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MRS: Knowing the labor of love, the dedication, of all the people in the Cuban cigar and tobacco industry, do you ever wish that all cigar aficionados of the world could enjoy a Cuban cigar. What are your thoughts on the embargo and the future availability of Cuban cigars?

RA: I hope that, not too far in the future, pretty soon, Americans will be allowed to smoke, for authorized prices, not violating any rules, the real thing. If you are going to smoke, please smoke the real thing, the best. It's the same as drinking. You may council people not to drink too much, but if they are going to drink Champagne, have the French one. Don't invent some Russian or Bulgarian one. Have the French one, the real Champagne. If you are going to smoke cigars, not withstanding what some people believe about the health and so on, have the real thing, the good cigar. I think that will come, and I hope it will come soon.

MRS: When I visit Cuba, I make it my business to talk to the average person on the street. And wherever I go, the Cuban people seem to have a love affair with the American people. How is this so, that they are being penalized by our government, and yet the Cuban people still feel a warmth and a friendship with the American people?

RA: From the origin of our nation, Cubans have been a very open people. We're an island nation, an island that has always been in the middle of Europe and America--in the middle of North America and South America, at the entrance of the Caribbean. Look at our national seal. It's a key that opens the road to the Gulf, to North America, to South America. Cubans are by nature a very open, very hospitable people. And we have a special relationship with your people, with the North Americans. We share many things in common, from baseball, to jazz music, to beaches, the love of nature. The people-to-people connection has been very strong for many years. North Americans have come down to enjoy life at the beach, or to spend their honeymoons, and Cubans like that.

Americans are also, from a Cuban perspective, a casual people, not too formal. Americans historically have been perceived by Cubans as foreigners who speak a foreign language, but not as foreign as Europeans, for example, [who are perceived as] a more formally attired people, more regimented. In the final analysis, notwithstanding the linguistic difference, we are very much alike. It's funny. For almost 40 years of official confrontation--troubles from the embargo and all that--it has never affected, and will never affect, the sense of friendship and the affection for Americans. You will never find, anywhere in Cuba, a negative reaction from the fact that you are North American. You would probably be asked about the last game of the Yankees or the Mets or whatever, or about the performance of an artist. Because the people are interested in spite of the embargo.

MRS: You mentioned baseball. Do you have any thoughts on El Duque [pitcher Orlando Hernandez] and his coming to America and being a star for the New York Yankees?

RA: Well, I think he's an excellent player. He's not the best one, he's not the only one, we have others. [laughs] I am proud of him because he learned to play here. He was provided with every opportunity and every possibility to train and evolve and develop as an excellent pitcher. And he's one of many excellent players that we have. The only sad thing is that, having this abnormal relationship between the two countries, a person has to choose between being there or being here. The normal thing should be to move from here to there, as it was before, and to have El Duque playing with his old team from Havana and not being forced to move to another country to play with another team. That's an unfortunate intrusion of the political abnormalities into something that should be a very normal human thing.

MRS: I just want to say that I'm very grateful for this interview, that no one questions that the day will come when the embargo will be over. It could be sooner or later. I hope you hope it is soon.

RA: Sooner rather than later. The sooner the better.

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