WASHINGTON -- At Cuba's quasi-embassy, Fidel Castro's outpost in the nation's capital, everything -- even baseball -- comes with a P.R. pitch.

Diplomats there evoke a nostalgic vision of the game in its purest form -- the way, they suggest, it is played today in Cuba and used to be played in the United States. Teams do not charge soaring prices for seats that only wealthy fans can afford. Fans who catch balls do not sell them for profit, but toss them back in a gesture of community spirit. And fans blame management -- never the common man on the field -- whenever their team loses.

"We follow every single game in Cuba," says Cuban diplomat Eugenio Martinez. "We have this feeling of belonging to our teams."

At the embassy-style operation known as the Cuban Interests Section -- site of some negotiations over Sunday's Orioles game in Havana -- diplomats offer wistful visions not just of Communist baseball, but of all things Cuban. From this government office for Cuba, with which the U.S. government has no official diplomatic relations, officials are working to polish Cuba's image.

Sponsored by Swiss

Here, diplomats work in a building under the auspices of the neutral Swiss, under the eye of a U.S. government with grave mistrust of Cuba. No Cuban diplomat is cleared to travel outside the Washington area without State Department approval. No Cuban official is permitted in the White House. No Cuban flag may fly outside the mission. No top diplomat is granted the title "ambassador."

The tight group of about 30 diplomats takes refuge with its Latin American friends, largely ignores its antagonists and arms itself with a continuing promotional campaign for its government. They represent the only Communist country in the Western Hemisphere, but they try to come off like the diplomat next door. Regular guys. Reasonable bureaucrats. Baseball fans.

"When people start talking to us out of Washington, they say: 'Oh, you are normal people. You like baseball. We thought you people were from a different planet,' " says Martinez, 29, a consular officer with a shy smile who still goes by his childhood nickname, Pochi. "They have this bad image of Cuba. It's a stereotype. It is not the Cuban reality."

On the contrary, says Michael Ranneberger, the Cuban affairs coordinator at the U.S. State Department, "Our policy is grounded in the Cuban reality." He condemns Cuba for the arrests of dozens of dissidents and human-rights activists in the past year.

It is no surprise that when much of official Washington gathers at formal ceremonies, the Cubans stay away. At times, the interests section is as much an island as the country it represents.

"In Washington the diplomatic community revolves around invitations that are initiated by people in the U.S. government -- the Cubans usually are left out," says Scott Armstrong, a longtime friend of Cuban diplomats and informal liaison for them in Washington. "This kind of puts them, quite intentionally by the United States, at the bottom rung of the diplomatic ladder."

The interests section -- one here and a similarly restricted U.S. counterpart in Havana -- opened 18 years after Castro seized private property and declared Cuba a communist state. The Cuban outpost rarely acts independently, but follows orders directly from Havana, most of which concern the battle against the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba.

Cuba's quasi-embassy has wooed what it considers 100 "friendly" Capitol Hill lawmakers, and spends many hours arranging for members of Congress, as well as celebrities, to travel to Cuba. The eight phone lines buzz with requests for speaking engagements -- at least one diplomat a day is addressing a university, think tank or business group around the country.

Mission is to stay active

"A lot of the interest section's responsibility is to stay active, make noise," says John Kavulich, head of the U.S.-Cuba Trade & Economic Council, an information clearing house for U.S. companies with interest in future business in Cuba. "They're very active."

The Havana regime's enemies contend that the mission exists only for propaganda. "The Cubans identify sympathetic Cuban-Americans, invite them to drinks," says Jose Cardenas, Washington director of the Cuban-American Foundation, an anti-Castro group. "It's not to gain state secrets, but to recruit people for a P.R. campaign."

When crises erupt, the interests section follows the party line. Martinez shrugs off the recent news of four Cuban dissidents sentenced to up to five years in jail for speaking out against the government -- a move that sparked international outcry.

"That's news here, not news in Cuba," Martinez says. "People in Cuba are more interested in doing their jobs well. The other issue does not concern them."

The palatial Washington building, built by Cuba in 1917, is a throwback to the opulent days of the Cuban elite. Its graceful foyer and marble steps sit under a stained-glass ceiling embedded with Cuban coats of arms in tropical colors. Lush scenes of Christopher Columbus arriving in Cuba decorate sun-washed rooms filled with velvet-and-gold-colored furniture.

Today, its grand past seems ghostlike. The steps are spotted with brown stains. Lavish touches, like an interior chapel, were ripped out. The elegant rooms are still airy, but empty enough to echo. The office representing the economically ailing Cuba is hardly wealthy itself. This year's embassy-style blowout -- a New Year's Eve party -- was a potluck.

Some ambivalence

Washington -- with its fancy neighborhoods, black limousines and trendy shops -- is a prime post. But such comforts also make leaving the United States bittersweet.

"It's hard to go back and face the reality there," says a friend of several Cuban diplomats who asked not to be named. "It's very difficult to go from driving your 1999 Taurus to taking the bus."

Even as Cubans feel deep resentment toward the United States, the American culture of commercialism is contagious. A diplomat's child recently wandered around the interests section singing a song in a "Lion King" T-shirt. Martinez, the son of a former professional water polo player, was among the throngs racing to see the hit movie "Titanic" when it came out.

But life here can be alienating. Martinez recently found an unsigned note on his apartment door, complaining that the hallways "smelled bad" when he and his wife cooked Cuban food. "I don't have a sign out saying, 'I'm a Cuban,' " Martinez says, "but that's how they treat you."

If anything, he says, he feels homesick. He and his colleagues, culled from the devoted ranks of Castro's government, largely insulate themselves in a group. Most live in the Chevy Chase area and send their young children to the same public school.

From baseball to the pace of life on the island, diplomats like Martinez offer a defense of their country that is vehement, unflagging and even wistful at times.

"In Cuba, I could see the sea every day," Martinez says. "I miss the sea the most."

Pub Date: 3/25/99