MIAMI (Reuters) -- Secretary of State Madeleine Albright Friday vowed
                  the U.S. government would support Radio and TV Marti broadcasts to
                  Cuba despite criticism the stations are a money-wasting propaganda outlet
                  for Miami's hardline Cuban exiles.

                  "The Clinton administration supports your efforts," she said at a ceremony
                  opening the new Miami offices of Radio and TV Marti.

                  "We will fight for your budget. We will defend your mission. We will
                  continue working to overcome the jamming of your programmes," Albright
                  said.

                  Radio and TV Marti -- funded by the government at $23 million per year --
                  have long been castigated as megaphones for the rhetoric of exiles most
                  staunchly opposed to Cuba's Communist President Fidel Castro.

                  This fall, a report by five journalists associated with Miami's Florida
                  International University found substantive evidence of right-wing bias and
                  rhetoric at both stations. A show billed as a balanced discussion of the U.S.
                  trade embargo, for example, gave air time only to two pro-embargo
                  Cuban-American U.S. lawmakers.

                  At the same time, critics in Congress fought unsuccessfully to stop funding
                  TV Marti, which is jammed by Cuba and almost impossible to see anywhere
                  on the Caribbean island.

                  "My view of that is that Radio and TV Marti have very little to do with the
                  Cuban people. It's a domestic political issue," said John Nichols, a
                  communications professor at Penn State University, and an expert on the
                  stations.

                  "You have hawks, who'd just as soon go in and send the 82nd Airborne in
                  and bomb the hell out of Cuba. And then you've got doves, who would
                  prefer that the whole issue goes away ...

                  These are irreconcilable," he said.

                  The broadcasts were a compromise, he said. "It is far short of the military
                  action but at least you are doing something, you are shouting at them, you
                  are sending them propaganda."

                  Radio Marti was created by Congress in 1983. TV Marti was started in
                  1990. The board that oversees both operations was directed by Jorge Mas
                  Canosa, the founder of the Cuban American National Foundation, the most
                  prominent hardline exile organisation, until his death in 1997.

                  Miami's Cuban exile community sang Albright's praises in 1996 for her
                  strong anti-Castro words after Cuban fighter jets shot down two small
                  planes belonging to the Miami-based Cuban exile group Brothers to the
                  Rescue.

                  In a remark that became a local legend, Albright said bluntly of the attack:
                  "Frankly, this is not cojones (balls).

                  This is cowardice."

                  Albright referred to that remark on Friday, when she dismissed criticism that
                  Radio and TV Marti are not effective because they fail to reach the Cuban
                  people.

                  "To that I can only reply with a term of diplomatic art, 'Balderdash.' Or to
                  add to my Spanish vocabulary, 'tonterias,"' she said, using a Spanish word
                  for a stupid remark.

                  The broadcasts clearly bothered the Cuban government, she said. "From the
                  first day it has done all it could to keep your programming from reaching its
                  intended audience. That is ...

                  the evidence of fear."

                  But Albright's star has dimmed among Cuban-Americans recently as the
                  Clinton administration eased the U.S. embargo against Cuba to increase
                  direct charter passenger flights and increase remittances to families.

                  The actions are intended to make life easier for Cubans living in the United
                  States and those remaining in their homeland, Albright said.

                  "We have to encourage independent civil society, recognising the limitations
                  of what is now possible, but recognising as well the need to prepare for a
                  peaceful and democratic transition," she said.

                  A handful of demonstrators posted signs and Cuban flags across the street
                  from Radio and TV Marti's headquarters, a bunker-like building in a Miami
                  warehouse district.

                  Protester John Smithies-Fernandez said he opposed any easing of the
                  embargo. He held a sign saying: "Madam Secretary: Tell Mr. Clinton it takes
                  'cojones' to get rid of Castro."

                   Copyright 1999 Reuters.