By JUAN O. TAMAYO
             Herald Staff Writer

             Congressional conservatives and liberals favor it. So do leading American
             newspapers, a growing number of business people, academics and intellectuals,
             and Pope John Paul II.

             Even Henry Kissinger, the closest thing America has to a foreign-policy deity,
             favors it -- a top-to-bottom reassessment of U.S. sanctions on Cuba, including the
             trade and travel embargoes.

             Forty years after President Fidel Castro seized power, U.S. sanctions designed to
             impel his communist regime toward change are under one of the strongest assaults
             ever marshaled by foreign-policy and public-opinion leaders.

             Labels such as ``obsolete, ``counterproductive and ``bankrupt have come to
             dominate the public debate, while defenders of the sanctions appear to be
             dwindling and increasingly resigned to some adjustments in policy.

             Some analysts are predicting a nibbling around the edges of U.S. policy, perhaps
             an easing of restrictions on travel, and on sales of food and medicine. A few see a
             long-shot possibility that the 37-year-old embargo will be lifted.

             ``When something so dry and brittle is hit by a sudden puff of fresh air, it's quite
             possible there could be substantial changes, said Luigi Einaudi, former U.S.
             ambassador to the Organization of American States.

             Yet skeptics predict that nothing significant will happen, and not only because of
             U.S. political and legal hurdles. Castro, they say, has a history of torpedoing U.S.
             attempts to improve relations, thereby keeping Washington as a menace and
             justifying domestic repression.

             Kissinger's own effort at rapprochement with Havana ended when Cuba sent
             troops to Angola in 1975. President Carter's efforts ended with the Mariel crisis in
             1980. And Clinton's turned sour when Cuban MiGs shot down two Brothers to
             the Rescue planes over the Florida Straits in 1996.

             ``The principal obstacle to improved U.S. policies toward Cuba is not the
             Cuban-American lobby or its supporters in Congress, but Castro himself, said
             Richard Nuccio, former Clinton White House advisor on Cuba.

             ``If you think, like I do, that the Cuban government actually prefers that the
             embargo stay in place, at least under certain conditions, then it may be that the
             Cuban government will do something that will have the consequence of polarizing
             the issue in the United States, Nuccio added.

             Turning a Godfather  movie phrase on its head, Nuccio added: ``There is no offer
             we can make that they can't refuse.

             A case for change

             Few supporters of easing sanctions share Nuccio's concern. Instead, they argue
             that it's time for change because Castro stopped being a threat to U.S. security
             when the Cold War ended, and because decades of sanctions have failed to nudge
             him toward reforms.

             ``Nothing approaching full democracy will take place until Castro leaves the scene,
             but at least we can encourage the right conditions for positive change, said Wayne
             Smith, once the top U.S. diplomat in Havana and now a determined critic of U.S.
             sanctions.

             Supporters of the embargo insist it's working. ``The best evidence of that is the
             vast amount of work that Cuba has put into lobbying for its removal, especially
             after the Soviet Union's collapse,'' said Cuban-born Otto Reich, former U.S.
             ambassador to Venezuela and a strong critic of the Castro government.

             March of events

             But several developments in recent months show the increasingly vocal opposition
             to the U.S. sanctions against Cuba:

               Kissinger headed a group of about 20 senators and other foreign-policy mavens
             who proposed that Clinton appoint a bipartisan panel to review U.S. policy on
             Cuba. Supporters and critics alike say ``review is a euphemism for change.

               The Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan research and policy
             organization, named a 22-member task force in October to reassess U.S. relations
             with Havana. Its report is expected in mid-January. Among the panel members:
             former Assistant Secretaries of State Bernard Aronson and William D. Rogers,
             and one Cuban American, New York investment lawyer Mario Baeza.

               U.S. lawmakers proposed bills this year in the House and Senate to ease
             restrictions on sales of food and medicine to Cuba. The bills did not pass, but they
             are expected to be resubmitted when Congress convenes in January.

               Two respected foreign-policy think tanks, the Atlantic Council and the Center
             for Strategic and International Studies, published reports critical of U.S. policies
             on Cuba in August and September.

               Americans for Humanitarian Trade With Cuba, a coalition of business people,
             former U.S. officials and church leaders, was organized under the auspices of the
             U.S. Chamber of Commerce to push for lifting regulations on the sale of food and
             medicine to Cuba. It includes conservatives like former Bush administration trade
             representative Carla Hills and former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul
             Volcker.

               The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and many other
             leading U.S. newspapers have published editorials calling for an end or a
             significant softening of the U.S. embargo.

