BY JUAN O. TAMAYO

 The U.S. State Department on Saturday ordered the expulsion of a Cuban
 diplomat in Washington identified as one of two intelligence agents who met with
 alleged spy Mariano Faget in Miami last year.

 State Department officials would not reveal the man's name but described him as
 a midlevel diplomat assigned to the Cuban Interests Section in Washington since
 1998.

 He was given seven days to leave the United States based on an FBI complaint
 that he was engaged in activities ``incompatible with his diplomatic status,
 department spokesman James Foley said.

 Foley declined to specify the charge, but other department officials confirmed that
 the FBI had linked the diplomat to Faget, the Cuban-born Immigration and
 Naturalization Service supervisor arrested Thursday in Miami.

 The expulsion order came amid heightened tensions in U.S.-Cuban relations over
 Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old shipwreck survivor whose father is demanding his
 return to Cuba.

 A Cuban Interests Section statement challenged the U.S. spying complaint,
 calling it ``a colossal slander and untrue,'' and added, ``We're sure it's not a
 coincidence that these false accusations are brought up at a critical time for the
 return of little Elian.''

 DEFIANT STATEMENT

 The head of the Cuban Interests Section, Fernando Remirez, said in Santiago de
 Cuba that his government will not willingly bring home the diplomat targeted for
 expulsion. Speaking at a rally calling for Elian Gonzalez's return, Remirez said
 the government would recommend that the official ``remain in United States
 territory to give testimony and demonstrate the total falseness of this accusation.''

 Foley said Felix Wilson, in charge of the Cuban Interests Section in the
 temporary absence of Remirez, was summoned to the State Department on
 Saturday afternoon and informed of the expulsion.

 The Cuban government often retaliates for expulsions of its diplomats in the
 United States by expelling U.S. diplomats working in Havana, knowledgeable
 officials said.

 The Cuban diplomat ordered expelled was believed to have met last Oct. 27 at the
 Miami Airport Hilton on Blue Lagoon Drive with Faget, 54, a 34-year INS veteran
 cleared to handle secret documents.

 Faget was charged with passing secret information on a Cuban spy's defection --
 in fact, an FBI trap -- to an unidentified Cuban-born businessman in New York
 reported by the FBI to have links to Havana intelligence services.

 A second Cuban diplomat who also met with Faget in Miami completed his tour of
 duty in Washington last year and returned to Havana, knowledgeable U.S.
 officials said.

 About 20 to 25 diplomats work at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington --
 so-called because the two countries do not have formal diplomatic relations --
 while 35 to 40 Americans work at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

 It was the first expulsion in recent memory of an alleged Cuban spy in
 Washington, because Cuba has long based most of its U.S.
 intelligence-gathering activities at its U.N. mission in New York City.
 
1996 EXPULSION

 Interests Section spokesman Jose Luis Ponce was expelled in 1996, but that
 was in retaliation for Cuba's refusal to extend the visa of Robin Meyer, a U.S.
 diplomat in Havana who was monitoring human rights abuses.

 The U.S. government expelled at least 12 alleged Cuban spies between 1983 and
 1998 from Havana's U.N. mission, which has about 40 accredited diplomats and
 20 to 30 support personnel. In comparison, Argentina has 20 diplomats at the
 United Nations and Australia has 12.

 The last expulsions of alleged Cuban spies came Dec. 22, 1998, when three
 diplomats at the U.N. mission were booted out because of their links to 10 Cuban
 citizens arrested on spying charges that September in South Florida.

 Five of the 10 have pleaded guilty and turned state's evidence, and the five others
 are scheduled to go on trial in May. Four more were indicted later, but all are
 believed to have returned to Cuba.

 Three other Cuban diplomats at the United Nations were ordered to leave in 1995
 after they scuffled with New York City police and Cuban exiles during a protest
 outside Havana's U.N. mission.

 And a senior Cuban diplomat at the United Nations was expelled in 1992 after a
 Miami TV station videotaped his meeting with a former military chief of the
 anti-Castro exile group Alpha 66, Francisco Avila.

 DOUBLE AGENT

 Avila had been a double agent for Cuba and the FBI, but broke with Havana after
 his Cuban handlers gave him money to finance an exile raid against Cuba that
 was in fact a trap set to capture the raiders.

 The State Department's refusal to identify the Cuban ordered expelled Saturday
 was in line with a recent trend of keeping such actions low-key in hopes of
 avoiding further strains in the long-troubled U.S.-Cuban relations.

 During the 1980s and early 1990s, retired FBI counterintelligence experts have
 said, the bureau had a policy of moving publicly against suspected Cuban spies.