U.S. Raises Flag in Cuba After 54 Years

"Democracy Now!" airs weekdays at 9 a.m. PT on KCET.

The United States and Cuba are taking the next step in restoring diplomatic relations with each other as Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Havana Friday to attend a ceremony marking the reopening of the U.S. Embassy there. This comes after former Cuban President Fidel Castro wrote in a newspaper column that the U.S. owes the island country "millions of dollars" as reparations for its decades-long embargo. "The question is what kind of change this represents," says former Cuban diplomat Carlos Alzugaray Treto. "Is this only a change of tactics to continue trying to overthrow the Cuban government by different means? I call it the Roberta Flack strategy -- 'killing me softly with your song.' On the other hand, maybe what we are seeing is an important change of strategy."

"Democracy Now!" also speaks with Peter Kornbluh, director of the Cuba Documentation Project at the National Security Archive at George Washington University and co-author of "Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana."