Accused INS official lays claim to anti-Castro past

 BY ALFONSO CHARDY

 Accused Cuban spy Mariano Faget Jr. has lived a life filled with ironies.

 He's referred to as a member of Fulgencio Batista's aristocracy, but the vast majority of
 his childhood and all of his adult life have been spent in Miami.

 He's accused of being in league with Fidel Castro, but one of the most terrifying
 moments of his life was being shot at by Castro revolutionaries as a teenager in Cuba.

 He holds a ''secret'' security clearance, but former colleagues at the Immigration and
 Naturalization Service don't recall him ever handling secret or sensitive cases.

 And he's been charged with withholding from his supervisors his involvement in a
 company designed to do business with Cuba, even though there is no evidence
 that the company has ever done a business deal. The address given for its offices
 is a two-story house belonging to one of the partners.

 ''He was just an administrator, someone who moved paper competently,'' said
 Tammy Fox, a former INS prosecutor from 1983 to 1988 who knew Faget. ''The
 really sensitive cases were handled in Washington.''

 Mariano Faget has been the subject of intense speculation ever since the FBI
 announced a month ago that he had been arrested for revealing classified
 information to a childhood friend just before the friend was to meet with Cuban
 officials. But a search through Mariano Faget's life turns up little that suggests
 intrigue.

 He took a job as a government interpreter at age 20 because his father could no
 longer work, and he later sought a mid-level bureaucrat's post so he could spend
 more time with his family. He once sold Amway products to bring in extra money.
 He was looking forward to retirement in July.

 ''I was looking forward to a change in my life,'' Faget said. ''I had no definite idea
 about what I was going to do, just general plans about either becoming a
 stockbroker or a consultant to an immigration lawyer.''

 Now those plans are on hold as Faget fights to stay out of prison -- and to restore
 his reputation.

 ANTI-COMMUNIST LEGACY

 Mariano Faget Sr. ferrets out suspected communists in Cuba

 Mariano Faget Jr. is Cuban-born almost by accident. When he entered the world
 July 2, 1945, his parents actually lived in a one-story house south of Flagler
 Street in Miami.

 Faget's father and his wife, Elena, had moved to Miami after Gen. Fulgencio
 Batista, who had been Cuba's strongman since the early 1930s, stepped down in
 1944.

 Always a Batista supporter, the elder Faget had made a name for himself as a
 police officer during the early years of World War II by ferreting out German and
 Japanese spies in Cuba, including the owner of a women's clothing store whose
 information to the German high command about ship movements in Havana
 harbor led to the torpedoing of allied ships off Florida's coast. The store owner
 was executed.

 ''Since that time, the word in Cuba -- at high levels of the Batista government --
 was that Faget was the FBI's man in Cuba,'' recalled Pedro Aloma, a former
 Havana councilman who now lives in Miami.

 Batista's departure touched off a purge of Batistianos. Dozens of officers chose to
 leave Cuba in 1944, among them Faget Sr.

 Faget Sr. took to designing one-story, single-family homes in Miami. Elena
 became pregnant, and in the summer of 1945, nine months pregnant, returned to
 Havana to see her family doctor. She went into labor and Mariano was born in the
 Havana suburb of Santos Suarez.

 But Havana in those days was no place for a Batistiano to raise a family, and
 Elena and Mariano Jr. returned to Miami when he was 1 month old.

 In 1951, little Mariano enrolled at Auburndale Elementary, 3255 SW Sixth Street,
 across the street, Faget remembers, from his home. Later, the Fagets would
 move to a house at 75 SW 32nd Ct. Rd..

 ''My first memory is going to class at Auburndale and speaking English, to the
 surprise of my classmates who didn't think that someone with a Spanish surname
 could speak English,'' Faget recalls.

 Little Mariano was a second-grader when on March 10, 1952, Batista suddenly
 returned to power -- overthrowing President Carlos Prio Socarras in Havana.

 And on July 26, 1953, Faget was in third grade when Castro undertook his first
 armed assault on the Batista regime.

