ANA RADELAT
 Special to The Herald

 WASHINGTON -- A political alliance between U.S. farmers and traditional opponents of the economic embargo on Cuba may be on the verge of persuading Congress to end restrictions on the sale of food and medicine to the government of Fidel Castro.

 Since it was imposed by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, the embargo has become one of the most enduring artifacts of the Cold War, surviving repeated efforts to end it or create loopholes.

 But this time, farm-state lawmakers are confident that a shift in the political landscape could bring about what was once unimaginable.

 The change is typified by Democratic Rep. Charles Stenholm of Texas, the ranking minority member of the Agriculture Committee and a well-known House conservative. After leading a delegation of his state's farmers to Cuba in April, he declared that restrictions on agricultural sales don't affect Castro.

 ''We're hurting the Cuban people and American producers,'' he contended.

 Provisions that would exempt food and medicine sales from trade embargoes are contained in farm spending bills that have been approved by committees in both the House and Senate. The exemptions would apply to Cuba and other nations on the State Department's terrorist list, including Iran, Libya, Sudan and North Korea.

 The legislation, which the House hopes to vote on this week, also prohibits the president from including a ban on the sale of food and medicine in future sanctions packages.

 Opponents, led by the Cuban American National Foundation, warn that approval would bolster Castro's government and eventually lead to the end of the embargo.

 Moreover, Emilio Vazquez, deputy director of the foundation's Washington office, insisted that Castro would use U.S. food imports as a ''weapon against his own people,'' by withholding food from those who don't support him.

 INTERESTS COINCIDE

 But the campaign to end restrictions, which has been vulnerable to such arguments in the past, is bolstered by a variety of factors, including the unusual convergence of interests between conservative farm organizations and farm-state lawmakers, on the one hand, and the traditional anti-embargo lobby.

 That lobby consists of liberal church and advocacy groups and liberal Democrats like Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.

 In addition, the Clinton administration has fostered a favorable political climate by maintaining anti-Castro policies but at the same time making some allowances for humanitarian trade and cultural exchanges as part of a policy designed to promote close contact with ordinary Cubans.

 Moreover, the staunchest defenders of the long-standing U.S. embargo against Cuba have been battered by their fight over Elian Gonzalez, which has elicited little support among both the general public and Capitol Hill lawmakers.

 The anti-sanctions campaign, which has been promoted by U.S. agribusinesses that hope for new, profitable markets in Cuba and other nations, scored a major victory last week when House Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, was unable to persuade fellow Republicans to strip the legislation from the House farm bill.

 SPLIT ALLEGIANCE

 Even though many consider DeLay the most powerful member of the House, 15 Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee joined Democrats to defeat DeLay's motion by a vote of 35-24.

 At the behest of Cuban-American lawmakers like Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., the powerful GOP leader was able to block similar legislation last year, but the recent vote in the Appropriations Committee does not bode well for supporters of the embargo.

 DeLay was also abandoned by many of his GOP colleagues when he tried to win support for a bill that would give Elian citizenship and when he tried to create momentum for hearings on the Justice Department's armed raid that removed the Cuban castaway from the home of his Miami relatives.

 Mary Kay Thatcher, a lobbyist for the American Farm Bureau Federation, said she was surprised at the level of support for the anti-sanctions measure. ''Before the vote, I would have never told you that we were that strong,'' Thatcher said. ''I was ecstatic, skipping down the hall.''

 Senate support for the anti-sanctions drive is even stronger, especially since Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., a longtime embargo supporter, capitulated to the wishes of fellow farm-state Republicans -- such as John Ashcroft of Missouri and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska -- who led the anti-sanctions campaign in that chamber.

 SENATOR'S CONDITIONS

 In order to allow the legislation to move in the Senate, Helms insisted on a few conditions, among them that food sales to Cuba and other terrorist list nations be reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the administration and that no government financing could be used in the sales.

 Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., the House sponsor of the food and medicine proposal, adopted the same restrictions in the belief this would speed the legislation through the House.

 ''We wanted to have a bill . . . and a bill that could pass,'' he said.

 Nethercutt said there is momentum behind his bill because ''there's a new reflection on the validity of sanctions as an effective foreign policy tool.''

 In addition, the Republican said, in post-Cold War America, attitudes about Cuba are changing.

 ''People are thinking more about American interests rather than what's bad for Castro,'' Nethercutt said.

 WHAT CUBA WANTS

 Cuba says it buys nearly $1 billion worth of imported food each year, mostly from Canada and Europe, and would like to trade with the United States instead to save shipping costs.

 Thatcher of the American Farm Bureau said the farmers' campaign may have also been helped by the media's intense focus on the bitter custody fight over Elian Gonzalez, which brought attention to economic hardships suffered by Cuban people.

 ''A lot of people have now seen what Cuba looks like,'' she said.

 Nevertheless, Diaz-Balart and other advocates of a hard line toward Cuba have vowed to continue to fight any move toward easing the embargo.

 DeLay and Diaz-Balart hope to block the measure in the House Rules Committee, which controls the flow of bills that go to the House floor.

 ''We don't think the fight is over,'' Steve Vermillion, an aide to Diaz-Balart, said. ''This is a choice between providing help to terrorist governments or not. . . . This is about dismantling the embargo unilaterally, without any concessions from Castro.''

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald