US import restrictions, March 1975

An American man, whom in deference to anybody crowding 60 I shall call middle-aged, had been living in Paris for the past ten years and now, for reasons that shouldn't bother us, he was coming back to live out in his native land what the outrageous Bernard Baruch at the age of 80 called 'the afternoon of my life.'

In case you have a picture of this man tottering into the customs shed at Kennedy Airport wearing sandals and carrying a scythe, let me say that he's well-built, his skin and muscles are taut, he has a springy step and the perennial air of a buttoned-down two-piece suit, Ivy League-type. He looks like a retired crack tennis player and he is in fact a retired lawyer and he'd gone to Paris in the first place because most of his business was done with French and German firms and some time in the early 1960s it seemed simpler to maintain these contacts at close quarters rather than at 3,000 miles. 

But now he was coming home. And before he left, he'd been thoughtful enough to remember a couple of his friends here at home and he was bringing them some presents that he knew they'd love. He picked up a box of cigars in London and he brought from Paris, lovingly packaged in airproof (foil) a particular round of veal that the French do better than anybody, which was also a particular favourite of one of his oldest friends. When he lined up at Kennedy for the immigration inspection and took out his passport, he suffered a moment of panic. He hadn't been back for several years and he remembered, a little late in the day, that if you're an American citizen returning to the United States you must show a certificate attesting to the fact that you've been vaccinated not more than three years ago. He riffled through the pages of his dog-eared passport and he saw the familiar yellow forms stapled to the last page. He checked the date and his fears were fulfilled. It was four years old. Now what the immigration men do if they spot you in this dereliction of citizenship is to beckon you into a room with a red cross on the glass panel of the door and stick you with the vaccine there and then. 

Incidentally, I'd had the same lapse of memory a few years ago and when they beckoned me, I went off readily enough with a rather smug twinkle in my eye. I'd spotted this lapse when I was in London and I mentioned it to the airport health people there and they said that they could do it for me at London Airport and moreover do it for free and save me the $5 fee that they charge you if they catch you at an American airport. Just as the London doctor was dabbing my arm with alcohol and was about to give me the needle, he said, 'Have you ever had any particular skin complaint?' I said briskly, 'Why, yes! Urticaria pigmentosa.' He jumped and almost impaled himself on his needle. 'Good God, man!' he said, 'You should never have a smallpox vaccine!' and he promptly refused to do it. Now nobody should switch off at this point for fear of contagion and I don't think we need to go into this affliction just now, I hasten to say that it vanished from me years ago, but it is, I understand, a very rare disease, so much so that researchers find it difficult to get any raw material, strips of affected skin, that is, to research on. 

So you'll see the reason for my twinkle as they carried me off in New York to give me the shot. I let them prepare the needle and then said nonchalantly, 'By the way I was told in London by a world famous skin man (there's no harm in stretching it a little there) that with my disease, anyone giving me a stab of smallpox vaccine might be liable for God knows what catastrophe.' The man asked, 'What disease?' I repeated the magic formula 'urticaria pigmentosa' and he jumped a mile and bundled me out of the immigration area. So I have been saving $5 for several years now. 

Well, back to our springy lawyer. He rather shamefacedly pointed out to the immigration inspector that his vaccination certificate had lapsed and the man said, 'Don't give it a thought! I guess you've been away from these parts for some time. It's no longer required.' And so it isn't. 

The United States, I believe, was for many years the only country that required proof of vaccination but then the United States Health Service did a study of the incidents of smallpox in the country in the past 20 years or so. First of all they found there'd been practically none, even with all the comings and goings of millions of air passengers and, then, they were shocked to discover that more people, a very tiny number but still more people, had died from the vaccination than from smallpox. The Public Health Service therefore very quietly announced with a noticeable absence of rolling drums or a blare of trumpets that they'd forget the age-old vaccination requirement. 

So, our lawyer, vastly relieved – he's an American lawyer but he's also a very law-abiding type – he was on his way, not yet into New York, but on to pick up his bags and have them thrown on the counter for the customs men and a man indicated a suitcase and when it was unlocked, he sorted and kneaded the shirts and books and toilet kit and so on and casually said, 'You have any gifts you're bringing in?' 'Oh sure!' said our lawyer and he proudly unearthed the box of cigars. The inspector looked at them and then looked pityingly at the lawyer. 'These,' he said, 'are Cuban.' 'That's right!' said the lawyer, 'The friend they're for told me that they're hard to get here for some reason or other.' 'The reason,' said the inspector firmly, 'is because they constitute contraband under the Trading with the Enemy Act. Sorry about this!' he said and confiscated them. 

