BY ELAINE DE VALLE

                      When veteran broadcaster Salvador Lew was tapped to take over the Office of Cuba
                      Broadcasting, he pledged to revitalize Radio and TV Martí with more relevant
                      programming for Cubans on the island.

                      More than seven months after his appointment, Lew has dramatically increased the
                      amount of news broadcast, using more than 20 freelancers to write, edit, broadcast
                      and produce a slew of new programs, including a call-in show for dissidents, a
                      program on the Santería religion and a show hosted by former Cuban military officers.

                      But staffers and observers say Lew has gone beyond a mere housecleaning typical of
                      a new administration. They claim he has hired friends and associates to well-paid
                      posts, including several with a hard-line view, and manipulated news coverage.

                      ''He acts like a mayor in Cuba,'' said Enrique Patterson, who has cohosted a political satire program for five years.
                      ``Anyone who is his friend has a job.''

                      Four women have sued for sex discrimination, claiming a hostile work environment for women. The annual
                      personnel budget has been nearly depleted to pay for the freelancers. A federally mandated nine-member
                      advisory committee does not exist.

                      Most recently, the station was accused of editing a sound bite to make it appear the Mexican government had
                      opened its doors to Cubans wanting to leave the island. The broadcast was blamed for a gate-crashing incident at
                      the Mexican Embassy in Havana by 21 Cubans.

                      The 73-year-old Lew, a longtime figure on Cuban Miami radio famed for breaking the story in 1962 that Soviet
                      troops had arrived in Cuba, stands by the broadcast and dismisses the manipulation claims as typical Castro
                      rhetoric.

                      ''I would never permit that,'' he said, adding that he would not jeopardize his credibility.

                      He defends the choices he has made since taking over the $25-million-a-year operation. He recognizes that the
                      changes, which he said have improved the station's programming mix, have ruffled some feathers.

                      ''There are some very professional journalists here . . . but we also have some people who are resistant to
                      change,'' said Lew, who makes $132,000 a year. ``I'm not here to be popular.''

                      NUMEROUS INQUIRIES

                      Controversy is not new to Radio Martí, which first aired on May 20, 1985, to provide an alternate source of news
                      and information to the state-run media in Cuba. There have been more than two dozen investigations, audits,
                      inquiries or policy reviews at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting in the past 15 years.

                      But 10 staffers who spoke to The Herald, all but two on the condition that their names not be published, said things
                      are different this time.

                      ''Every time there is a new administration, there are problems, but this is a total revolution,'' said one employee
                      who has worked under three directors.

                      Most complaints center on the hiring of the freelancers, many of them Lew's friends and former associates.

                      Zaida ''Sashi'' Alfaro hosts Aché, the Santería show. For more than 10 years, she and Lew cohosted La Peña Azul
                      on La Cadena Azul, then later on La Poderosa.

                      Olga Connor, a columnist at El Nuevo Herald who hosts an arts program on Radio Martí, is a friend.

                      Nancy Pérez Crespo, a director at La Nueva Cuba Press -- a website that publishes dissident Cuban journalists --
                      has known Lew for 15 years.

                      `LOT OF HIS PEOPLE'

                      Crespo, who also has a weekly program on Radio Mambí, hosts a half-hour call-in show for dissidents on Radio
                      Martí.

                      ''He has brought in a lot of his people under contract to do the work of the employees,'' said one of the employees
                      who claims to have been demoted for complaining.

                      Patterson said his salary was cut by $15 from $100 a show to $85, while some of the new freelancers are making
                      more than four times as much.

                      ''I don't care about $15,'' said Patterson, a Spanish teacher at Miami Northwestern High School. ``I don't make
                      my living off this. But it's the principle.''

                      He and others said most of the new programs were rejected by the in-house advisory committee because they
                      duplicated existing shows or were inappropriate for the station.

                      ''Then he abolished the evaluation committee and did what he wanted anyway,'' Patterson said. ``This is a
                      government office, not a private company.''

                      DIRECTOR WAS MOVED

                      Lew said the advisory committee fell apart after he transferred the program director, who chaired the committee,
                      to another department. The director, Martha Yedra, would not comment because she is one of the four women
                      suing for sexual discrimination.

                      Lew also admits having a personal relationship with many of the new hires but said there are others he still has
                      not met.

                      All of them, he insists, were tapped for their professional experience.

                      ''It's only logical that I know some of them. It's logical that one contracts people you know that are good,'' Lew
                      said. ``That's something all bosses do -- surround themselves with people you can trust to do the job.''

                      He said the personnel budget is ''practically exhausted'' but insists he had to bring in more people to increase
                      news from one to five hours a day and to add shows that speak to previously ignored sectors of the Cuban
                      population -- the military, youths, blacks, women.

                      NO LOVE FOR CUBA

                      ''There are problems here with a lot of people who do not put their hearts into this office and the situation in
                      Cuba,'' Lew said. ``They do their job as journalists, but there is no love for homeland.''

                      Lew said the complaints come from employees upset about having to work weekends or disgruntled radio hosts
                      whose programs were canceled to make room for more news.

                      ''Our principal mission is to inform, not entertain,'' he said.

                      But Roberto Bermudez, who hosts a cultural show called El Gato Tuerto, said the issue is more about fairness than
                      bruised egos. His show on Cuban literature, art and films was cut back from five to three times a week.