               USA Engage, made up of 650 U.S. corporations, was formed last year to lobby
             against Washington's growing use of economic sanctions against other countries --
             not just Cuba but also Libya, Iraq, Iran and Myanmar (the former Burma).

               Pope John Paul II and several American cardinals have harshly criticized the
             embargo, arguing that it hurts the Cuban people more than the Cuban government.

               The European Union, Canada and many Latin American and Caribbean
             governments called for an end to the embargo and its replacement with policies of
             ``engagement that might slowly nudge Cuba toward change.

             Turnaround on embargo

             Such an onslaught on the embargo would have been almost unthinkable only 33
             months ago, when Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act in an enraged response
             to the downing of the Brothers to the Rescue planes by the Cuban air force.

             Until then, the Clinton administration had been trying to follow a two-track policy
             of sanctions linked to possible Cuban reforms and support for people-to-people
             contacts that might promote change on the island.

             In a 1995 nod to rising U.S. anti-immigration sentiment, Clinton adopted a change
             in policy long sought by Cuba -- returning most Cuban rafters to the island instead
             of welcoming all as victims of communist oppression.

             The Helms-Burton Act remains a potential obstacle to easing U.S. policies on
             Cuba because, aside from threatening some foreign firms that invest in Cuba, it
             wrote into law all the sanctions that had previously been enforced by executive
             decrees or regulations.

             White House legal experts have concluded, however, that Helms-Burton would
             not prevent Clinton from significantly altering those regulations, Nuccio said.
             Congressional hard-liners will undoubtedly disagree if he ever tries it.

             Other obstacles

             But there are bigger stumbling blocks to policy changes on Cuba.

             Key White House officials pushing for the Kissinger proposal are doing so only
             quietly and not very forcefully, and not just because the Monica Lewinsky scandal
             has sapped Clinton's strength, Washington sources said.

             ``This is not a bold president, Wayne Smith said.

             And while the ease-the-sanctions advocates are dominating the public side of the
             debate, the hard facts are stacked against them.

             ``The politics are just not there, said one top Clinton administration official who
             handles Cuba issues.

             Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican, has taken to referring to the
             Kissinger proposal as ``the Gore Commission in a clear shot across the bow of
             Vice President Al Gore and his presidential ambitions in 2000.

             Florida vote in mind

             Florida, governed by Republican Jeb Bush, will play a key role in that election,
             and not many candidates are considered likely to risk angering the state's
             Cuban-American vote.

             The political strength of the Cuban American National Foundation has been
             undermined somewhat by the death of founder Jorge Mas Canosa and its ensuing
             rift with Ros-Lehtinen and two other Cuban Americans in Congress, several
             Washington political observers said.

             But its remaining strength could well be enough to block any significant easing of
             U.S. sanctions on Cuba, especially given the many other hurdles in its path.

             A Florida International University poll last year showed that about 72 percent of
             Cuban Americans in Miami still supported the embargo. A CNN poll earlier this
             year showed that 48 percent of all Americans favored the embargo and 45
             percent opposed it.

             So there is little political capital to be gained by going against it.

             ``Cuba has always been a `third rail' of U.S. policy. Touch it and you die, said
             Nuccio, now writing a book on Cuba-U.S. relations.

             Diplomatic leverage

             Supporters of tight sanctions say they should be kept as chips for bargaining with
             Cuba. Lifting them unilaterally, they add, would only legitimize and strengthen
             Castro, and they argue that the policy of engagement backed by Canada and other
             nations has failed as badly as the U.S. embargo when it comes to persuading
             Castro to modify his repressive policies.

             U.S. sanctions made Cuba an expensive outpost of the Soviet empire and helped
             drive Moscow into collapse, said Frank Calzon, Cuban-born director of the
             Washington-based Center for a Free Cuba.

             ``I am not opposed to lifting the embargo, but it should be the end goal of a
             process of significant Cuban steps toward democracy, not the beginning, Calzon
             said.

             And although any number of foreign-policy experts can agree that the embargo has
             achieved little in terms of nudging Castro toward reforms, few see any promising
             alternatives.

             Clinton's policy, ``while hardly the mode of clarity either advocates or detractors
             would wish, nonetheless is a serviceable approach, said Cuba historian and
             Rutgers University Professor Irving Louis Horowitz.

             It is a dilemma with no end in sight.

             ``The dynamics between us and Cuba is becoming embarrassing because it looks
             dated, it looks sterile, and yet no one can find a way around it, Einaudi said. ``We
             have paralysis of policy on both sides.