As the White House touted on Thursday what it called a “truly historic” trip to Cuba by President Obama as a symbolic end to a half-century of Cold War antagonism, critics in New Jersey countered with a nagging question:

What about first bringing back several notorious fugitives who were given political asylum in Cuba years ago, including Joanne Chesimard, who was convicted of murdering a New Jersey state trooper, and Guillermo “Willie” Morales, who is believed to have built a terrorist bomb that killed a Fair Lawn man?

As with so many questions about the new relationship between the United States and Cuba, including concerns about Cuba’s treatment of dissidents and its refusal to hold democratic elections, there was no apparent answer.

Related:  Menendez lashes out at Obama’s planned Cuba trip

The White House was silent on what, if anything, Obama intends to say to Cuban officials about Chesimard, Morales and dozens of other American fugitives when he arrives in Cuba on March 21 for a two-day visit — the first by a U.S. president in 88 years.

In New Jersey, where the Chesimard and Morales cases are still felt deeply, the criticism of Obama was loud, clear and persistent.

Sen. Bob Menendez, the Democrat who has been a vocal critic of Obama’s open-door policy with Cuba, called the president’s visit to Havana “totally unacceptable” and an indication that the White House is not serious about demanding the return of Chesimard, the only woman on the FBI’s most-wanted list of terrorists.

“I don’t think there is the real engagement to try to get Joanne Chesimard back,” Menendez said, singling out the former Black Liberation Army militant who escaped from a New Jersey women’s prison and fled to Cuba in 1978 after being convicted of the murder of Trooper Werner Foerster on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Speaking in Union City, at offices of a Cuban group (Our Note: The Union of Former Cuban Political Prisioners -North Zone, NJ, NY. Please check our site ueppc.com to learn about our mission) that monitors the status of political prisoners in the island nation, Menendez accused Obama of “prioritizing short-term economic interests over long-term and enduring American values.”

The announcement of Obama’s stop in Cuba as part of a longer trip to Argentina was not completely unexpected. Since the White House announced 14 months ago that it was reestablishing diplomatic relations with Cuba and attempting to end the half-century U.S. economic embargo that began when Fidel Castro seized American properties and established a communist dictatorship, many experts predicted that Obama would visit the island in the final year of his presidency.

But experts also felt both nations might begin to reach an accord on some of their most nettlesome disagreements first, including the legal status of Chesimard and other fugitives.

$2M bounty

That Obama will arrive in Havana with Chesimard and Morales living freely there sparked criticism and disappointment.

Chesimard, for whom there is a $2 million bounty, was considered a leader in the Black Liberation Army, which carried out a series of crimes in the 1970s and was linked to the slayings of several police officers before the gunbattle on the turnpike.

Morales, a Puerto Rican nationalist, reportedly built the bomb that blew up the Revolutionary-era Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan in 1975, killing four people, including Frank Connor, a 33-year-old bank executive who lived in Fair Lawn with his wife and two sons.

Reached at her home in Florida where she now lives, Foerster’s widow said she was deeply upset by the news of Obama’s trip.

“I just can’t talk about it,” Rose Foerster said in a brief telephone interview.

Connor’s son, Joseph, who lives in Glen Rock, said it was “disgraceful” for Obama to visit Cuba.

In a text message from the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, where he is observing pretrial proceedings in cases involving alleged al Qaida operatives involved in the 9/11 attacks, Connor called Obama’s trip “an affront to all Americans.”

Morales, who was convicted in New York City of other terrorist bombings on behalf of the Puerto Rican national group Armed Forces of National Liberation, or FALN, escaped from a prison ward at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City in 1979 and made his way to Cuba, where he was granted political asylum by the Castro regime.

While Morales was never charged with the attack on Fraunces Tavern, an iconic Manhattan landmark where George Washington bade farewell to his officers after the American Revolution, police and FBI investigators believed he made the bomb that blew apart the restaurant during lunch on Jan. 24, 1975.

Reached in Cuba last September by The Record at his apartment in Havana, Morales, 65, angrily declined to comment on his asylum or whether he wants to return to the United States.

Contacted through her attorney, Chesimard, 68, who goes by the name Assata Shakur, also declined to comment.

Friends in Havana, including American fugitive Cheri Laverne Dalton, 65, a Black Liberation Army operative who was implicated in the 1981 Brinks robbery slayings in Nanuet, N.Y., and in Chesimard’s prison escape and who also made her way to Cuba, said Chesimard had gone into hiding since the thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations and was deeply fearful of being kidnapped and returned to the United States.

Cuban fugitives in U.S.

Peter Kornbluh, a Cuba expert and director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University in Washington, praised Obama for the trip.

“The president’s trip will accelerate, rather dramatically, the ongoing process of normalizing overall relations,” Kornbluh said. “As part of the normalization process the legal procedures for future extraditions may fall into place.”

Kornbluh added that Cuban authorities also want to extradite several fugitives hiding in the United States, including Luis Posada Carriles, the Cuban dissident and CIA operative who is charged with blowing up a Cuban airliner in 1976, killing 73 people.

“The issue of fugitives is not a one-way street,” Kornbluh said.

But in a letter Thursday to Obama, Christopher Burgos, the president of the union that represents New Jersey state troopers, called on the president to “enforce the rule of law” and demand Chesimard’s return.

In an interview late Thursday, Burgos, whose State Troopers Fraternal Association of N.J. represents some 2,000 officers, called the Chesimard case “an open wound that continues to bleed” for many in law enforcement.

“It cannot be cured with just a Band-Aid,” Burgos said. “We need closure. We need to get her back here.”

At the White House, the deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, briefed journalists for nearly an hour about the merits of Obama’s trip and its impact on future U.S.-Cuba relations. But Rhodes never mentioned Chesimard or the overall fugitive issue even though he was asked about it in one multipart question.

Rhodes instead pointed out that since the United States announced it would try to resume relations with Cuba in December 2014, more political prisoners have been released by Cuban authorities, travel between the United States and Cuba has begun to open up and American companies have begun opening businesses there, including a tractor factory.

Visit defended

Rhodes did not comment on Menendez’s remarks, but he singled out similar criticism of Obama by two GOP presidential candidates, Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, who say the United States should hold back on diplomatic relations and continue the economic embargo until the Castro regime embraces democratic reforms.

“The long-standing approach that those senators have supported has failed to produce any results,” Rhodes said.

“The Cuban government is still in place. It’s not as if, you know, one more year of the embargo is going to bring transformational change.”

Although the White House has pushed for full diplomatic relations with Cuba, Congress has still left in place a half-century economic embargo on Cuba.

Ron Kuby, the New York-based civil rights attorney and talk-radio personality who represents Morales, praised Obama’s visit. (Our note: An extreme left leaning attorney who has frequently visited Cuba and has supported that regime for many years)

“The wall that America put up in the Kennedy administration is crumbling,” Kuby said. “This is another piece of that wall [falling].”

But citing polls that show a majority of Americans favor improved relations with Cuba, Kuby does not see the fugitive issue being resolved anytime soon – and certainly not being used as a blockage to improved ties between the United States and Cuba.

“This is not an issue,” he said, “that seems to be capturing the attention of the American electorate.”

Staff Writers Herb Jackson and Kim Lueddeke contributed to this article.