By JUAN O. TAMAYO and GLENN GARVIN
             Herald Staff Writers

             U.S. diplomats and CIA officials in Central America have been ordered by
             Washington to prod their host governments to clamp down on a Cuban exile
             accused of terror attacks on Havana, U.S. officials say.

             Reinforcing Washington's message, the U.S. officials said, two FBI agents visited
             Guatemala last month to look into reports that the exile, Luis Posada Carriles, had
             tried to smuggle bombs from there to Havana.

             The message was delivered to Central American governments just days before
             U.S. prosecutors in Puerto Rico charged seven Cuban exiles with plotting to
             assassinate President Fidel Castro, although U.S. officials insist the two events do
             not represent any change in policy.

             Washington has always opposed violent attacks on Cuba, the officials added, and
             is now again making its views known to Central American governments because of
             the many recent reports on Posada's anti-Castro plots.

             Posada has lived almost openly in Central America for 13 years, and even worked
             for former presidents of El Salvador and Guatemala, even though he is a fugitive
             wanted in the midair bombing of a jetliner that killed 73 people. He recently
             admitted organizing a string of bombings in Havana last year.

             U.S. officials said the American embassies in El Salvador, Guatemala and
             Honduras were directed by Washington in a mid-August cable to deliver to their
             host governments a three-point message on Posada:

               He is not a U.S. protégé, despite his work for the CIA in the 1960s and '70s
             and for Oliver North's campaign to supply CIA-backed Nicaraguan contra rebels
             from El Salvador from 1986 to 1988.

               Washington expects local officials to investigate Posada's many reported
             anti-Castro attacks and plots, and prosecute him if possible.

               Washington wants any information that local intelligence officials may have on
             Posada.

             U.S. message

             ``Our message is that we're not behind Posada, that we're concerned about his
             activities and we want them stopped,'' said a U.S. official with access to the
             Washington cable.

             A Washington official authorized to speak on the issue said the government never
             comments on diplomatic cables, but added the following statement:

             ``These Central American countries are aware of the strong U.S. position
             opposing the perpetration of terrorist acts against Cuba. . . . We would expect
             [them] to take law enforcement actions against persons or groups carrying out
             such acts from their territory,'' the official said.

             Security officials in Honduras and El Salvador confirmed that U.S. diplomats and
             CIA staffers assigned to the local embassies began passing on strong warnings
             about Posada around the middle of August.

             ``It was a clear and tough message,'' said one security official in Honduras.

             Posada, now about 69 years old, has long been one of the Cuban exiles most
             active in violent attacks against the Castro government.

             He escaped from a Venezuelan jail in 1985 while awaiting trial in the 1976
             bombing of a Cuban jetliner and settled in El Salvador, though he has also lived in
             Guatemala and Honduras.

             In two recent media interviews, Posada acknowledged he had hired a Salvadoran
             man, Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon, who was arrested in Cuba last year and charged
             with a half-dozen bombings of tourism centers around Havana.

             Recent Herald reports have linked him to attempts to hire Guatemalans to deliver
             bombs to Cuba last year, and to kill Castro in Colombia in 1994 and the
             Dominican Republic last month.

             Few if any problems

             Yet, despite the charges and allegations against him, Posada appears to have had
             few if any problems with local security officials throughout his stay in Central
             America.

             Posada has often claimed to have friends in the FBI and CIA, as well as the
             Cuban American National Foundation, among Cuban Americans in the U.S.
             military and exiles living in the United States and Central America.

             He is also known to be well connected to conservative Central American military
             officers, politicians and businessmen who share his deeply anti-communist views
             and see Castro as a foe of their own nations.

             Police in El Salvador, where he lives most of the time, apparently have made no
             attempt to question Posada since Cruz Leon was arrested in Havana for the terror
             bombings that killed one Italian tourist and wounded six people.

             Posada worked as a security advisor for the late Salvadoran President Jose
             Napoleon Duarte around 1988, and is known to be close friends with active and
             retired military officers and some of the country's richest businessmen.

             Guatemalan security officials also appear to have done little after receiving a report
             from an informant last fall alleging that Posada was recruiting Guatemalans to
             deliver bombs to Havana while posing as tourists.

             Assassination attempt

             Posada worked as a security advisor to former Guatemalan President Vinicio
             Cerezo in 1989 and 1990, when he barely survived an assassination attempt by
             gunmen who pumped about a dozen bullets into his body.

             ``We do believe that some local officials were basically clueless on Posada,'' said
             a U.S. official in Central America. ``But there's no question that others knew
             where he was and what he was up to.''

             U.S. officials knowledgeable about the U.S. message on Posada said it was being
             relayed mostly by State Department diplomats, though CIA personnel in the region
             were relaying it to their local counterparts.

             Officials in Washington said another sign of the U.S. interest in Posada was the
             recent visit to Guatemala by two FBI agents from Puerto Rico, where seven exiles
             have been charged with plotting to kill Castro.

             It is not clear what links there are, if any, between the Puerto Rico case and
             Guatemala, where an informant told local security officials last September that
             Posada was trying to smuggle explosives from there to Cuba.

             Posada has told several exile friends in Miami that he was not involved in the
             Puerto Rico plot and regarded the alleged plan to assassinate Castro in Venezuela
             last November as extremely foolish.
 

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