The inspector now scrutinised this honest lawyer with a crafty Dickensian eye. 'You got any seeds, fruits, saplings or meat products?' The lawyer was aghast. 'Oh yes!' he said, delving into a corner of the suitcase and he came up with his proud round of veal. 'Ah ha!' said the Customs man, 'that looks might tasty.' 'Yes, indeed!' said the lawyer, 'It's a cut of French veal that's something special. 'Is that so!' said the Customs man, 'Well I'm afraid whoever tastes it, it's not going to be you.' He gave our friend a doggy, side-long look and I certainly wouldn't want to suggest that any United States immigration inspector (or) customs man would be coarse enough to convey by so much as a glance that he could already smell his Sunday dinner on the hob. Anyway, both presents were swiped. 

You can carry into England the American favourites that you wouldn't be without, in my case, say, a certain brand of little sausages which I once cooked for a visiting Scot but he didn't take to them. 'American sausages,' he complained, 'I mean they're all meat, no brain and skin.' But you cannot bring into America any meat or fruit products at all. 

Our lawyer was all the more miffed by these restrictions and he would have thought sympathetically of the London customs men had it not been that for years and years they'd frustrated him by what he considers the outrageous law about quarantining dogs. My friend is devoted to London but not quite as much as he's devoted to his poodle. He would have liked, in the past ten years, to come over to London when we were there and stay with us, but Britain is, I believe, unique in requiring that dogs entering the country cannot trot around at their masters' heels till they've spent six months in quarantine, an ordeal my friend believes would doom his dog to a lifelong neurosis. 'A fine thing, ' he said, on a bitter occasion, 'the British may believe a dog is a man's best friend but only after six months' imprisonment.' 

Well, in a perfect world, or perhaps a federation of EEC and USA, you could bring veal into America and dogs into England but the day is not yet. 

However, light begins to dawn at the end of the ninety-mile tunnel that separates the United States from the island of Cuba. Since Castro ousted Batista and set up his revolutionary government, since 1962 anyway, the United States has imposed an embargo on all trade with Cuba and, more than that, she has imposed punishing penalties on other countries and shipping lines that dealt with Castro. Well, last week Mr Kissinger gave a broad hint that the day may soon be here when a considerate American can arrive here carrying Cuban cigars for discriminating friends and no longer have them confiscated. Mr Kissinger, as a practising Foreign Secretary of course, doesn't talk quite as frankly as that. He made a public statement saying that the United States is preparing to move in a new direction in her relations with Cuba, provided the Organisation of American States will agree to loosen the bonds of its general trade embargo and provided also that the Cubans are prepared to practise what he called 'mutuality.' This means, I take it, if you show us your cigars, we'll show you our wheat, soy beans, steel, whatever. And what with our trade imbalance and all, it does seem that the United States is about to be ready to forgive and forget the colour of Cuba's politics. 

Three days after Mr Kissinger dropped his hint, three senators came out with the draft of a bill to put an end both to the embargo and the collateral punishment of third parties. The actual bill came from Senator Edward Kennedy and a resolution calling on President Ford to think about it came from another Democrat and from a liberal Republican, Senator Javits of New York. whom many of his conservative Republican colleagues would like to see leave the party and de-camp to the Democrats. 

Well, it begins to appear that a depression is a magic solvent of ideology. We had a grimmer example this week. Ever since President Johnson's Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, got out his dominoes and terrified us into seeing what might happen if the countries of Asia fell one by one to the communists, it has been a dogged principle of American foreign policy to give aid and comfort and billions of dollars to any Asian country that begged for help against the communists. Now President Ford, in turn, is begging the Congress for $220 million to save Cambodia. Ten years ago the money would have been voted in a week, though it wouldn't have been for Cambodia. It was then neutral. And some people say we wouldn't need to save Cambodia now if the United States itself hadn't gone in there to search out the Vietcong using the country as a haven. 

Well, it's a talking point. But it looks very much as if the money won't be voted at all. Not because of any ideological battle in Congress but because of the simple cry that goes up from the unemployed in every hard-hit city in the country: 'A quarter of a billion for Cambodia! How much for us?' 

This transcript was typed from a recording of the original BBC broadcast (© BBC) and not copied from an original script. Because of the risk of mishearing, the BBC cannot vouch for its complete accuracy.

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