BY ALFONSO CHARDY

                      Jimmy Carter said Friday that he will travel to Cuba sometime this year -- a trip that
                      would make him the highest-ranking former U.S. official to have visited the island
                      since Fidel Castro seized power in 1959.

                      ''We are making plans now and, as we have said, we have been invited to go to Cuba
                      and we intend to go,'' Carter said during an interview with CNN. ``But I'm not
                      prepared at this point to give our goals and the names of people that will go or when
                      we will go because we haven't really made those plans yet.''

                      The trip could have significant impact on U.S. policy at a time when the Bush
                      administration is under increasing pressure to shift strategies and open up to the
                      Castro regime. While many members of Congress have visited the islands, Carter would be the first former
                      president to travel there since the Cuban revolution.

                      Carter told CNN that the Bush administration may not like the fact that he's going but likely won't stand in the
                      way. ''I expect to get their tacit approval, not their blessing,'' he said. ``We can't go, obviously, without the
                      permission of the government. My understanding is that they will give that approval.''

                      REACTION

                      Cuban Americans reacted swiftly to Carter's announcement.

                      Joe Garcia, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, said his organization welcomes the trip
                      -- if Carter intends to tell Castro to leave power.

                      Garcia said, however, that if Carter intends to promote better relations with Castro, the influential exile
                      organization would oppose the trip.

                      ''If he is going the way he went to Haiti [in 1994] to tell [Haitian military leader] Gen. Raoul Cedras to leave, then
                      we welcome his trip to Cuba if he is going to tell Fidel Castro to leave,'' Garcia said. ``However, if he's going to
                      give legitimacy to a 43-year-old dictatorship, then I think it would be unfortunate.''

                      While Carter declined to outline his objectives in Cuba, he indicated to CNN's Judy Woodruff that his intention was
                      to improve relations between Cuba and the United States -- not to deliver an ultimatum to Castro.

                      Carter indicated support for easing the embargo and allowing U.S. citizens to travel freely to the island, though he
                      spoke strongly in favor of democracy on the island.

                      VISION FOR ISLAND

                      ''As you probably would remember, when I was president, I departed from my predecessors and unfortunately
                      my successors, in lifting all travel restraints on American citizens to go to Cuba almost immediately when I was
                      president within a few weeks,'' Carter said.

                      ``And I also established interests sections, which is one step short of full diplomatic relationships between Havana
                      and Washington. And those interest sections with staffs representing our countries have never been closed.

                      ``So I think the best way to bring about democratic changes in Cuba is obviously to have maximum commerce
                      and trade and visitation by Americans and others who know freedom and to let the Cuban people know the
                      advantages of freedom. That's the best way to bring about change and not to punish the Cuban people
                      themselves by imposing an embargo on them, which makes Castro seem to be a hero because he is defending his
                      own people against the abuse of Americans.''