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Nxxx,2014-12-18,A,001,Bs-BK,E2_+
Late Edition
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VOL. CLXIV . . . No. 56,719 +
$2.50
NEW YORK, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2014
© 2014 The New York Times
U.S. WILL RESTORE FULL RELATIONS WITH CUBA,
ERASING A LAST TRACE OF COLD WAR HOSTILITY
Fidel Castro
in a tank
during the
1961 invasion.
Refugees in the boatlift.
Mr. Castro in 1996.
Alan Gross
after his
release.
American Is Freed —
Surprise Deal Ends
Long Stalemate
By PETER BAKER
1960
1961
1962
1980
1982
1996
1998
2009
2014
U.S. imposes
an embargo
on Cuba.
U.S.-backed
Cuban exiles
launch a failed
military invasion
of Cuba at the
Bay of Pigs.
U.S. confronts
the Soviet
Union over
nuclear missiles
in Cuba.
About
125,000
Cubans flee to
Florida in the
Mariel boatlift.
Congress
designates
Cuba a state
sponsor of
terrorism.
Economic
sanctions are
stiffened after
Cuba shoots
down two U.S.
planes.
The Clinton
administration
charges five
Cuban agents
with acting
against the U.S.
President Obama loosens
restrictions on travel and
remittances. Cuba detains
Alan Gross, an American
contractor accused of
crimes against the state.
U.S. and Cuba
release prisoners
from both sides
and announce
they will restore
full relations.
THE NEW YORK TIMES; PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE CANADIAN PRESS (FIDEL CASTRO IN 1961 AND 1996), UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL (REFUGEES), REUTERS (ALAN GROSS)
As Havana Celebrates Historic Shift, Journey in a World of Popes and Spies
Economic and Political Hopes Rise Overcame Years of Diplomatic Discord
This article is by Damien Cave, Randal
C. Archibold and Victoria Burnett.
HAVANA — They crowded around
old, battered televisions in Havana and
erupted in tears and applause at a spectacle they could scarcely imagine, let
alone believe: President Raúl Castro, followed by President Obama, heralding a
new era of relations between Cuba and
the United States.
But for Armando Gutiérrez, who operates a small inn in Havana, what it really
comes down to is beds. He needs better
ones, and the usual scramble to find
them and other supplies often comes up
empty.
Now, Mr. Gutiérrez hopes the salvation of his business is at hand.
“It will be step by step for sure, but we
are super happy, all of us without words
really to express this history,” Mr.
Gutiérrez said by phone — a phone he
plans to replace with a better one if the
United States makes good on its pledge
to send more telecommunications equipment.
As politically charged as Mr. Obama’s
new stance may be in the United States,
the sweeping changes he outlined on
Wednesday will have a much more profound impact on Cuba — where isolation
by the United States has fundamentally
shaped the island’s economy, its politics
and even its sense of national identity.
For decades, the American embargo of
Cuba has been the political sword and
shield of the Castros, held responsible
for stifling their nation’s development,
depriving their people of the most basic
needs, and justifying their tight control
over all aspects of society.
Now their powerful rival is promising
significant expansions in travel, exports
Continued on Page A16
By MARK LANDLER and MICHAEL R. GORDON
WASHINGTON — The deal that freed
an American jailed in Cuba and ended 53
years of diplomatic estrangement between the United States and Cuba was
blessed at the highest levels of the Holy
See but cut in the shadowy netherworld
of espionage.
A personal appeal from Pope Francis,
American officials said, was critical in
persuading Cuba’s president, Raúl Castro, to agree to a prisoner swap and the
freeing of the American aid worker Alan
P. Gross. The pope, officials said, acted
as a “guarantor” that both sides would
live up to the terms of a deal reached in
secret.
The most tangible breakthrough, however, came almost a year into the talks,
when the United States, at loggerheads
with Cuba, proposed to swap three Cuban agents jailed in the United States for
a Cuban working for American intelligence who had been held in a jail in Cuba
for nearly 20 years.
By introducing another figure to the
talks — the kind of horse-trading that
was standard in Cold War spy swaps —
the White House was able to sidestep the
appearance that it was trading Cuban
spies directly for Mr. Gross. Cuba had
sought a straight swap but the United
States resisted, saying Mr. Gross had
been wrongfully imprisoned.
All told, the negotiations to free Mr.
Gross and reopen ties with Cuba took a
year and a half. In nine meetings, held in
Canada and the Vatican, a tiny circle of
aides to Mr. Castro and President Obama hashed out the gritty details as well
as grand questions of history.
Looming over their efforts was a
Continued on Page A15
WASHINGTON — President Obama
on Wednesday ordered the restoration of
full diplomatic relations with Cuba and
the opening of an embassy in Havana for
the first time in more than a half-century
as he vowed to “cut loose the shackles of
the past” and sweep aside one of the last
vestiges of the Cold War.
The surprise announcement came at
the end of 18 months of secret talks that
produced a prisoner swap negotiated
with the help of Pope Francis and concluded by a telephone call between Mr.
Obama and President Raúl Castro. The
historic deal broke an enduring stalemate between two countries divided by
just 90 miles of water but oceans of mistrust and hostility dating from the days
of Theodore Roosevelt’s charge up San
Juan Hill and the nuclear brinkmanship
of the Cuban missile crisis.
“We will end an outdated approach
that for decades has failed to advance
our interests, and instead we will begin
to normalize relations between our two
countries,” Mr. Obama said in a nationally televised statement from the
White House. The deal, he added, will
“begin a new chapter among the nations
of the Americas” and move beyond a
“rigid policy that is rooted in events that
took place before most of us were born.”
