BY CAROL ROSENBERG

 U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch -- in what is thought to be the first visit to Cuba by a
 member of Congress from Florida -- posed as a tourist for two days in Havana this
 week to clandestinely meet with dissidents.

 The Weston Democrat, an outspoken critic of Fidel Castro, said Friday that he
 had traveled under his own name but left his congressional identification card
 behind and wore a Florida Marlins baseball cap to blend in. He dropped in
 unannounced on 15 well-known dissidents, he said.

 Deutsch, 42, a longtime supporter of the U.S. embargo against Cuba, used his
 name and U.S. passport to check into the Nacional Hotel but said he believed his
 presence was never detected by Cuban security authorities.

 At the Nacional, he bumped into a Washington-based U.S. journalist and,
 separately, an anti-embargo colleague from Congress, Rep. Maurice Hinchley,
 D-N.Y. The journalist and Hinchley were on officially sanctioned trips.

 ``It was incredibly interesting and useful. I have a much better perspective, it's a
 bizarre place,'' Deutsch said in a telephone interview on his return to Washington.
 ``I don't think there's a person there that wants to be there, except for maybe high
 government officials.''

 Deutsch said his trip violated Cuban laws because he was not really a tourist and
 sought out dissidents. But it was legal from a U.S. standpoint because he
 obtained a Treasury Department permit.

 Deutsch, whose congressional district includes portions of Miami-Dade, Broward
 and Monroe counties, arrived on a package tour from Cancun at about 11 p.m.
 Tuesday and left Friday morning.

 ``It's an evil empire,'' he said. ``People hold hands in the street and have wonderful
 families and everything else. But the government is a repressive entity in every
 aspect of their life.''

 Deutsch decided to take the trip as a tourist, he said, after being refused a formal
 visa to go by the Cuban government several years ago. His visit was sponsored
 by The Center for a Free Cuba, a pro-democracy group that encourages Cuban
 dissidents.

 MEDICAL SUPPLIES

 Deutsch brought with him hypertension medicine and vitamins for some of the
 dissidents, he said, as well as a bra for a woman cancer patient.

 A colleague also brought along leaflets portraying a smiling Elian Gonzalez, the
 6-year-old child at the center of a custody dispute, he said, because he had heard
 that Cubans see only unhappy pictures of the child in Miami.

 Center for a Free Cuba Director Frank Calzon said none of his nonprofit's
 $500,000 U.S. Agency for International Development grant was used for the
 Deutsch trip. Rather, Calzon paid for the trip with donations from Cuban-American
 supporters and others.

 The Cuba package tour cost about $700, Deutsch said. Calzon also picked up
 the tab for a round-trip ticket between Washington and Cancun, which Deutsch
 said he would report under Capitol Hill disclosure rules.

 Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., was surprised Friday to learn of the secret
 mission but said his South Florida colleague had told him ``for a couple of years
 now that he planned to go to Cuba to meet with dissidents and see how he can
 help the internal opposition.''

 OPTIMISTIC OUTLOOK

 Asked whether he thought the trip was a good idea, he replied: ``Hopefully, there
 will finally be a United States congressman who will not come back either
 brainwashed . . . or having had a pro-Castro agenda.''

 Trips by members of Congress to Cuba have become more frequent in recent
 years, but most have been either part of official congressional delegations or as
 guests of the Cuban government. Most Congress members come back opposing
 the embargo as counterproductive.

 Rather than make appointments in advance, Deutsch said he used freelance taxis
 and had drivers drop him off a block or more from the dissidents' homes. Then he
 would arrive, unannounced, after walking the wrong way up a one-way street.

 Among those he met -- and videotaped for possible future broadcast -- were
 dissidents Gustavo Arcos, Raul Ribero and Elizardo Sanchez. He also met a
 physician named Hilda Molina, who repeatedly has been denied a permit to visit a
 daughter and granddaughter in Argentina. ``Obviously, the issue of family
 reunification is very topical now,'' he said.