CIA Director Visited Cuba

The Cuban government announced that the CIA director traveled to Cuba on Thursday. He is the highest-ranking official in the current administration to visit the country and the first since the administration began intensifying its pressure campaign against the Communist government. The Cuban government said the CIA director had met with the country’s interior minister.

The meeting was held to address the current situation between the two countries, according to Cuba’s state-controlled newspaper. Cuban officials said they used the meeting to state that their country does not constitute a threat to U.S. national security.

The administration has not explicitly stated what political or economic changes it seeks in Cuba. The broad goal appears to be ending the Communist Party’s lock on political control. The administration has cut off foreign oil shipments to Cuba, whose economy has been thrown into crisis.

The United States has also increased military and intelligence reconnaissance flights around the island. These flights are part of what is expected to be a larger American military buildup. Administration officials have held private talks with Cuban leaders in the hope that economic desperation will force concessions the Cuban government has long resisted.

In late April a delegation of State Department officials visited Havana to press Cuban leaders on a potential diplomatic deal. One official has spoken directly to a grandson of the former leader Raúl Castro. In public remarks that official has suggested the United States might settle for broad economic reforms to Cuba’s socialist system rather than dramatic changes to its political structure.

In a Wednesday interview the official said he hoped he was wrong and that they would give them a chance.