Ileana Ros Lehtinen led the opposition. The record shows that she will go far to preserve Hemingway's legacy -- in Key West. There, she weighed in to defend the descendants of Hemingway's multi-toed cats against the feds, calling for wiggle room in order to preserve "an essential bond to past and revered American culture." In Cuba, though, she would just as soon see similarly revered cultural touchstones like Finca Vigia just rot: "I am 100 percent against U.S. funds being used to refurbish properties in a terrorist country such as Cuba," she said.

Fortunately, she lost that fight -- and she doesn't lose many. She lost this one in no small part because Sen. John McCain thought it was absurd to let politics get in the way of preserving an important link to an American literary legacy. McCain was profoundly influenced by Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (and so was his opponent in 2008). McCain read the book as a boy, and carried the memory of Robert Jordan's struggle against Spanish fascists into a Vietnamese prison. Those memories helped him come through his lengthy imprisonment to lead the process of reconciliation with the country -- still communist -- that imprisoned him. McCain's intercession helped to reverse a US decision denying the foundation's license application to work in Cuba. A license was finally granted in 2005, and the Foundation and Cuba's National Heritage Council signed an agreement -- a few more details here -- this week. As Hemingway wrote: a man is not made for defeat.