Members of Congress, the State Department and Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke are keeping their eyes on the fate of four Cuban dissidents, whose trial Baltimore leaders fear could threaten the Orioles exhibition game against the Cuban national baseball team.

Schmoke acknowledged yesterday that his office has received stacks of letters from Cuban-American groups protesting the March 28 game in Havana. Baltimore also hopes for other cultural exchanges with the Communist country, swapping everything from entertainers to medical personnel.

The mayor said he and Baltimore Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos plan to proceed with the trip, fully aware of how the political fallout over the downing of two civilian planes by the Cuban government in 1995 dealt a serious setback to U.S.-Cuban relations and derailed similar exchange efforts.

"We're still focused on going," Schmoke said. "But you always worry that one or two incidents can turn things around."

The dissidents on trial in Cuba -- three men and a woman -- were arrested in July 1997 for speaking out against the Cuban government and President Fidel Castro. The dissidents urged foreign businesses not to invest in the country, and called on Cubans to ignore elections and party organizations. A closed trial was held last week; no resolution has been announced.

The government seeks to sentence them to five to six years in prison, an action that opponents in the United States and abroad contend is a sign of a new wave of repression by the Cuban government. The State Department has condemned Cuba's action and called for the release of the dissidents. Last year's Cuba visit by Pope John Paul II had increased hope that the government would ease restrictions on free speech.

This week, Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart called the dissidents "the Mandelas and Lech Walesas of Cuba." The Miami Republican cautioned against moving forward with the games until the trial is resolved.

"The timing of this game is really bad," Diaz-Balart said yesterday. "There's a feeling that this is really a moment to hold back and see how Castro acts with the four, that's the feeling in the international community."

The Orioles would be the first major-league baseball team to play in Cuba in 40 years. The Cincinnati Reds and Los Angeles Dodgers played exhibition games in Cuba in March 1959, about 2 1/2 months after Castro ousted dictator Fulgencio Batista on New Year's Day.

The arrangement for the March 28 game includes plans for the Cuban national team to play in Baltimore.

Schmoke said he believes the scheduled exchange could eventually aid the Cuban people.

"We're not trying in any way to simply ignore the substantial policy differences," Schmoke said. "But I do think the people-to-people exchanges are important and that they might lead -- down the road -- to improved relations."

Frank Calzon, executive director for the Center For A Free Cuba, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday that he opposes the "baseball diplomacy."

"Let us keep in mind that Cuban athletes who question government policies are banned from the field," Calzon testified. "And, as was the case in Nazi Germany and the Communist bloc, the [Cuban] regime's sports programs have a most definite political dimension."

While senior Clinton administration officials have given the plan a green light in principle, government and Orioles negotiators sought yesterday to iron out some of the finer wrinkles in the plan, and soothed fears from the government and on Capitol Hill that Castro might find a way to make money off the baseball series.

Sen. Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was worried that ESPN might pay Castro's government for the right to televise the games. That would violate the spirit of earlier agreements that any revenue would go to promote youth sports in Cuba and the United States or nongovernmental charities in Cuba, Helms said.

"If [Castro's] going to get the money, it's a different proposition as far as I'm concerned, and I will oppose personally their going," Helms said Wednesday.

But spokesmen for ESPN and Major League Baseball, as well as two people knowledgeable about the negotiations, said such fears were groundless.

Schmoke likened the Orioles game to the U.S. table tennis match played in China two decades ago, which helped thaw relations with Beijing. With rhetoric over the trip rising, word spread that the Orioles were searching for Little League ballplayers to join the trip and help defuse the political tensions.

In talks yesterday with officials from the Treasury and State departments, Orioles representatives sought to ensure that as many as 150 Baltimore-area youths and adult escorts could travel to stay with Cuban families.

"I don't think that any of us are trying to make a statement," Schmoke said. "We hope that at some point there are improved relations and the complications between the two countries are resolved."

Pub Date: 3/12/99