HAVANA -- (AP) -- Should President Clinton decide to visit Cuba before he leaves
 office next month, he would be greeted here like any other U.S. citizen, a senior
 Cuban official said today.

 A group of Americans opposed to the U.S. government's current hard line against
 the communist island this week asked Clinton to visit Cuba before he leaves
 power in an attempt to improve relations between the countries before
 President-elect Bush takes office.

 But Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly, or parliament, told a
 news conference that ``we have received no indication that (Clinton) is interested
 in traveling'' to the island. Alarcon is President Fidel Castro's point man on
 Cuba-U.S. relations,

 But should he come, Clinton, and his wife, Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton,
 D-N.Y., would be welcomed and could count on meeting with parliament
 members, said Alarcon.

 Although Alarcon said he did not expect any immediate changes in Cuba-U.S.
 policies during the Bush administration, he did say that he was ``profoundly
 optimistic over the long term.''

 ``I don't have the least doubt that it is a policy condemned to fail,'' Alarcon said,
 referring to the nearly 40-year-old American trade embargo against the island
 nation. He noted that there had been an increased amount of U.S. legislation in
 recent years aimed at easing the sanctions.

 Proponents of the embargo hope the sanctions will remain under Bush, who has
 announced that he has chosen Cuban-American Mel Martinez to serve as
 housing secretary. Martinez will be the first American of Cuban origin to serve on
 the Cabinet.

 Havana has criticized Martinez, referring to him as a ``worm'' - a term the
 communist government commonly uses for exiles.

 Those who wrote the letter to Clinton said they, too, believed that the Bush
 administration would continue the hard line toward Cuba.

 The letter was signed by 106 people, including Wayne Smith, former chief U.S.
 diplomat to Havana during the Reagan and Carter administrations; John
 Coatsworth, of the Rockefeller Center for Latin Studies at Harvard University;
 Septime Webre, of the National Ballet of Washington, which performed in Cuba
 earlier this year; Charles Currie, president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges;
 and Randall Robinson, of the Trans-African Forum.