By CATHERINE WILSON
                                      Associated Press Writer

                                      MIAMI -- (AP) -- A retired U.S. admiral relayed a warning to
                                      officials in Washington from Cuba's top general about
                                      shooting down U.S. civilian planes entering Cuban airspace
                                      less than a month before a deadly MiG attack.

                                      Former Adm. Eugene Carroll, who was called Tuesday as
                                      the opening defense witness at the trial of five accused
                                      Cuban spies, described the meeting in Cuba and passing
                                      the message to State Department and Pentagon officials.

                                      Accused spy ringleader Gerardo Hernandez faces a life
                                      prison term if convicted of murder conspiracy for aiding the
                                      shootdown, which killed four Miami fliers in February 1996.
                                      The defense contends there is not enough evidence to allow
                                      the charge to stand.

                                      Cuban Gen. Ulises Rosales del Toro, then the Cuban
                                      equivalent of the head of the Pentagon's joint chiefs of staff,
                                      ``asked me what would happen if they shot those planes
                                      down,'' Carroll said. He recalled the general added, '``We
                                      can, you know,' very pointedly.''

                                      On cross-examination, Carroll said the Cuban military did
                                      not ask what the U.S. response would be to a forced landing
                                      of U.S. planes or a criminal prosecution or civil citation of
                                      U.S. pilots.

                                      Carroll accepted Assistant U.S. Attorney David Buckner's
                                      description of his response to the Cuban general: that a
                                      shootdown would be ``a public relations disaster for Cuba.''

                                      Carroll and other retired U.S. military officers and diplomats
                                      visited Cuba Feb. 5-9, 1996. Two planes with the
                                      Miami-based Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue
                                      were shot down Feb. 24, 1996.

                                      In other questioning, Carroll depicted the Cuban military as a
                                      pipsqueak compared to the United States -- a poorly
                                      equipped, undertrained and quickly shrinking force regularly
                                      assigned to farming and tourist facility construction and
                                      operations.

                                      Cuban air might consist of 20 fighter jets. One of Cuba's six
                                      MiG 29s fired missiles that downed the U.S. civilian planes.

                                      Attorneys for defendants charged with trying to infiltrate U.S.
                                      military bases asked Carroll about the caliber of secrets
                                      menial workers could hope to obtain at the U.S. Southern
                                      Command in Miami and Boca Chica Naval Air Station near
                                      Key West.

                                      Carroll left the impression that Cuba's spy work would be
                                      futile.

                                      Southern Command's contingency plans for an invasion of
                                      Cuba would be outside a vault under ``citadel'' conditions
                                      allowing no one without top secret clearance to be in the
                                      same room, he said.

                                      Carroll concluded observations at Boca Chica intended to
                                      give advance warning of a U.S. attack would be useless
                                      because the first concrete sign would be explosions in
                                      Cuba.

                                      He also testified that Cuban strategy, commonly called ``the
                                      war of the people,'' would be to fight a guerrilla war after an
                                      invasion rather than confront an invading force.

                                      The defendants, who admit being Cuban agents, are
                                      accused of infiltrating U.S. military bases and Cuban exile
                                      groups. But they deny getting their hands on any U.S.
                                      secrets and say the Cuban government turned over
                                      information they gathered about terrorist acts by Cuban
                                      exiles to the FBI.