Sen. Arlen Specter has visited Cuba and met with Fidel Castro three times in the past 9 years, and seems quite proud of the record. His second visit was shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attack, where Specter made a big show of presenting Fidel Castro with a FDNY cap. The Stalinist dictator and pioneering terrorist responsible for the Hemisphere's first plane hijackings in 1958, who two months later kidnapped 40 U.S. citizens from Guantanamo to use as human shields, and who twice came a hair from incinerating New York City itself, smilingly donned the New York Fire Dept. cap. Sen. Specter smiled with delight as a throng of camera men snapped pictures of the western hemisphere's godfather of terrorism, and the Philadelphia Senator mugging for the cameras.

But for the prudence of Nikita Khrushchev, the fondest wish of Sen Specter's host that day would have made New York's 9/11 explosions appear like an errant cherry bomb, and overwhelmed the finest efforts of even the heroic FDNY.

"If the missiles had remained we would have used them against the very heart of the U.S., including New York City," admitted Castro's sidekick, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, thinking he was speaking "off the record" to London’s Daily Worker in November 1962.

“It wasn't until January, 1992, in a meeting chaired by Castro in Havana, Cuba,” writes former Sec.of Defense Robert Mc Namara, “that I learned 162 nuclear warheads, including 90 tactical warheads, were on the island at the time of this critical moment of the Missile crisis.” (it took the U.S. Sec. of Defense 30 years to learn something known in Oct. 1962 to every dishwasher and grocery bag clerk in Miami.)

“I couldn't believe what I was hearing,” continues Mc Namara. (So he asked his Cuban host point-blank) “This is totally new to me, I'm not sure I got the translation right...So Mr President (Castro) I have three questions to you. Number one: did you know the nuclear warheads were there? Number two: if you did, would you have recommended to Khrushchev in the face of an U.S. attack that he use them? Number three: if he had used them, what would have happened to Cuba?"

Castro responded: "Number one, I knew they were there. Number two, I did recommend to Khrushchev that they be fired. Number three, of course Cuba would have been totally destroyed." Castro neglected to add that after his “recommendation” failed, he tried to trick Khruzchev into pressing the buttons, and when that failed, he had briefly ordered Cuban military units to wrest the missile sites from the Soviets.

Foiled in October 1962 by Khruzhchev's prudence, the very next month Castro's agents again tried to call the FDNY to action, while employing more conventional means. Five-hundred kilos of TNT were slated to explode in Manhattan's most crowded settings during their most crowded stage. Macy's, Gimbel's, Bloomingdale's and Grand Central Terminal were the targets, and the day after Thanksgiving 1962 was when the 12 detonators would explode.

In the nick of time J. Edgar Hoover's FBI uncovered the plot, arrested the Castroite plotters (Fair Play for Cuba Committee operatives working in cahoots with UN Cuban “diplomats”) and thus nixed the incineration and entombment of thousands of New York holiday shoppers.

“These meetings (with Castro)” boasted Sen. Specter after his last Cuba visit in 2005, “have left me with the conviction that... relations between our two countries can be immediately strengthened in areas such as drug interdiction in the Caribbean and medical research. I proposed to Castro the possibility of U.S.-Cuban cooperation in drug interdiction efforts. Castro said: "We are willing to cooperate"; and as I reported in a floor statement, he suggested a formal relationship with the United States in order to make progress on drug interdiction efforts in the area. In my view, this remains an offer the United States should not only accept but robustly support.”

There's no evidence that Sen. Specter's severe cognitive malfunctions result from over-indulgence in the substances he wants to “interdict” in conjunction with Fidel, any more than was the case with Mc Namara's cognitive malfunctions. But here's a few items Specter “overlooked” and the MSM covers up:

*In 1987 the U.S. attorney in Miami won convictions of 17 drug traffickers who used Cuban air force bases and Cuban MIG escorts for their cocaine shipments into the U.S.

*In July of 2001, Madrid's TV Channel 5 broadcast a show titled "Cuba and Drug Trafficking." Spanish journalists posed as drug dealers and filmed (with hidden cameras) their dealings with drug dealers in Cuba. "As to security?" One Cuba-based dealer snorted. "Forget it. I pay for the security right here in Cuba. I answer only to the Castros.''

* In 1993, the U.S. attorney in Miami drafted an indictment charging Raul Castro as a leader of a 10-year conspiracy sending Colombian cocaine through Cuba to the United States. The
Cuban Defense Ministry was declared a "criminal organization."

In the words of narco-terrorism expert Dr Rachel Ehrenfeld, "The Cubans provided safe haven, fuel, passports, radar escorts (for Colombian cocaine shipments). And for all that, they were paid. They were taking commission from each shipment of drugs that went through Cuba.... in return, the same smuggling boats brought arms to the communist insurgencies that the Cubans were supporting in Latin America.”

"Thanks to Castro" boasted the FARC's late commander " Tiro-Fijo" (sure-shot) in a 2001 interview, "we are now a powerful army, not a hit and run band." The conduit for Castro's aid was (and is), of course, Venezuela.

"The evidence against Castro is already greater than the evidence that led to the drug indictment of Manuel Noriega in 1988," Said one of the federal prosecutors to the Miami Herald in Judy 25, 1996. A total of four grand juries had revealed Castro's involvement in drug traffic.

Much of the evidence came from famous Clinton financial backer Luis "El Gordito" Cabrera. Pictures from the 1995 White House Christmas party, show him smiling with Hillary and backslapping with Vice President Gore. During his arrest for cocaine smuggling exactly two weeks after that party, pictures turned up of "Gordito" Cabrera smiling and backslapping with Fidel Castro.

The affection was warranted. Castro had been facilitating Cabrera's Colombian cocaine shipments through Cuba, for a nice cut. The details turned up during Cabrera's trial. During his trial Cabrera was eager to sing, to divulge all the juicy details of his Castro drug smuggling connection in exchange for a lighter sentence.

Yet nothing came of this evidence and prosecution -- because the Clinton administration was every bit as eager for “engagement” with Cuba as is Obama's. Cabrera's lawyer, Stephen Bronis, ran into a brick wall. "It was pure politics and it stinks," he told the Miami Herald. Bronis even quoted Castro talking to Jorge Cabrera. "Castro said to Jorge, `I know your friends from Cali.(The Colombian Cali Cartel) I've met them. I know they're here in Cuba. I like doing business with them."

Let's listen to Sen Specter again: “Castro suggested a formal relationship with the United States in order to make progress on drug interdiction. In my view, this remains an offer the United States should not only accept but robustly support.”