BY FABIOLA SANTIAGO

In the intoxicating days of the Mariel boatlift of 1980, Miami's Cuban radio stations played a pivotal role.

Radio station WQBA La Cubanísima broke the story that launched the boatlift: The Cuban government would allow exiles to travel to Cuba by sea and pick up relatives.

One journalist remembers the voice of Jorge Luis Hernández, WQBA's news director, clamoring with emotion at a key moment: ``¡Qué vengan todos! ¡Qué vengan todos!''

"Let them all come.''

Immediately, Miami Cubans responded. Boats began to leave from Miami docks en route to Havana.

Cuban radio stations went to all-news formats, broadcasting around the clock the names of arrivals in Key West, raising funds, food and clothing for the refugees -- cementing their place in the Cuban community as the primary source of information for exiles.

''The radio stations played a very dramatic, significant role,'' says Roberto Fabricio, then the editor of The Herald's Spanish-language supplement, El Miami Herald.

The plot to involve the radio stations in kick-starting the boatlift had been cooked up in Havana.

CUBAN PREPARATION

Long before Fidel Castro announced he was opening the port of Mariel, his officials were talking about organizing a boatlift with Miami car salesman Napoleón Vilaboa, who had been traveling to the island. When they were ready, the Cuban officials contacted Vilaboa, who tapped Hernández, one of the most recognized voices on Cuban radio, to spread the news.

Almost all of the radio commentators followed Hernández's lead, encouraging people to get their relatives out of Cuba -- except Emilio Milián, the newsman whose legs had been blown off by a car bomb because he denounced exile terrorism in the 1970s. Always the controversial voice of moderation, Milián warned people to beware of ``playing into Fidel's hands.''

Few paid attention; family ties weighed more heavily.

When the boats began to arrive in Key West, Cuban radio again became indispensable as a primary source of news. ''Everybody wanted to know if their relative had arrived, so we sent people to Key West and we broadcast the names as they arrived,'' remembers Salvador Lew, then director of WRHC Cadena Azul.

People were constantly flocking to the radio station, then at Southwest Eighth Street and 22nd Avenue. ''I put the microphones outside; I took the studio outside,'' Lew said. 'All day long, it was, 'So and so has arrived and so and so needs a wheelchair,' and a wheelchair would turn up.''

The breathless broadcasts went on for months with WQBA and WRHC going to an all-news format. A Herald story on April 28, 1980 about efforts to process refugees said Cuban radio had collected about $500,000 earlier that month.

Hernández, who now works for U.S.-government-sponsored Radio Martí as its director, did not want to be interviewed for this report.

In her book Finding Mañana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus, journalist Mirta Ojito also pointed to Hernández as the radio personality who first told listeners that Castro was opening the port of Mariel.

A QUESTION OF RATINGS

Hernández, Ojito says in an e-mail about her book, decided to broadcast the news because he "needed to improve ratings and decided to back the boatlift as a way to attract and keep listeners.''

''He was also motivated by his feelings for Castro and Cuba and all that, but the importance of the ratings in his decision-making process cannot be ignored,'' Ojito says.

Lew acknowledges that Cuban radio, whose ratings were flojito -- soft -- played into Castro's hands.

''It started out as an embarrassment for Castro when a few people asking for asylum turned into 10,000,'' Lew says. ``Then, it all turned into a way for Castro to solve a big problem -- he got rid of 125,000 people hostile to his regime, and among them threw in some criminals and insane people to wreak havoc.''

Now an afternoon show host at La Poderosa 670 AM, Lew says he has one regret: ``Instead of the Cubans coming here from Mariel, we should have been the ones to have invaded Cuba at Mariel.''