Alan Gross has been in prison for two years.  His case, like that of the Cuban Five, should be resolved compassionately during the coming Christmas / Chanukah / New Year holiday.  

Phil Peters, a former Foreign Service officer has written in an excellent Cuban Triangle blog post

"In effect, the U.S. message is that its agents are free to operate at will on Cuban territory and Cuban authorities have no right to intervene.

Call that what you will, but it is the direct opposite of an effort to free Alan Gross."

Alan's wife has identified the only path to freeing her husband:

Judy Gross also is raising the volume on her criticism of the Obama administration and the apparent unwillingness of anyone on either side of the Florida Straits to sit down and have constructive discussions that would secure her husband's release.

"The State Department has put in a great deal of hours on the case, I'll say that," she said, but she added that the Obama administration "has kept their hands off of it."

"At least publicly," she said. "I've not heard from them once."  …

The Cubans need a graceful way to let her husband go, Judy Gross said, and the politics of U.S.-Cuba relations haven't made that easy.

"There's some very powerful vocal people in the Congress who are not favorable to sitting down and negotiating anything with the Cubans," she said. "If you don't negotiate, you don't get anything."

Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez made clear in a meeting with New York Times editors and reporters how he thought the problem should be addressed:

“I do not see any way in which we can move on towards a solution of the Mr. Gross case but from a humanitarian point of view and on the basis of reciprocity,...

“I believe that establishing a link between pending bilateral issues to a humanitarian solution in the case of Mr. Gross is a mistake,” he said, later adding, “it is not right to merge this with political issues or add it to the bilateral agenda, which is quite hefty already.”

A Cuban diplomat later told me that the Foreign Minister was not in principle rejecting a larger deal, just saying he thought it was harder to accomplish and less likely than mutual humanitarian gestures.

The act of humanitarian reciprocity Rodriguez presumably referred to was freedom for the Cuban Five.  How and when they should be released, and whether Cuba releases others along with Alan, is what negotiations are for. 

Anonymous comments to thecubantriangle  by  Cantaclaro  (collected here) both made a persuasive case about why Cuba is so determined to obtain release of the Five and argued that the Obama administration’s electoral self interest will lead to an agreement. 

Since the Jewish vote is more important to the Obama administration than the Cuban vote, which is predominantly Republican anyway, the Democratic administration will probably want to strike a deal with the Cuban government that will allow Gross and the five Cuban agents to return to their countries before next year's November election.

However, it can not afford to make a one for five deal because this would give credence to the blackmail accusation and cost it votes among the non Jewish and non Cuban electorate.

Thus it is forced to attempt to get some other goodies to even the basic one for five deal to give less weight to the blackmail accusation and allow it to save face with the voters.

What those other goodies will be is what is probably being negotiated under the table at present by both governments.

I hope he or she is correct and the White House does not forsake the coming holidays as an opportunity to end the unnecessary pain of six families.

John McAuliff

Fund for Reconciliation and Development