 By 1956, Castro had been freed from jail, sent into exile and had returned to Cuba
 with a clandestine guerrilla group. Batista summoned Faget's father, who was still
 a lieutenant colonel in the Cuban National Police, back to Cuba to head the
 Bureau for Repression of Communist Activities or BRAC, its Spanish acronym.

 It was an important job for Faget Sr., but Faget Jr. was not thrilled to leave Miami.

 ''I grew up here,'' he says. ''My friends were here.''

 He was so homesick that at one point his father flew a group of his classmates to
 Havana for a week of fun.

 Eventually, however, Havana grew on Faget Jr. He attended classes at the private
 Colegio Cima where the children of many Batista military and police officers were
 enrolled.

 Around this time, Faget Jr. met Pedro Font, a man almost four years older who
 was then a young investigator at Faget's father's BRAC office. The meeting was to
 prove fateful. Font is the man to whom Faget is accused of leaking secrets.

 SON IS TARGETED

 Mariano becomes the object of kidnap conspiracies in Havana and Miami

 As the months went on, Cuba became increasingly dangerous for people with
 Batista connections. In 1957, Cuban intelligence officials discovered a plot to kill
 or kidnap Faget Jr. at Colegio Cima. The boy's physical education teacher was
 involved.

 ''My father decided that it was not safe for me or my mother to be in Havana,''
 Faget said. ''He sent us back to Miami.''

 The Miami police chief, Walter Headley, ordered round-the-clock protection for the
 young Faget and his mother, who were back at the house on 32nd Court Road.
 Faget enrolled in Shenandoah Middle School.

 But within three months, Miami police uncovered a plot by Castro supporters in
 Miami to kidnap him.

 ''So my mother and I packed up again and went back to Cuba,'' Faget recalls.
 ''This time, my father had me under virtual lockup. I couldn't go out because the
 Castro revolutionaries were everywhere.''

 Once, Faget Jr. went for a bike ride in town when a man in a car opened fire with
 a machine gun. Faget believes the gunman was shooting at him. He ducked and
 bullets struck a wall behind him. It was 1958. Faget's brief time in Cuba was
 coming to an end.

 Faget still remembers the call that came to the Faget household at midnight on
 Dec. 31.

 ''My father picked up the phone and was told that Batista was leaving,'' he says.
 ''After he put down the phone, he told me 'Put on your best suit.' I saw my mom
 getting dressed in a nice gown and I asked her, 'What's going on? Where are we
 going?' and she said to me, 'We're going to a party.' ''

 But instead of a party, the Faget family headed for Camp Columbia, a military
 airfield where planes were already lined up on runways -- their engines running.

 The first plane to leave was Batista's. The third was the Fagets', which flew to
 New Orleans.

 As the C-47 took off, heading north, Faget Jr. peeked out.

 ''My last view of Havana were the blue flashes of guns fired by Castro rebels
 shooting up at the planes,'' Faget said. Batista's government had fallen. In a week
 Castro would be in Havana.

 The C-47 cargo plane was packed with Batista officials. It left Havana at 3 a.m.
 Jan. 1, 1959 -- just after Batista himself fled.

 Faget said his father chose New Orleans as the plane's destination, in
 consultation with the pilot, because he was afraid that Miami was swarming with
 Castro sympathizers.

 Faget was 13.

 Within days, the Faget family was contacted by the elder Faget's CIA and FBI
 associates and was taken to a CIA safe house near Washington, D.C.

 After three weeks there, the family flew home to Miami.

 In 1960, Faget enrolled at Miami Senior High School. The family moved so Faget
 Jr. could be within walking distance of the school.

 Also in 1960, an old acquaintance from Cuba arrived: The person was Font.

 He started visiting the family frequently until he moved to South America to
 pursue business opportunities several years later, Faget said.

 When the CIA began recruiting exiles in Miami for the ill-fated 1961 Bay of Pigs
 invasion, Faget Jr. volunteered but was rejected because he was too young.

 The 1963 edition of Miahi, Miami Senior High's yearbook, contains a picture of the
 young Faget and lists him as a member of the Pan American Club, a group that --
 according to the publication -- was organized ''to further understanding between
 North American and Latin American students.''

