Almost every other enterprising tourist since Columbus' time has had a similar reaction. Slavers, sugar plantation owners, fruit company executives, petroleum and precious metals prospectors, politicians – all have desired a piece of the so-called Pearl of the Antilles. Even Thomas Jefferson declared, "We must have Cuba." But Spain had it; and it wasn't until the battleship Maine exploded in Havana Harbor that the United States had a pretext to intercede against Spain's brutal repression of a popular Cuban revolt. The United States governed for four years and left the country in the hands of a friendly president. But as José Marti, the leader of the revolt, had predicted, "Rascals will struggle to infest politics." Cuba for the next fifty years remained an unstable platform for a series of corrupt dictators.

Cuban civil liberties deteriorated to the point at which popular uprisings and revolts routinely marred the peace. It's estimated that over 20,000 Cubans were tortured and murdered during the regime of Fulgencio Batista. Then in 1956 a group of disgruntled political exiles led by Fidel Castro paid $15,000 for a leaky old yacht named Granma, motored from Mexico to Cuba, landed, and joined the other dissident groups opposing the Batista regime. The United States looked on benevolently while both Batista and the Meyer Lansky mob (who'd been running Batista's casinos on a profit-sharing basis) decamped, and the revolutionaries assumed power.

Soon – horror of horrors! – it appeared that the idealistic young revolutionaries were Marxists. They closed the casinos, took over the educational system, and began nationalizing private industries, offering compensation that their previous owners deemed insufficient.

It's difficult today to appreciate what hysteria the prospect of aggressive Communism used to provoke among us. In March 1960 President Eisenhower took the first steps in a procession that eventually would lead to our current total unilateral embargo of Cuba. He forbade the purchase of Cuban sugar and ended deliveries of United States petroleum. He formalized an arms embargo and aided the organization of a counterrevolutionary force of Cuban exiles.

Even allowing for the wisdom of hindsight, it's hard not to wonder why the good general never foresaw the results of his righteous pique. The Soviet Union picked up the slack and provided, at far less cost, all that we had withdrawn. Thousands of Russian advisers and managers took up residence in Cuba. It's almost amusing, traveling through Cuba today, to note how many Cubans now in their fifties are named Natasha, Vladimir, Boris, and Tanya.

The outcome of the Cuban missile crisis took the bloom off the Soviet expansionist rose. Cuba became less an opportunity than a responsibility for the Russians. In March 1962 President Kennedy tightened the screws of the embargo, forbidding the importation of all goods from Cuba. (Pierre Salinger, Kennedy's press secretary, reported that just before signing the bill banning everything Cuban, Kennedy sent Salinger out to procure 1200 of the best Cuban cigars.) Later he prohibited travel to Cuba. Our government has been imposing more stringent sanctions ever since.

Will Rogers once cracked that if you found yourself in a hole, you should stop digging. With regard to Cuba, the United States has not yet figured that out. The only break in the embargo occurred during the Carter years, when the travel ban was lifted. But the Reagan Administration proved the most hostile ever, banning travel, educational exchanges, even travel by musicians.

The irony of the ever-tightening embargo is that it has been counterproductive. With the loss of Soviet subsidies, Cuba invited investment from other countries. During a trip there in 2002, we stayed in a Norwegian-owned hotel, dined in an Italian-owned restaurant with about 40 brightly-togged French cyclists, and photographed the huge billboards facing out to sea along the north coast: workers brandishing machetes and sickles, shouting, "Come on, Yanqui! We're ready!" Groups of friendly school kids sought us out, spoke perfect English, and knew where Vermont and New Hampshire were. We strolled the ancient plazas of a Spanish colonial city now in disrepair, and marveled at the 1950s-era Kaisers, Frasers, Nashes, and Hudsons. I want very much to return, but the government of the Land of the Free says we can't.

With Fidel's retirement, we've seen photos of Comrade Raúl marching with the "Heroes of the Revolution," men who were with him and Fidel on the Granma. They're all old. So are the United States Senators still fighting the Cold War. So are the Cuban exiles in Florida, whose voting bloc can swing the state. Have we got to wait until everybody dies before we get over it, and realize that Newton's Third Law applies as much to politics as to physical objects? We manage to hold our noses and deal with other distasteful and autocratic regimes – China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela – clearly because they have resources we need or are too important to offend.

Repression has never succeeded for long; engagement has almost never failed. Our policy toward Cuba won't change until at least after the coming election. But we can help make it happen.