By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
 Herald Staff Writer

 WASHINGTON -- Florida's senators and their anti-Castro allies on Wednesday
 beat back an attempt by their farm state colleagues to lift important sanctions
 against Cuba and other nations shunned by the United States.

 Sens. Bob Graham and Connie Mack scrambled to blunt a Senate initiative that
 would have ended restrictions on U.S. food and medical sales to Cuba, North
 Korea, Iran, Libya and the Sudan.

 The Floridians' drive turned back a surprisingly strong vote Tuesday night by farm
 state Republicans eager to open up foreign markets for agricultural goods. The
 Senate had voted 78-28 in favor of a proposal by Missouri Sen. John Ashcroft to
 allow unrestricted humanitarian sales to countries designated as ``terrorist''
 nations by the U.S. government.

 Ashcroft, a staunch conservative, had persuaded more than two dozen
 Republican colleagues to abandon their support of the existing U.S. sanctions
 policy toward Cuba on the grounds that it hurts American farmers and innocent
 civilians abroad.

 His amendment would have lifted all unilateral bans on food and medical sales,
 and compelled the President to win congressional approval for any new sanctions
 except in time of war or national peril.

 Ashcroft acknowledged that he was motivated by farmers' calls for relief from a
 proliferation of U.S. sanctions, which they say have crimped profits by closing
 markets abroad. The bill would, he said, assure ``that the livelihoods of U.S.
 farmers and ranchers do not hang in the balance when tyrants and dictators act
 badly.''

 But supporters of the embargo against Cuba, fearing that the Senate vote would
 hand a political victory to Cuban President Fidel Castro, rallied Wednesday
 afternoon and persuaded Ashcroft to modify his bill.

 Mack said the Ashcroft proposal would have effectively subsidized trading with the
 enemy, since the federal government gives out billions in farm support payments.

 ``I oppose trade with tyrants and dictators, and I emphatically oppose subsidized
 trade with terrorist states,'' Mack said.

 Sens. Robert Torricelli of New Jersey and Jesse Helms of North Carolina -- key
 architects of the hard-line policy toward Cuba -- helped secure the change to the
 legislation. It now requires the Clinton administration to license food and medical
 sales to any ``terrorist'' state, which is current policy as far as Cuba is concerned.

 Later Wednesday, the Senate approved a measure that would provide $7.4 billion
 in emergency relief for farmers. The vote was 89-8, with Graham and Mack
 opposed. The House has yet to craft a relief package.