What does 'make provision' mean in politics?

Question

I was reading Endgame by Frank Brady (Page157) on Bobby Fischer and came across the following paragraph,

The Bureau obviously had trouble believing that someone would travel so much simply for the purpose of playing chess, especially to countries that were restricted for political reasons. A notice in Bobby's FBI file states that his passport was 'not valid for travel to Albania, Cuba, and those portions of China, Korea and Vietnam under communist control', and it contains a 1965 memorandum from the Office of the Coordinator of Cuban Affairs which advises that 'Cuban travel criteria make no provision for validation for the purpose of participating in chess competitions'.

According to the WorldReference dictionary, the closest matching definition I can find is 'a clause in a legal instrument, a law, etc., providing for a particular matter; stipulation; proviso'. Is it what it means in this text? I'm not sure.

Answer 1

Yes, the entry that you cite from the WorldReference dictionary is the entry relevant to the word “provision” in this text. I believe that as lawyers usually use the expression a rule “provides for” an event if the rule tells what should happen in that event (regardless of what it is that should happen); it’s when the rule fails to tell what should happen in some event that we say that the rule fails to “provide for” that event.

But in the paragraph you quote, the author refers to “making provision for validation” for certain purposes. It sounds like your author meant that if the rule AUTHORIZES validation in Case A, FORBIDS validation in Case B, and MAKES NO REFERENCE to Case C, then the rule makes provision for validation in Case A but in neither Case B nor Case C.

The Americans had created a list of reasons to permit travel to Cuba. It made provision for validation for some purposes but not for other purposes.

Suppose that visiting a sick mother was among the reasons listed. If a man then applied to travel to Cuba to visit his sick mother, the travel should have been approved; one could say that the Cuban travel criteria make provision for validation for the purpose of visiting a sick mother.

On the other hand, participation in a chess competition was not among the reasons listed. If a man applied to travel to Cuba to participate in a chess competition, the travel might have been denied; the Cuban travel criteria make no provision for validation for that purpose.