                      ''They said they had to cut everyone's programs to save money,'' he said.

                      Eliminating two of his three freelancers, who made $50 a show, saved $100 a week.

                      Then Radio Martí hired Connor of El Nuevo Herald to host a similar program twice a week -- at $440 a show.

                      ''So they cut $100 from me to give $880 to someone else to do the very same thing. That is an injustice,''
                      Bermudez said.

                      Connor said her program replaced canned music aired on the weekends.

                      ''I was asked to do this program because of my wide experience,'' she said, ``and also because I am in contact
                      not only with the Cuban culture outside the island but also in the island.''

                      HARD-LINER EXILES

                      Another issue causing controversy is that many of the new freelancers come from the ranks of the hard-line
                      Cuban exile community.

                      Lew has hired Santiago Aranegui, a longtime commentator on Radio Mambí, considered the voice of the diehard
                      conservative Cuban community.

                      In addition, Radio Martí also broadcasts the Tomen Nota editorial by Armando Perez Roura, news director of
                      WAQI-AM (710), every Monday.

                      Perez Roura is the dean of conservative Cuban radio. And Lew said La Peña Mambisa, another Mambí show, is
                      also rebroadcast to Cuba.

                      The concern is magnified because other hard-liners are also becoming regulars.

                      Luis Zuñiga and Horacio García Sr., two former Cuban American National Foundation members who are now
                      directors of the breakaway Cuban Liberty Council, host a weekly show titled The Voice of Truth.

                      Said Lew: ``They cannot talk about any organization that they belong to or had belonged to. They only talk about
                      human rights in general, and Luis Zuñiga knows a lot about human rights because he has been to the commission
                      in Geneva for years and years.''

                      Last week, Fernando Rojas -- another former CANF member now on the Cuban Liberty Council board -- was hired
                      as an advisor and assistant to Lew.

                      ''I have given him some projects to develop,'' Lew said.

                      BOARD POSSIBILITIES

                      Lew said another CANF defector, Feliciano Foyo, may get tapped by President Bush for a new advisory board. The
                      other name mentioned from Miami's Cuban community is Amancio Suarez, former owner of Radio Mambí.

                      ''This operation has been taken over by the ultra-right, hard-line exile community,'' said one woman who has
                      worked at Radio Martí for more than 10 years. ``We can't broadcast any news that presents a good image of
                      Cuba or that hints at anything good that can happen there.''

                      Some in Washington, where the proposed $26 million budget for next fiscal year will soon be discussed, are
                      concerned.

                      ''More news is good, until you ask what kind of news it is,'' said U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake, who visited the Office of Cuba
                      Broadcasting last week with Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass. Both men were in South Florida for an anti-embargo
                      conference at the Biltmore Hotel. ``Is it objective? Is it balanced?''

                      SUPPORTS CONCEPT

                      Flake, one of 34 lawmakers who recently formed a task force to chip away at the U.S. embargo and travel
                      restrictions, said he supports the concept of Radio Martí. But he and Delahunt are suspicious of changes that would
                      give the hard-line exile community more airtime.

                      ''If Radio Martí is working well, I just want to improve it,'' Flake said.

                      ''Unfortunately, what we've been hearing from the people I talked to in Cuba is that it's not about news anymore.
                      It's all Fidel-bashing, and they're not interested in that,'' he said.

                      Lew said Radio and TV Martí will always have enemies in Congress but the operation also has its staunch
                      supporters.

                      They say internal flaps are expected when a new administration takes over.

                      ''There have always been attacks,'' said U.S. Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart, a champion of Radio and TV Martí funding
                      who pushed for the appointment of Lew in July. ``Those who like to see a policy of appeasement with the Cuban
                      dictator are constantly attacking Radio Martí.''

                      Díaz-Balart said Lew should be commended for the changes he has made.

                      ``Everything I've seen points to a dramatic improvement under his stewardship.''

                      NEWS WELCOMED

                      Ambassador Vicki Huddleston, principal officer at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, said human rights activists,
                      opposition leaders and dissident journalists on the island -- who call Radio Martí ''our station'' -- are pleased with
                      the increase in international news.

                      What they want is more news from inside Cuba, such as Cuba's $35 million grain purchase from U.S. suppliers
                      last year.

                      ''Recently, they have asked for more information on the food sales because they don't see the food benefiting
                      people in need in Cuba,'' Huddleston said.

                      EXILE NOSTALGIA

                      But dissidents are also ''quite adamant,'' she said, that Radio Martí not become a station run by the exile
                      community.

                      ''They really don't like programs that reflect prerevolutionary events. They say that this is just nostalgia,''
                      Huddleston said. ``It must be different in tone and substance from Radio Mambí and La Poderosa.''

                      Cubans contacted by The Herald agree. A woman on a visit to Miami last week from Santa Clara said her family
                      listens often in the early morning and late evening because the government's interference is heavier in the middle
                      of the day.

                      ''It is not just a source of news, it is the only source of news. The state-run media tell you nothing,'' she said,
                      citing the December slaying of a family of five, including a couple from Hialeah Gardens.

                      Lew says he knows people are counting his days, but he isn't moving until he is told by Bush himself.

                      ''The president named me, and the president, if he thinks I'm not doing the job, can name someone else,'' he
                      said. ``There have been people who have tried to get me thrown out. But here I am.''