

“About 1,000 Petit Upmanns.” “And, when do you need them, Mr. President?” “Tomorrow morning.” This was the conversation held between President John F. Kennedy and his press secretary, Pierre Salinger. 1,000 Petit Upmanns is the number of Cuban cigars President Kennedy requested Salinger purchase him the night before he signed the Cuban Embargo into law in February 1962. February 7th, 2012 was the 50th anniversary of the embargo whose goal was to stronghold Cuba into adopting a democratic government. In the 50 years of its enforcement the Cuban government has shown no sign of becoming a democracy and there is no practical reason to think that the embargo will suddenly change the country’s policies after all this time. It made sense back in 1962 to enact the embargo against Cuba, but the Soviet Union has since dissolved and the fear of spreading Communism can no …show more content…
Salinger worked through the problem of obtaining the cigars and certainly did not disappoint the president. President Kennedy had requested about 1,000 Petit Upmanns. Pierre Salinger did President Kennedy one better and ended up purchasing around 1,200 cigars for him. After the successful purchase, President Kennedy proceeded to sign into law the banning of all Cuban products from the US. The consequences of the Cuban Embargo are still felt to this very day on both sides. The United States continues to pretend as if the embargo protects us more than it harms us and the Cuban people, but that is not the case. In this ongoing embargo no side can be said to be better off without the other than they would be by working together. This relic of the Cold War needs to be done away with and along with it the mindset of countries’ non-changing norms. It is time the United States start exporting our commodity of democracy to Cuba instead of us embargoing