HAVANA -- (AP) -- American writers Arthur Miller and William Styron and
 Colombian literary great Gabriel Garcia Marquez discussed everything from World
 War II to the battle over 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez during a dinner with Fidel
 Castro that stretched into early Saturday.

 Later, three of the most famous writers of the 20th century made a pilgrimage to
 the former residence of another literary giant -- the late Ernest Hemingway.

 ``It was stimulating and provocative -- and quite long,'' Styron said of the dinner
 meeting with the Cuban president. ``It was a very exciting occasion.''

 ``He talked about everything in the world,'' Miller added in an interview with
 Associated Press Television News during a tour of Hemingway's former
 residence, the ``Finca Vigia,'' now a carefully restored museum on the outskirts of
 Havana.

 Miller and Styron are in Cuba for a trip aimed at increasing contact between
 American and Cuban intellectuals. They were to meet Sunday with Cuban writers,
 actors and playwrights before returning to the United States.

 They also met with a leading Cuban human rights activist, Elizardo Sanchez, to
 hear his views on civil liberties in the communist country. They also visited
 Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly, and Castro's point man
 on Cuban-U.S. relations.

 Garcia Marquez, who arrived separately in Cuba before the Americans, is a
 frequent visitor to Cuba and a personal friend of Castro. The Nobel prize laureate
 is known best for his novel ``One Hundred Years of Solitude.''

 Miller was accompanied by his wife, photographer Inge Morath.

 The 85-year-old playwright is probably best known for the Pulitzer-Prize winning
 ``Death of a Salesman'' and Tony-Award winning ``The Crucible,'' which looked at
 anti-Communist witchhunts in the United States during the Cold War.

 Cubans especially remember Miller as a former husband of the late actress
 Marilyn Monroe.

 Styron came with his wife, poet Rosa Styron. The 75-year-old novelist is author of
 the Pulitzer Prize-winning ``The Confessions of Nat Turner,'' as well as ``Sophie's
 Choice.''

 Also in the delegation was Bill Luers, president of the U.S. United Nations
 Association and a former State Department official who during the Carter
 administration negotiated the opening of the U.S. Interests Section in 1977.

 The U.S. Embassy had been closed since Havana and Washington broke
 diplomatic relations in 1961 and the interests section allowed the United States to
 represent American interests here under the flag of the Swiss Embassy.

 The delegation also includes: Wendy Luers, member of the board of directors of
 the National Endowment for the Arts and president of The Foundation for a Civil
 Society; renowned literary agent Morton Janklow and his wife, Linda Janklow,
 president of the Lincoln Center Theatre.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald