lmost half a century ago, at the height of the Cold War, President Eisenhower declared the United States insulted by the disputatious attitude of Fidel Castro's Cuba, and ordered a limited embargo of the island nation. Eisenhower's advisers assured him that the pain of the measure would soon bring Castro to his political knees. Over the years since then – during which the Cold War spectacularly ended – an abortive invasion by United States-armed fighters has failed; the embargo has been successively tightened; the Cuban exiles in Florida who could once deliver that state's votes to a friendly presidential candidate are dying off; citizens of the Land of the Free are not free to travel to Cuba; and El Caballo has become a feeble and ill, but defiant, old man. Still, we persist in our embargo.