Havana provided romantic guidance

 BY GAIL EPSTEIN NIEVES

 Talk about going undercover.

 When it came to his love life, accused Cuban spy Antonio Guerrero couldn't make
 a move without first consulting Havana.

 Should he break up with his girlfriend or move in with her? Get married? Have
 children?

 Guerrero, 42, posed all of those questions to his intelligence bosses, according to
 testimony in the Cuban spy trial Wednesday.

 Guerrero's angst prompted lengthy analytical discussions between Miami and
 Havana, some of which were read to jurors by FBI Agent Richard Giannotti.

 Havana's primary concern: that Guerrero's relationship with Key West masseuse
 Margaret Becker not cause ``any loss of common sense or sense of
 responsibility'' that could endanger Guerrero's main mission -- infiltrating the Boca
 Chica Naval Air Station.

 Guerrero, a Miami native whose family moved back to Cuba, outlined the pros and
 cons of the relationship.

 Moving in with Becker would eliminate questions about why he maintained a
 separate apartment and would make him look more normal. On the negative side,
 sharing one living space would make clandestine communications and other work
 more difficult because she did not know about his double life.

 ``What we are asking is that the status of our relationship with Maggie be
 evaluated and that we be given the opportunity to decide whether to move into
 Maggie's house in the next few months,'' he wrote in a 1996 report.

 Guerrero found support in accused spymaster Gerardo Hernández, who
 recommended to Havana that the couple stay together, according to a computer
 report seized by the FBI and read to jurors by Giannotti.

 ``It is not easy in this environment to find a woman with the minimum moral and
 social requirements,'' Hernández wrote. Even better, Guerrero's girlfriend had
 ``leftist'' leanings and was not ``a Cuban spy maniac.''

 Guerrero ultimately was allowed to move in with Becker, but with conditions. He
 had to sidestep talk of marriage and avoid having children.

 The attention that Guerrero's handlers devoted to the topic reflected the intimate
 level of control that Cuba exerted over its agents' lives.

 The discourse brought to mind Cuban double-defector Juan Pablo Roque, whose
 marriage to an unwitting Miami woman helped him maintain a normal outward
 appearance at the same time he spied for Cuba.

 Roque mysteriously disappeared from Miami the day before the 1996 Brothers to
 the Rescue shoot-down, in which Cuba killed four Miami men. He quickly
 resurfaced in Cuba. Roque is a co-defendant in the case on trial.

 Roque's former wife, Ana Margarita Martinez, won a default judgment against the
 Cuban government. The damages portion of her case is set to be heard Feb. 20.
 She alleged that Roque committed sexual battery by having relations with her and
 that the Cuban government shared responsibility.