In doing so, Mr. Obama ventured into
diplomatic territory where the last 10
presidents refused to go, and Republicans, along with a senior Democrat,
quickly characterized the rapprochement with the Castro family as appeasement of the hemisphere’s leading dictatorship. Republican lawmakers who will
take control of the Senate as well as the
House next month made clear they
would resist lifting the 54-year-old trade
embargo.
“This entire policy shift announced today is based on an illusion, on a lie, the
lie and the illusion that more commerce
Continued on Page A18
OBAMA IN ACTION The president is un-
leashed from his past hesitancy. PAGE A18
FIGHT FOR FLORIDA Reshaped political
terrain in a battleground state. PAGE A15
BASEBALL ON ALERT The majors could
get more of Cuba’s top players. PAGE B13
Cuomo Bans Fracking, Saying U.S. Is Said to Find North Korea Behind Cyberattack on Sony
details of how it determined
Risks Trump Economic Potential
North Korea’s culpability, includBy DAVID E. SANGER
and NICOLE PERLROTH
By THOMAS KAPLAN
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration
announced
on
Wednesday that it would ban hydraulic fracturing in New York
State because of concerns over
health risks, ending years of debate over a method of extracting
natural gas.
Fracking, as it is known, was
heavily promoted as a source of
economic revival for depressed
communities along New York’s
border with Pennsylvania, and
Mr. Cuomo had once been poised
to embrace it.
Instead, the move to ban fracking left him acknowledging that,
despite the intense focus he has
given to solving deep economic
troubles afflicting large areas upstate, the riddle remained largely
unsolved. “I’ve never had anyone
say to me, ‘I believe fracking is
great,’” he said. “Not a single person in those communities. What I
get is, ‘I have no alternative but
fracking.’”
In a double blow to areas that
had anticipated a resurgence led
by fracking, a state panel on
Wednesday backed plans for
three new Las Vegas-style casinos, but none along the Pennsylvania border in the Southern
Tier region. The panel, whose advice Mr. Cuomo said would quite
likely be heeded, backed casino
proposals in the Catskills, near
Albany and between Syracuse
and Rochester. [Page A31.]
For Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat,
Continued on Page A34
WASHINGTON — American
officials have concluded that
North Korea was “centrally involved” in the hacking of Sony
Pictures computers, even as the
studio canceled the release of a
far-fetched comedy about the assassination of the North’s leader
that is believed to have led to the
cyberattack.
Senior administration officials,
who would not speak on the
record about the intelligence
findings, said the White House
was debating whether to publicly
accuse North Korea of what
amounts to a cyberterrorism attack. Sony capitulated after the
hackers threatened additional attacks, perhaps on theaters themselves, if the movie, “The Interview,” was released.
NATIONAL A4, 25-28
Fed Promises to Be Patient
Hope for Stroke Patients
$57 Million to Whistle-Blower
Trauma After Pakistan Killings
Pakistan was paralyzed by the horror of
a school attack in Peshawar, as reports
detailed the Taliban’s methodical apPAGE A6
proach to slaughter.
NEW YORK A31-35
Hushing the City’s Cacophony
New York officials are considering regulations that would encourage the use of
quieter jackhammers.
PAGE A31
SPORTSTHURSDAY B13-18
Hockey Comeback in Michigan
In an area with deep hockey ties, Michigan Tech’s team is resurgent. PAGE B13
Officials said it was not clear
how the White House would respond. Some within the Obama
administration argue that the
government of Kim Jong-un must
BUSINESS DAY B1-12
The Federal Reserve’s chairwoman,
Janet L. Yellen, said the central bank
still expected to cut interest rates next
year, but she said policy makers would
PAGE B1
wait for just the right time.
INTERNATIONAL A6-24
DAVID GOLDMAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
A RETREAT Sony canceled release of “The Interview.” Page B1.
An ex-Countrywide Financial executive
helped prosecutors get a record settlement out of Bank of America. PAGE B4
ARTS C1-8
Slum Life in India, Onstage
A London stage adaptation of the book
“Behind the Beautiful Forevers” explores the desperate lives of the Indian
underclasses. A review by Charles IshPAGE C1
erwood.
Researchers have
found that using a
stent, left, to snare
and remove a blood
clot greatly improves
the prognosis for people with the most severe and disabling
PAGE A4
strokes.
14 Are Charged
In Drug Deaths
Among them were
two executives of a
pharmacy company
who face murder
charges after tainted
medication killed 64
PAGE A25
people.
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A38-39
OBITUARIES A37
Last of the ‘Murrow Boys’ Dies
Richard C. Hottelet covered D-Day and
the Battle of the Bulge and became the
last of a team of radio journalists led by
Edward R. Murrow. He was 97. PAGE A37
Nicholas Kristof
PAGE A39
U(D54G1D)y+,!=!&!=!&
be confronted directly. But that
raises questions of what actions
the administration could credibly
threaten, or how much evidence
to make public without revealing
ing the possible penetration of
the North’s computer networks.
Other administration officials
said a direct confrontation with
the North would provide North
Korea with the kind of dispute it
covets. Japan, where Sony is an
iconic corporate name, has argued that a public accusation
could interfere with delicate diplomatic negotiations for the return of Japanese citizens kidnapped years ago.
The government is “considering a range of options in weighing
a potential response,” said Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman
for the National Security Council.
The administration’s sudden
urgency came after a new threat
was delivered this week to desktop computers at Sony’s offices,
warning that if “The Interview”
Continued on Page A10