HAVANA -- (AP) -- Concern over a sick child's welfare triumphed over political
 differences today, as Fidel Castro granted Illinois' visiting governor permission to
 take an ailing 7-year-old boy back to the United States with him for treatment.

 The boy, Raudel Alfonso Garcia, suffers from portal hypertension, a potentially
 fatal disease that produces high pressure in blood flowing from several organs to
 the liver. Cuban doctors don't have the facilities to treat him.

 Castro ``has agreed to let him go back, and we are going to take him back with
 us tomorrow,'' Gov. George Ryan told an impromptu news conference early today
 after a meeting with the Cuban president.

 ``He brought in his medical records and the doctors to talk with us,'' Ryan said.
 ``The Cubans have made all the arrangements.''

 A woman who answered the sole telephone used by the entire community where
 the boy and the mother live in the central province of Matanzas said that the
 mother and child left for Havana at 6 a.m. today for the afternoon flight to the
 United States.

 Ned Walsh, a retired Baptist chaplain at North Carolina State University, has
 been lobbying the Cuban and American governments to clear the way for the
 emergency trip.

 To speed up the process, the liberal Pullen Memorial Baptist Church asked Sen.
 Jesse Helms, R-N.C. -- a longtime Castro foe and staunch supporter of the U.S.
 embargo of Cuba -- to intercede on the child's behalf. The senator asked
 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright for an emergency humanitarian visa for the
 boy and his mother.

 The boy's journey, planned for around 2 p.m. today, springs from an unusual
 collaboration between politicians with opposing ideologies, from two countries that
 have no diplomatic relations.

 ``I think we had a very fruitful exchange,'' Ryan said after he and about two dozen
 other members of the Illinois delegation met with Castro.

 Ryan favors lifting the American trade sanctions against the communist country.
 During the visit that began Saturday, he has repeatedly spoken out against the
 sanctions, which he says harm both Cubans and Americans.

 The Cuban government has depicted Ryan's five-day trip, the first by a U.S.
 governor since the 1959 revolution, as a reflection of growing U.S. opposition to
 the trade embargo. Cuban officials have increasingly reached out to American
 officials who have no connection to Miami or Washington -- the two places in the
 United States where resistance to ending the sanctions is strongest.

 Support for lifting at least the ban on food and medicine sales has grown in recent
 months as members of the U.S. Congress look for ways to help hard-hit
 American farmers searching for new markets for their product.

 ``We can be helpful to the Cuban people,'' Ryan said Tuesday. ``And they can be
 helpful to us.''

 Supporters of the embargo, imposed in 1962 to punish Castro's government, say
 any softening of the sanctions will keep Castro in power. The sanctions have
 especially strong support in the United States from a politically influential portion
 of Miami's Cuban exile community. Some Cuban-Americans criticized Ryan for
 visiting the island.

 The governor, a conservative Republican, has made clear that his opposition to
 the embargo does not signify support for the communist government. Ryan held a
 meeting Tuesday with some of the island's best-known dissidents at the
 residence of Vicky Huddleston, the new U.S. Interests Section mission chief.

 Ryan also said human rights was among the issues he discussed with Castro.
 He said he requested the release of Cuba's four best known political opponents,
 sentenced during closed door court proceedings earlier this year to prison terms
 ranging from 3 1/2 to six years. The request was left ungranted.

 Nevertheless, the governor said he and Castro did not get involved in an
 ideological discussion.

 ``I was a guest at his table. I did not go in to criticize his system,'' Ryan said. ``I
 sat at the same table with the president of China in Chicago, and we didn't
 criticize his government.''

 During the evening, the two men discussed themes of mutual interest, including
 baseball, trade, medicine and education.

 One possibility they discussed was a game between the Cuban national baseball
 team and the Chicago White Sox or Cubs.

 ``Here there is a lot of interest in Sammy Sosa,'' the Cubs star who hails from the
 Dominican Republic, Ryan said.

                     Copyright 1999 Miami Herald