 BECOMING AN AMERICAN

 Faget Jr. becomes a U.S. citizen on the day John F. Kennedy is assassinated

 Eduardo Padron, also a Miami Senior High graduate and now president of
 Miami-Dade Community College, remembers founding the Pan American Club
 and meeting Faget.

 ''He was an outgoing, popular and helpful person,'' Padron recalled.

 What impressed Padron most was Faget's English.

 ''I had just arrived from Cuba myself and didn't know English like he did, and he
 did a lot to help me find my way around the school,'' Padron said.

 While Faget attended classes, his father went to work at the INS -- helping the
 CIA and the FBI screen the growing numbers of Cuban refugees.

 After graduating in June 1963, Faget began preparing for his U.S. citizenship test.
 He was sworn in as an American citizen on Nov. 22, 1963, the day President
 John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

 Faget also enrolled at Dade County Junior College, where he received an
 associate of arts degree. Then he volunteered for the U.S. Army Reserve.

 In 1965, his father suffered a detached retina and stopped working full time.

 Faget applied to the INS as an interpreter. He was hired and was assigned to help
 immigration inspectors interview the first wave of seaborne Cuban refugees from
 the Cuban port of Camarioca.

 In 1970, Faget applied for a higher INS position, as entry-level clerk. He got it.

 The promotion was fateful. That's how he met his wife, Maria.

 A Cuban refugee herself, whose family arrived in 1962, Maria had gone to the INS
 to request a citizenship application form.

 Faget was the INS clerk on duty, filling in for an absent employee.

 ''We would have never met if the regular employee had been there,'' Maria now
 recalls.

 When she returned a few days later with the completed form, Mariano was waiting
 for her.

 ''He asked for my phone number and I gave it to him because I thought he looked
 like a very honest guy,'' Maria Faget recalls. ''Later, he told me he wanted to go
 out with me because it was love at first sight.''

 They went to a movie theater on Coral Way on their first date. The movie was The
 Out of Towners, a 1970 Neil Simon screenplay starring Jack Lemon.

 On Sept. 5, 1971, they exchanged vows and celebrated at a party hall in Coral
 Gables.

 ''That was a good day,'' Maria Faget recalls, fighting back tears. ''It's the best
 marriage anyone could have asked for.''

 The couple moved to a small house in Southwest Dade, where they began raising
 a family.

 Faget began moving up the ladder at the INS. He was promoted to immigration
 inspector and posted at Miami International Airport in 1971. In 1977, he was given
 an immigration examiner's position at INS headquarters. By then, both his
 parents had died of cancer: his father in 1972 and his mother in 1975.

 ''I changed jobs because the work at the district office offered regular hours and I
 wanted to see my children more,'' he said.

 In 1979, after some Miami Cuban Americans spearheaded an effort to improve
 relations with Cuba, Faget was assigned to help process the 3,600 political
 prisoners released by Cuba as a sign of good will.

 Faget said the INS wanted to send him to Havana to do the processing there, but
 the Cuban government rejected him because of his father's past.

 In 1980, Faget played a key role in interviewing many of the 100,000 refugees who
 fled Cuba during the Mariel boat lift. And he got himself in trouble for labeling them
 as vagrants and low-class people.

 ''Someone from the White House called and asked me to describe the people who
 were arriving, and they didn't like what they heard, because President Carter was
 planning to say he welcomed these refugees with open arms and open hearts,
 and my supervisors pulled me out of Key West and back to Miami the next day,''
 Faget said.

 Faget today doesn't deny making the remarks, but he says he does regret them.

 ''In hindsight, I no longer believe that the majority of Mariel Cubans were low-class
 or criminals or homosexuals or lesbians,'' Faget said.

 By the 1990s, Faget had become well known to refugee rights advocates,
 particularly those representing Haitian and Cuban immigrants. He headed a
 refugee subcommittee that was part of a broader organization known as the
 Miami Area Refugee Task Force.

 A task force member, who asked not to be identified, said Faget surprised some
 participants at the meetings because he was often critical of INS policies.

 ''He was very open,'' the task force member recalled. ''He would tell us stuff about
 INS policy. I would say he was indiscreet.''

