In the early 1960s, the CIA plotted to poison Fidel Castro’s cigars, to send Mafia hit men after him, and to make his beard fall out by dusting his shoes with a depilatory. These were not good ideas. Now the centerpiece of U.S. policy is the rigid, unilateral economic embargo and travel ban codified by the 1996 Helms-Burton Act. This is not a good idea, either. Nor are the Helms-Burton penalties on foreign companies that invest in properties expropriated by Castro 40 years ago.

At least the CIA targeted the murderous dictator himself. The embargo targets the island’s entire population of 11 million, in an effort to strangle the Castro regime. This made sense when the United States first imposed the embargo in the early 1960s, as Castro was becoming a Soviet ally bent on exporting revolution during the most dangerous phase of the Cold War. But the embargo has proven so counterproductive since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 as to be almost irrational.

By aggravating the dire poverty in which most Cubans live, the embargo enables the 73-year-old Castro to maintain a siege mentality and blame Yankee imperialists for the disastrous state into which his Communist regime has plunged the Cuban economy. No other nation now supports the embargo, which once had the backing of the Organization of American States and others. Virtually every other nation condemns Helms-Burton. These policies bar U.S. businesses from competing for toeholds in a Cuban market that will someday become lucrative. They have manifestly failed to drive Castro from power, to ease his repressive rule, or to lay any groundwork for a peaceful transition to freedom and democracy.

To the contrary, the embargo and Helms-Burton have strengthened Castro in both Cuban and world opinion. Although Castro clamors for an end to it, "I think he loves the embargo," says one high-level former National Security Council official. "It keeps him in power."

Now, thanks to the spotlight on Elian Gonzalez, more Americans are starting to notice the stupidity of our Cuba policies. To be sure, the embargo seems unassailable in this election year, sustained as it is by the passionate support of the potent Cuban-American lobby, which no President, or would-be President, wants to cross. But that lobby’s strength has ebbed. Most Americans disapprove of the tactics of many of the Cuban exiles who have fought to block Elian’s father from taking him back to Cuba. This development may broaden opposition to the embargo. Opposition had already been growing among export-seeking farmers; business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; religious leaders, including Pope John Paul II; human rights groups; foreign policy experts across the political spectrum; and some conservative Republicans, as well as liberal Democrats.

Claims that the policy needs more time to "force [Castro] to face the consequences of his misrule [and] reflect on Cuba’s desperate need for change," which is how the Cuban-American National Foundation puts it, are getting old. It has been four decades since the embargo’s inception, nine years since the end of the billions of dollars in Soviet subsidies that had previously blunted its impact, and five years since Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, R-N.C., said that the then-pending Helms-Burton bill would give Castro "a final push." A growing minority of Cuban-Americans says it’s time to try a different approach, although many won’t say so publicly for fear (one told me) of ostracism, or worse.

This is not to say that the next President will, or even should, try to end the embargo in one fell swoop. That would require getting Congress to repeal Helms-Burton. As a political matter, furious opposition from the Cuban-American lobby and its allies, notably Helms, would probably doom any such effort. As a policy matter, a case can be made for relaxing the embargo by increments, and imposing conditions on private U.S. trade or investment, to maximize pressure on the Cuban regime to ease its stifling economic controls and sometimes brutal repression of dissidents.

And any President who wants to lead the nation toward constructive engagement with Cuba will run into a buzz saw if he ignores political realities, suggests Richard A. Nuccio, who was once special adviser to President Clinton on Cuba. One such reality is Castro’s habit of spitting in the face of the United States at politically sensitive moments, as in early 1996, when he sent Helms-Burton sailing through Congress by cracking down on dissidents and having Cuban fighters shoot down two small civilian planes, killing four Cuban-Americans who had planned to fly over Havana. President Clinton signed the bill into law because it was politically expedient, says then-adviser Nuccio, even though Helms-Burton would abort the Administration’s nascent moves to engage Castro’s regime and Nuccio himself had lobbied against it.

Politics aside, the case for relaxing the embargo does not depend upon whether one sees Castro as a flawed, but well-meaning, champion of the common people, or (as I do) a ruthless Communist dictator who keeps Cubans poor to avoid giving them a taste of freedom.

Let’s stipulate that Castro’s totalitarian regime is every bit as bad as Helms and the most anti-Castro Cuban exiles believe; that it is only sustained by fear and a network of security forces and informants reminiscent of George Orwell’s novel 1984; that most Cubans would secretly love to be rid of Castro; that he seeks foreign trade, investment, and tourists not to meet the needs of the Cuban people or to foster reforms but, as Helms has said, to get "hard currency to keep his faltering Marxist-Leninist economy afloat" and to "pay for the ruthless and cruel apparatus that keeps him in power"; that the regime keeps for itself 95 percent of the payments it demands from foreign companies in lieu of wages for Cuban workers; that, unlike China, communist Cuba is determined to minimize any movement toward a free-market economy; that Castro will always find ways to blame the United States for Cuba’s problems; and that any retreat from the embargo would prompt the tyrant to crow that he had forced the United States to recognize the legitimacy and permanence of his regime.

Let him crow. He would be losing his only excuse for Cuba’s grinding poverty and political repression. If most Cubans are already as disaffected as Helms suggests, then surely they won’t be fooled by more Castro propaganda. Meanwhile, if Castro allows tourism, trade, and investment to bring in a lot of money, the inevitable infusion of people, products, and ideas will feed popular pressure for change and perhaps crack the thinning ice under his regime. Conversely, if Castro is determined to crush any private entrepreneurial activity, then he won’t take in much foreign exchange.

There can be no guarantee that relaxing the embargo will succeed in changing Cuba for the better. But if done with care, such a move can hardly make things worse. (Nuccio does caution that sudden U.S. abolition of the embargo can make things worse in the short run by so gravely threatening the Communist regime’s grip on power as to provoke a new wave of repression, and perhaps a new wave of refugees.)

The harder question is how much to ease the embargo and under what conditions. Even Helms has indicated he would ease up if Cuba’s government would institute such revolutionary changes as allowing free and fair elections. But that’s not going to happen while Castro is in charge. And the constructive steps taken by the Clinton Administration since Helms-Burton, such as slightly easing restrictions on travel to Cuba and allowing Cuban-Americans and others to send more dollars to relatives and friends there, have been tiny.

The best opportunity for a larger step toward engaging Cuba may be presented by a combination of farm-lobby clout and the humanitarian appeal of sending impoverished Cubans food and medicine. Last August, the Senate voted by a surprising 70-28 majority to add to an appropriations bill language sponsored by Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., to end unilateral U.S. embargoes on exports of farm products and pharmaceuticals to Cuba and some other nations. Although the three Cuban-American House members are likely to block any similar Senate-passed measure this year, the next President will have some potent allies if he chooses to exercise the kind of leadership that Clinton has eschewed.

If Richard Nixon could go to China, perhaps George W. Bush-or Al Gore-can find a way to sell food and medicine to Cuba. That would be a good start.