HAVANA (AP) -- Illinois Gov. George Ryan arrived in Havana on
                  Saturday on the first visit by a U.S. governor since Fidel Castro's 1959
                  revolution -- a mission Cuba welcomed as a sign of eroding support for the
                  U.S. embargo.

                  Ryan was leading a 45-member delegation of state, business, religious and
                  university leaders on a five-day visit to the communist island. He planned to
                  present more than $1 million worth of humanitarian supplies donated by
                  private firms.

                  The trip was in line with a Clinton administration policy, unveiled earlier this
                  year, of encouraging direct contacts between the United States and the
                  Cuban people. Ryan's ambitious agenda reflected a desire to make the most
                  of it.

                  Highlighting the schedule were meetings with high-ranking Cuban officials
                  and Cuban dissidents; visits to medical centers, schools, farms, churches,
                  museums; and a speech at the University of Havana. It wasn't known if Ryan
                  would meet with President Fidel Castro.

                  Cuba's Foreign Ministry welcomed the visit as "a reflection of the growing
                  rejection by different sectors of United States society towards the current
                  hostile policy and embargo against Cuba." The Communist Party
                  newspaper, Granma, ran a brief biography of Ryan on its front page
                  Saturday.

                  Anti-Castro groups in the United States denounced the trip, saying Ryan
                  was lending credibility to Castro and a government responsible for rights
                  abuses.

                  At a time when commodities prices are at record lows, some U.S.
                  lawmakers have taken another look at easing the embargo, first adopted in
                  1962, or eliminating it altogether. Ryan favors ending it, though he has said
                  that U.S. policy toward Cuba is not the focus of his trip.

                  Cuba imports nearly $1 billion in food and medicine each year, Cuban
                  officials told visiting U.S. senators in August.

                  This week, the U.S. Senate was scheduled to vote on legislation that would
                  require Congress' approval for the president to use food and medicine as
                  part of an embargo.

                  On Friday, Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban National Assembly,
                  criticized U.S. measures allowing restricted sales of U.S. food and medicine
                  to Cuba. He said the embargo's impact made it impossible to buy those
                  goods.

                  A State Department official rejected the criticisms, saying that "the
                  justification for a failed economic system constantly seems to be changing."

                  Ryan initially had described the trip as a trade mission but more recently
                  called it a "humanitarian" mission because of the trade ban.

                  Still, U.S. agribusiness, pharmaceuticals and medical firms sent
                  representatives, including food manufacturer Archer Daniels Midland Corp.,
                  the John Deere Foundation, affiliated with tractor maker Deere and Co., and
                  Baxter International.

                  Elizardo Sanchez, a prominent Cuban dissident, welcomed Ryan's visit,
                  saying it was in "the greater interests of the U.S. and Cuban peoples" by
                  promoting "better relations between both countries." Sanchez heads the
                  Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

                    Copyright 1999 The Associated Press.