Sen. Patrick Leahy was present when American contractor Alan Gross was released from a prison in Cuba Wednesday after being held there for five years. The release came as President Obama announced plans to normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba.
Leahy has been working for Gross’s release for some time, and he was in Cuba Wendesday morning, along with Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and and Gross’s wife, Judy, when Gross was finally released from Cuban custody.
Leahy, speaking by phone from Washington, D.C., Wednesday, called the scene in Cuba "emotional."
“Congressman Van Hollen and Senator Flake and I have visited him there at different times, but every time we visited him he was in a prison cell. This time, we walked into a room; he was sitting there, he was able to greet his wife, and to greet us," Leahy said.
"It was almost as though he [Gross] grew younger as we flew out. He cheered when we crossed into U.S. airspace." - Sen. Patrick Leahy
During his time in Prison, Gross' health had deteriorated and he had lost about 100 pounds.
"I worried about him, because every time I saw him the wear was showing on him," Leahy said. "It was almost as though he grew younger as we flew out. He cheered when we crossed into U.S. airspace, and I said, ‘Alan, you’re free.’ And he threw his arms around me, just hugged me, and said, ‘Patrick, I’ve finally realized that this is wonderful.’"
Along with celebrations of Gross' release has come criticism, including from house speaker John Boehner, who called it “another in a long line of mindless concessions to a dictatorship that brutalizes its people.”
But Leahy says now that the U.S. is softening its stance toward Cuba we have "a lot of leverage" to push for social changes there.
"The more we engage with them, the more we have our businesses engage with them, our academics, and just the average American, that by itself gives us leverage," Leahy said. "I once told Fidel Castro, the best thing he had going for him was the U.S. embargo, because he could blame all their barriers and economic or political failures ... on the United States."
It will take an act of Congress to undo the decades-old trade embargo against Cuba that President Obama has called for. With Republicans taking control of both chambers of Congress next month, the task will be a political challenge, but Leahy says he hopes it's possible.
"One of the most respected Republican senators was with me going down there, and I had invited him on other occasions. Jeff Flake of Arizona ... feels, just as a number of Republican senators I’ve talked with from the farm belt, that it’s time that we started being realistic," Leahy said. "We went through the same thing in Vietnam. We fought a long war in Vietnam, and you had Republicans like John McCain joining Democrats like John Kerry, who said, ‘We ought to improve relations.’ Now Vietnam is a major trading partner."
