BY NANCY SAN MARTIN

Otto Reich, the White House special envoy to the Americas, announced on Tuesday that he will leave his post in June to rejoin the private sector and work on President Bush's reelection campaign.

Reich, a pugnacious conservative who was often attacked by Cuban President Fidel Castro's government, made the announcement in Washington.

Reich, who was born in Cuba, told reporters there that he wished he ''could have accelerated the end of the Cuban dictatorship'' and helped Venezuelans to oppose leftist President Hugo Chávez, The Associated Press reported.

''A dictatorship still doesn't exist in Venezuela, but one has to be very careful,'' Reich said.

The former lobbyist and ambassador to Venezuela joined the White House in late 2002 after Senate Democrats refused to confirm him as the State Department's head of Latin American affairs.

He cut a wide figure in Latin America, speaking frequently to the media, exhorting foreign leaders to do more against corruption and explaining U.S. security needs after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

But without the authority of the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs -- a position now held by Roger Noriega -- his role as a spokesman for the administration on regional issues was diminished, if not severely undermined.

A strong supporter of the U.S. embargo on Cuba, Reich has faced stiff criticism from Democrats for his outspoken views on Cuba and also his involvement in the 1986 Iran-contra scandal, when he ran a now-defunct State Department office that provided diplomatic and publicity support for the Nicaraguan contra guerrillas.