BY ALFONSO CHARDY

In the summer of 1961, 66 young men created one of the first militant organizations in Miami's Cuban exile community: Alpha 66.

Plotting Fidel Castro's demise, they sneaked onto the island with weapons several times in an effort to start a counterrevolution in the 1960s -- some were caught and imprisoned on the communist island for years. By the 1980s, the then-middle-aged exiles were training in the Everglades, still hoping to liberate Cuba on their terms.

Now in the twilight of their lives, the surviving founders of the group and their supporters are gathering near Los Angeles this weekend to map strategy for the post-Fidel era. That Raúl Castro may be Cuba's next designated president only makes Alpha 66 more determined to hasten the end of a regime almost half a century old.

But this time, these old, proud warriors will look to the island's dissidents to help them effect change in Cuba. This time, they aren't so much talking about bearing arms as they are bearing witness to a new generation and reaching out to dissidents.

For an organization that decades ago sparked fear and anger within the Cuban government for frequent raids, the dissident outreach program is a symbolic shift away from violence -- though the group has not given up on that completely.

CALIFORNIA MEETING

Ernesto Díaz Rodríguez, the 68-year-old Alpha 66 secretary general and one of the founders, said his organization will open the Seventh National Congress in Torrance, Calif., with a call ``to reach out to the dissidents and become one with them.''

The group's interest in dissidents within Cuba reflects an ongoing trend in the Cuban-American community.

''The center of gravity of exile politics is now linked intimately with the opposition and with the emergence of a civil society on the island,'' said Damián Fernández, vice provost at Florida International University and director of FIU's Cuban Research Institute. ``So Alpha 66 is part of this trend.''

Another expert on Cuban affairs, María de los Angeles Torres, said Alpha 66 may be too late in joining the dissident bandwagon.

''I think that they have really missed a 20-year window, where the relationships could have been built and would have been very important,'' said Torres, director of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. ``At this stage, there are so many people outside of the particular hard-line, militant organizations of the 1960s that do have relations, not only with dissidents, but with young people, hip-hop [artists], writers, even young bureaucrats.''

The gathering will be the first Alpha 66 congress since the 2004 death of longtime leader Andrés Nazario Sargén, and it comes at a crucial time.

The closing of the Alpha 66 congress on Sunday will coincide with a vote in Cuba's National Assembly in Havana to choose the next president.

Díaz Rodríguez calls the vote ``irrelevant. . . . Until both brothers disappear from the political scene, there can be no change in Cuba.''

Díaz Rodríguez said California was picked because the organization's delegates in that state had been the most energetic in spreading the message of the almost 47-year-old group.

''We wanted to hold the congress there as a tribute to their hard work,'' he said.

SEEKING DIRECTION

The purpose of the congress, he added, is to find new direction -- within certain parameters.

A statement on the Torrance meeting says that henceforth Alpha 66 will seek to work with anti-Castro dissidents in Cuba -- as long as they reject any position that would prolong Raúl Castro's rule.

''In anticipation that the dark system of hate and evil currently governing Cuba is coming to an end,'' the document says, ``we determined to get together on a national scale to find ways to support the effort and sacrifice being made by those in Cuba who were challenging the opprobrious Communist system of the Castro brothers.''

Díaz Rodríguez said among the dissidents he trusts are Martha Beatríz Roque and Oscar Elías Biscet, two of the most prominent leaders perceived as unwilling to compromise with the Castro government. Biscet, a doctor who opposes abortion, is now in jail. Roque, an independent economist who leads the Assembly to Promote Civil Society, has been imprisoned several times.

Reached by phone in Havana on Friday, Roque said she has nothing to do with Alpha 66. Asked if she would accept the group's offer of support, Roque would say only: ``I have no contact with that group, and I do not know what they wish to offer in terms of support.''

Alpha 66 culture secretary Sara Martínez Castro said the organization already has exchanged e-mail messages and telephone calls with dissidents in Cuba offering them help. But she would not identify the dissidents, in an effort to protect them from government reprisals. She said that when dissidents need medicines or office equipment, the group tries to provide supplies.

''We serve as the voice of those who cannot speak inside Cuba,'' said Martínez Castro, 57. She joined Alpha 66 when she was 19, after leaving Cuba in 1970.

Díaz Rodríguez said Alpha 66 would not cooperate with dissidents perceived as willing to make accommodations with the Cuban government. One dissident he cited was Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo, the first Alpha 66 leader, who now lives in Havana.

Originally a rebel army commander during the Cuban revolution, Gutierrez Menoyo broke with Castro and fled to the United States in 1961 with Nazario Sargén. But Gutierrez Menoyo went back and was captured in 1965 during a raid assisted by Díaz Rodríguez.

Gutierrez Menoyo was imprisoned until 1986. He returned to the United States but often traveled to Cuba to try to bring about a negotiated compromise.

In 2003, during one of his visits to Havana, Gutierrez Menoyo made the surprising decision to stay and push for a political opening as a dissident.

While Alpha 66 for decades has been associated with violence, Díaz Rodríguez said his group is no longer involved in paramilitary attacks.

''That's in the past,'' he said, though he is not ready to completely renounce violence. ``If conditions in Cuba demand it and there's a decision by the dissidents to confront, we are morally obligated to rush to their aid.''

In 2006, a Cuban exile who claimed to belong to Alpha 66 was arrested in California with a huge cache of weapons. Díaz Rodríguez said he did not know the man and denied that he belonged to Alpha 66.

For now, Díaz Rodríguez said, the organization merely wants to help dissidents with financial and moral support.

The shift in tactics is significant for a group that once thrived on stealth and sabotage, led by men of action steeped in guerrilla warfare.

Several of the group's founders fought in the mountains against Fulgencio Batista, the dictator whose abrupt departure on New Year's Eve 1958 paved the way for Castro's triumph.

Almost 50 years later, Díaz Rodríguez finds himself as a bridge between the old guard and the new generation that will map Cuba's future.