BY TIM JOHNSON

  WASHINGTON - On his first work day back at the State Department after being shouldered out of his senior post on Latin America, Otto J. Reich worked
  in a less-exalted office Monday and faced both unclear responsibilities and a distinctly murky future.

  Reich is now a ''special envoy'' to the Western Hemisphere, reporting directly to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Even the State Department's senior
  spokesman did not know what the job would entail.

  Reich was to leave Monday to accompany Powell to talks in Mexico City but he canceled ''to focus on his new job and responsibilities,'' a State
  Department colleague said.

  Supporters of Reich say they fully expect the Bush administration to send his name back to the Senate, which will be in Republican hands and, in theory,
  more favorable to White House wishes.

  But at the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said he didn't know if Reich's name would be submitted. ''That's a White House question,'' he
  said.

  The White House was mum.

  It is growing clearer, meanwhile, that Reich is not assured of a smooth ride -- even in a Republican-controlled Senate -- to return as assistant secretary
  of state. Some Republicans, especially from grain-belt states, oppose the hawkish posture of Reich and the White House toward Cuba, and have
  reservations about U.S. trade and travel restrictions with the Fidel Castro regime.

  Sen. Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming and some other grain-belt Republicans want President Bush to ease the U.S. embargo of the island to permit greater
  U.S. agricultural sales there.

  The likely chairman of the foreign relations committee, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said through a spokesman that he would give Reich a nomination
  hearing if asked to by the White House.

  Prolonged debate about Reich's possible nomination would sap the State Department's Western Hemisphere bureau of power to make bold initiatives at
  a time of crisis in the region, said Bernard Aronson, who held the post during the term of Bush's father.

  ''There already is a kind of uneasiness in the region and concern that the administration is preoccupied by Iraq and the war on terrorism and not paying
  attention to Latin America,'' Aronson said.

  DIFFERENT TREATMENT

  Reich was one of two controversial nominees to high-profile posts in the Bush administration who were removed from their jobs Friday when the House
  adjourned for the year, forcing a legal end to their temporary White House appointments. Unlike Reich, the other nominee, Eugene Scalia, son of
  Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, was put back in his job as the Labor Department's solicitor.

  The White House immediately gave Scalia a new appointment as temporary solicitor, keeping him as the No. 3 official at the Labor Department for up to
  210 days.

  Reich, a conservative Cuban-born former lobbyist and ambassador to Venezuela, did not get such a temporary reappointment. Nor did he get any public
  assurance from the White House that it would again push for the Senate to approve him as the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere
  affairs.

  UNCLEAR DUTIES

  Asked at a State Department press briefing about Reich's new functions as ''special envoy,'' spokesman Boucher reiterated Reich would ''have substantial
  responsibility in developing U.S. policies in the hemisphere'' and ''represent the United States in the region.'' Reich will continue to report to Powell but
  was moved from his ''executive suite'' on the department's sixth floor ''to another location in the building,'' Boucher said.

  Boucher, who works closely with Powell, emphasized that Reich's replacement, J. Curtis Struble, has become ''the bureau's most senior point man for
  officials from the Western Hemisphere'' as the new acting assistant secretary of state to the Americas.

  Until Friday, Struble was subordinate to Reich.

  Boucher said he didn't know the salary Reich would earn in his new post, nor did he say how Reich and Struble would share other duties.

  Boucher was pressed to give further details about Reich's new job.

  ''I can't at this point,'' Boucher said. ``I think this is the first day of the job in that capacity, he'll describe further what he does as he does it.''