MEMO
MEMO from the Editor CENSORS AT WORK No current member of The Progressive's staff remembers when or in what circumstances we first received the Cuban communist newspaper Granma. It began arriving...
...We knew we never ordered Granma or paid for it...
...It just came...
...And I insisted we were not applying for a license to receive Granma without official interference: "We are Americans, and we do not apply to the Government for permission to receive reading matter...
...As a rule, we found it less than compelling reading...
...Instead, it informed me that a review was being made of "Treasury's licensing policies in the publications areas...
...It wasn't until late July that we received official confirmation from the U.S...
...Our last issue arrived in May, but we were preparing for an office move then, and in the general confusion it was weeks before any of us observed that Granma had vanished from our mail...
...Earlier this year, not long after Ronald Reagan entered the Oval Office, we wondered in this space whether the White House would renew its subscription to The Progressive...
...I wondered why an eighteen-year-old regulation was suddenly being enforced...
...About a month later, I heard from Dennis M. O'Connell, director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, but his reply addressed none of the questions I had raised...
...And surely the Government would not seize our mail without even letting us know...
...It would soon be expiring, and a number of renewal notices had elicited no response...
...Perhaps that was why we didn't notice, at first, that Granma had stopped coming...
...to determine whether any changes are warranted to take into account the legitimate concerns of persons such as yourself about First Amendment rights while concurrently preserving the effectiveness of the financial embargo against Cuba...
...One might reasonably ask, of course, why it is in the interest of the United States "to prevent Cuba from obtaining financial or other economic benefit...
...On occasion, we found something of interest to us...
...But the newspaper tended, unsurprisingly, to run heavily to jargon, slogans, and sonorous propaganda...
...The letter invited us to address any questions we had to Susan M. Swinehart, chief of licensing, and on August 3 I availed myself of that opportunity...
...The Center for Constitutional Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, the National Conference of Black Lawyers, and the National Lawyers Guild are among organizations planning a constitutional challenge in behalf of recipients (or former recipients) of Cuban publications, and we have signed on as one of many co-plaintiffs...
...Customs Service, a branch of the Treasury Department, had begun to enforce a set of Cuban Assets Control Regulations originally imposed in 1963...
...As time permitted, an editor here would take at least a hurried look through the pages of Granma...
...It began arriving regularly many years ago—one of the dozens of publications that come in the mail...
...Even if one were to accept that destructive doctrine, it would be difficult to see the "economic" rationale for blocking a free subscription...
...The letter stated that the Office of Foreign Assets Control, another branch of the Treasury Department, "has structured the regulations so as to avoid any element of censorship in the administration of what are essentially economic controls...
...The purpose of the regulations is "to prevent Cuba from obtaining financial or other economic benefit from transactions with persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States...
...We could understand and sympathize: Our own roster of "comp" subs has a way of getting out of hand...
...O'Connell said he would let me know how the review came out...
...Then we began to see news reports about an embargo imposed by the Government of the United States on publications entering this country from Cuba...
...For those of you whose nights have been sleepless ever since, the long wait is over and the news is good: Purchase Order No...
...We think we could get along without Granma, but we know we can't get along without our right to receive it free of government interference—or government permission...
...We'll be waiting with interest, but in the meantime we'll be going to court...
...I asked why our copies of Granma were being withheld if the intent was to "avoid any element of censorship...
...The Government's determination to "avoid any element of censorship," it turned out, translated into a suggestion that The Progressive apply for a "specific license" to receive Granma...
...Even then, it seemed likely that someone in Havana had merely decided to tighten up on the paper's complimentary mailing list...
...It seemed that the U.S...
...In an undated form letter addressed to "Dear Sir or Madam," the magazine was advised of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations (and provided with a copy of them...
...It wasn't accompanied by payment, but we have sent a bill, and we hope the President's check is in the mail...
...Customs Service that it was interfering with The Progressive'?, mail...
...We might qualify for a license as a "news gathering agency" or on grounds that we were receiving the Cuban publication as a "bona fide gift with no direct or indirect financial or commercial benefit accruing to Cuba or its nationals...
...LD1B11 from the Executive Office of the President arrived in mid-September, and it called for a thirteenth-month renewal...
...Wasn't this the Administration that was going to get government off people's backs...
Vol. 45 • November 1981 • No. 11