 Other immigration attorneys said Faget seemed devoted to his job.

 ''He showed up to work at 6:15 or 6:30 a.m.,'' remembers Mary Kramer, an
 attorney who befriended Faget. ''Employees liked him very, very much, and the
 attorneys respected him.''

 He also tried to recruit some of the attorneys to sell Amway products, Kramer
 recalled.

 ''It was part of his enterprising streak,'' she said.

 Maria Faget said she and her husband stopped selling Amway products because
 it was difficult to convince other people to join.

 A SUDDEN ENDING

 Faget was arrested after he allegedly took the bait in an espionage sting

 The fateful act that led to Faget's downfall at the INS was a two-minute telephone
 conversation that he had with his old friend, Pedro Font. In it, Faget revealed the
 name of a Cuban official that Faget had just been told would be defecting from
 Cuba.

 In fact, the official wasn't about to defect; Faget had been given the name to see
 whether he would leak it and give federal officials the evidence they were seeking
 to arrest him. No evidence has been made public suggesting that Font then
 passed the name to Cuban officials, and Font has not been charged. Font
 declined comment.

 When the FBI first announced Faget's arrest, a week after his telephone call to
 Font, Faget was accused of ''knowingly and willfully'' disclosing secret
 information, even if it was the fabricated defection story, without regard to the
 ''injury'' that such action could cause the United States. He also was charged with
 lying to a federal agent because he had not revealed how well he knew the Cuban
 official who reportedly was going to defect.

 When the indictment was announced March 3, federal officials added three
 charges. One of the new allegations in the indictment was that Faget had violated
 INS rules by not getting authorization to engage in business or employment
 outside the agency.

 Faget says now that he was just speaking out of turn to a friend, not committing
 espionage for Cuba. He says his meetings with Cuban officials have been blown
 out of proportion by the government -- that he was not passing secrets but trying
 to find out when it would be possible to do business with Cuba.

 He says the America-Cuba company in which he and Font were partners was
 more talk than business. He says he wasn't even a partner when the company
 was originally formed in 1993 but joined in 1996 or 1997 when one of the original
 partners dropped out.

 ''It was Font who came up with the idea of America-Cuba with a view to getting
 ready for Castro's downfall, because at the time everybody believed that his days
 were numbered,'' Faget said.

 The business was just an idea, which is why he never thought to advise his
 supervisors at the INS about it, he said. ''I mean, I didn't get paid and we didn't do
 anything,'' Faget said. ''If we met twice a year, it was a lot.''

 Faget said meetings with Cuban officials had nothing to do with secrets.

 ''All our discussions had to do about the business of the company and how we
 could sell goods to Cuba once the embargo was lifted, and political and
 ideological changes occurred,'' Faget said.

 A phone call from his home to the Cuban Interests Section was simply his
 returning a message left by Cuban official Luis Molina, Faget said. ''I didn't know
 where I was calling,'' he said. ''I was simply returning Molina's call.''

 Faget said the Cuban officials did not ask questions about his job or about
 immigration issues.

 Even his secret security clearance has been blown out of proportion, he says.
 Faget said he seldom handled documents stamped ''Secret.''

 ''Those documents are in a vault, and I can't remember in the last 11 or 12 years
 that I pulled out three or four files that were classified,'' Faget says.

 People who have worked closely with Faget at the INS say they do not recall
 instances in which he was directly involved in intelligence or sensitive law
 enforcement cases.

 Still, Faget knows that he is in serious trouble. And he is despondent.

 Clad in his bright orange jail uniform, Faget spoke about his life during a 2
 1/2-hour interview last week at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami.
 He seemed subdued but pleased to discuss his background. He cried whenever
 he talked about his wife.

 ''My whole life has been to achieve the American dream and my values are the
 values of my father, who was very anti-communist and very pro-American,'' Faget
 said. ''He once told me, after Castro had taken over Cuba, 'We lost our country
 and we have no place else to go if we lose this one.' ''

 Herald Staff Researcher Liz Donovan and Staff Writers Don Bohning and Juan
 Tamayo contributed to this report.