Two media outlets may start up late this year or early next year

 BY DON BOHNING

 Years of persistence and the personal involvement of top company officers were
 the most important factors in persuading the Cuban government to allow them to
 open the first U.S. newspaper bureaus in Havana in four decades, news
 executives say.

 Officials of both The Dallas Morning News and the Tribune Co., an 11-newspaper
 chain including the Chicago Tribune, The Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale and The
 Orlando Sentinel, say they hope to have their bureaus up and running by late this
 year or early next year.

 They will join CNN television, which opened a bureau in 1997, and the Associated
 Press, which followed a year later, as the only American media companies with
 offices in the Cuban capital.

 In the case of both the Tribune Company and the Dallas Morning News, editors
 say, the Cuban government's agreement culminated efforts that began in the early
 1990s included numerous trips to Cuba by top executives of their organizations.

 ``We have been discussing this with the Cuban government for nine years,'' said
 George de Lama, the Chicago Tribune's associate managing editor for foreign and
 national news, and one of those actively involved in the effort.
 1991 TRIP

 The first trip to Cuba by top Tribune officials, including some from both Florida
 papers, came in September 1991, said de Lama. ``The [Soviet Union] had just
 collapsed a couple of weeks before . . . there was tremendous interest in what
 might happen in Cuba. . . . With interest surging, we thought the time was right to
 get a foot in the door. It was the first time we formally requested to open a
 bureau.''

 ``It's been a longstanding effort,'' said de Lama, including the ``personal
 involvement and commitment by John Madigan,'' the Tribune Company's chairman
 and chief executive officer.

 De Lama emphasized that the Tribune office will be ``not just the Chicago Tribune
 but a Tribune Company effort . . . all along the idea was for a Tribune Company
 bureau jointly staffed by the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Sentinel and the Orlando
 Sentinel to a lesser extent.''

 Sun-Sentinel Editor Earl Maucker noted that he had been to Cuba three times
 himself and ``we continued to let the government know that we felt the region was
 of vital interest to our readers and felt strongly we ought to have a presence.''
 VISAS ISSUED

 In the last five or six years, said Maucker, Sun-Sentinel reporters had been
 issued visas routinely, and ``we have taken every opportunity we have had to go
 down and express our interest.''

 ``One of the things we stressed,'' said de Lama, ``is that the Chicago Tribune has
 more than a 100-year tradition of covering Cuba. We had our own correspondent
 there during the Spanish-American War, and the Tribune was among the first
 American newspapers to editorialize for independence from Spain.''

 At the Dallas Morning News, Richardo Chavira, assistant managing editor for
 national and international news who spearheaded the paper's bureau effort, said
 the subject was first broached in a tentative fashion with Cuban officials in 1994.

 Subsequently, Chavira said in a telephone interview, the newspaper's executives
 visited Havana periodically for discussions with Cuban Foreign Ministry officials
 and Ricardo Alarcón, the president of Cuba's National Assembly and a longtime
 key diplomat in U.S.-Cuba relations.

 ``Their response got to be more forthcoming over the course of the years. We
 were told that the decision would be taken carefully, that it was not something to
 be done lightly since it was wrapped up in U.S.-Cuba relations,'' said Chavira.

 In September 1998, the Dallas paper hosted a conference on Cuba that involved
 both U.S. and Cuban participants, including Michael Kozak, then head of the U.S.
 diplomatic mission in Havana, and Fernando Remírez, head of the Cuban mission
 in Washington.

 ``That signaled to the Cubans the seriousness with which we took this [a
 bureau],'' said Chavira.

 Chavira says they were told by Cuban officials they got the bureau in part
 because ``you covered the story fairly and completely. We don't always like the
 stories but at least we have our say.'' He also attributes the authorization to the
 fact that the newspaper ``continued to stay engaged . . . to have discussions and
 not let it drop.''

 A bureau in Havana, says Chavira, ``is a big deal for us. We're not a national
 paper but a regional paper where the powers that be want a bigger presence in
 Latin America.''