The revelation that two people accused of spying have been working at FIU has made President Modesto ''Mitch'' Maidique's job even more challenging than usual.

BY NOAH BIERMAN AND LUISA YANEZ

Long before he became president of Florida International University, Modesto ''Mitch'' Maidique had a friend in Carlos M. Alvarez, the faculty member now accused of spying for Cuba.

''The first time I met Maidique, when he was applying for the [job as] president, one of the first people he brought to lunch was Carlos Alvarez,'' recalled Tony Maingot, a retired FIU professor who served on the presidential search committee in 1986.

The pair's friendship, which goes back 25 years, was thrust into the public spotlight last week when Maidique showed up at Alvarez's bond hearing. He was also among 30 people the defense said were supporters of Alvarez and his wife, Elsa, also an FIU employee.

Maidique, the first native of Cuba to head a large U.S. university, left federal court last Monday before a judge denied the couple bond. Since then, he has said little about his courtroom appearance.

That day capped a challenging couple of months for the 65-year-old university president. In December, the Faculty Senate passed a resolution expressing ''grave concerns'' about his leadership.

Now his friend's arrest has created a different kind of pressure on him -- and his school.

The spy charges force Maidique to protect the institution's reputation and its Cuba research program from scrutiny outside the school, just as he was defending his own leadership inside the school.

At the same time, he is privately facing questions about a longtime friend -- and whether a personal relationship has been betrayed.

''I think that people are very upset as to the fact that a public university was being used as an operational base for spying for Cuba,'' said Ninoska Pérez-Castellón, a popular Spanish-language radio personality and founder of the conservative Cuban Liberty Council.

Still, she and others are giving Maidique the benefit of the doubt, for now.

A few Cuban-American exile leaders say he was duped by Alvarez.

''I think he needs to be very careful'' in protecting himself and the institution, said Alfredo Mesa, director of the Cuban American National Foundation. ``My heart goes out to him. . . . He's a victim.''

And on campus, some professors -- including Faculty Senate Chairman Bruce Hauptli -- praised Maidique for resisting pressure to abandon an old friend in a difficult environment.

''I don't want to be the focus or the center of the [Alvarez] story,'' Maidique said in a phone interview Thursday. He said it would be inappropriate to comment about Alvarez because he might have to decide whether the tenured professor violated university policy. FIU is conducting an internal review of the case.

But Maidique did disclose that he used his office budget to pay for two of Alvarez's trips to leadership training seminars over the past two years. He said his staff would provide documents detailing those trips.

FIU has played a major role in Miami's Cuban-American success story, graduating thousands of students, including future civic and business leaders, since 1972.

During nearly 20 years as president, Maidique has worked closely with local politicians and captains of industry to achieve his goals of building up the university.

`A TARGET'

''Maidique, of course, would be a target [for would-be spies]. Anyone with influence is a target,'' said José Basulto, founder of Brothers to the Rescue, which was infiltrated by a Cuban spy a decade ago.

The Alvarezes are not accused of passing government secrets to Cuba. Prosecutors say they supplied President Fidel Castro's regime with information about South Florida's exile leaders and community.

Maidique comes from a family with its own dramatic history in Cuban politics. His father, Modesto Sr., was a senator who took part in a political duel in 1931 and was murdered eight years later, when his son was an infant.

Now the spy arrests are fueling a different kind of drama, this one involving FIU's Cuba research program. The think tank includes scholars who favor dialogue with Castro, many of whom have felt a chill in the days after the arrests.

The case has emboldened hard-liners who have criticized FIU's Cuban Research Institute on local Spanish-language stations. The think tank sponsors travel to Cuba, relying on grant money from private foundations.

''People are upset,'' Pérez-Castellón said. ``People begin to question what is the purpose of these exchanges.''

So far, FIU's political support appears unswayed.

''Mitch has never taken a leftist attitude, as far as I know,'' said state Sen. Alex Villalobos, R-Miami. ``The fact that you have left-leaning organizations on campus -- isn't that what college campuses usually are?''

Alvarez, who is on paid administrative leave, works in the education department and is considered a ''peripheral player'' in the Cuban Research Institute, said its director, Damián Fernández.

TRIPS TO CUBA

Alvarez took five trips to Cuba between 1993 and 2003 under the institute's auspices. FIU has yet to provide further details on his university travel.

''I think that the CRI and its leadership as an institution is pretty blameless,'' Maidique said. On Wednesday, he reinforced his support for the institute at a luncheon in Coral Gables, which included exile leaders from across the political spectrum. It was a position to which he has become accustomed.

''Maidique has always been in that division between a faculty that is more liberal than a community that it serves,'' said Dario Moreno, an FIU expert on politics.