RODRIGO LAZO Herald Staff Writer

Francisco Prio Socarras, a senator in pre-Batista Cuba and brother of the island's last elected president, died Sunday in Miami at the age of 86.
Mr. Prio died of cancer at Mercy Hospital shortly before midnight. He was the brother of the late Carlos Prio Socarras, who was Cuba's last president before the rise of the Batista and Castro regimes.

From 1944 to 1952, Mr. Prio was a senator representing Cuba's Pinar del Rio province. His brother was president from 1948 to 1952.

The Prio Socarras government was overthrown by Fulgenico Batista in a bloodless coup on March 10, 1952. Francisco Prio and his family moved to Miami.

From here, Mr. Prio participated in unsuccessful efforts to overthrow Batista.

"During the first exile in Miami, his life was dedicated to fighting Batista," said Maria Elena Prio, a Miami lawyer who is Mr. Prio's niece.

Francisco Prio returned to Cuba when Fidel Castro overthrew Batista in 1959. But discontent with the Castro government drove Mr. Prio back to Miami in late 1960, never to return to Cuba. A lawyer by profession, Mr. Prio retired upon his second exile in Miami and devoted himself to his family.

"He was always interested in the children," said Maria Elena Prio. When she was a girl, Mr. Prio would take her and friends to Cypress Park and other spots.

"I remember we used to go out with him, with my cousins," she said. "He would take us out to eat and we would be really bad. He would tell us he was never taking us out again, but the next day he would come back to take us out."

The oldest of four children, Mr. Prio was known to his family as "Paco."

Maria Elena Prio remembered her uncle as a man who loved life intensely.

"When people get older, generally they lose interest and enthusiasm for life," she said. "He never lost that enthusiasm. He still had it until the last moment."

Until his last days, Mr. Prio took part in festive family lunches at his home in the Roads neighborhood. Among the many relatives who normally lunched with Mr. Prio was his niece, Marian Prio, wife of Miami City Manager Cesar Odio. The family lunch tradition goes back to Cuba, where the Prio brothers and their families lived several blocks apart.

Mr. Prio is survived by a son, Fernando Prio Hernandez; brother, Antonio Prio Socarras; sister, Regla Prio Henriquez; and four nieces, Marian Prio Odio, Maria Elena Prio, Ileana Prio Garcia, Zoe Prio Rivero and Rocio Prio. All of Mr. Prio's surviving relatives live in Miami, except for Zoe Prio, who lives in Texas.

Services will be at 9 a.m. today at St. Raymond Catholic Church. Interment will follow at Woodlawn North Memorial Park. Arrangements are handled by Caballero Coral Gables Funeral Home.