By Pascal Fletcher
HAVANA, Dec 23 (Reuters) - Cuba was considering on Wednesday how to react to the expulsion by the United States of three Cuban diplomats at the United Nations, a move which sent a fresh Cold War shiver through an already cool relationship.
Cuban Foreign Ministry officials said they were aware of the U.S. expulsion order but had no immediate response.
U.S. officials said the three Cuban U.N. diplomats were implicated in running a Cuban government spy ring in Florida.
Diplomats at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana -- at least one of whom was the subject of a behind-the-scenes diplomatic row in the last few months -- were preparing for a possible Cuban retaliation, which might include tit-for-tat expulsions by Havana.
Cuba's tightly-controlled state media carried no immediate reports on the ordering out of the Cuban diplomats, so most Cubans were unaware of the news.
Washington broke off diplomatic relations with Havana in 1960, one year after Fidel Castro's revolution which toppled right-wing dictator Fulgencio Batista. It also imposed a trade embargo against the island that still stands.
U.S.-Cuban ties have been almost unremittingly hostile since then, although the levels of hostility have varied and the two sides have recently managed to achieve a rare degree of practical cooperation in areas like immigration and even, albeit sporadically, in operations against drug-smuggling.
But tension is never far below the surface and the authorities of both countries keep a close watch on the activities of each other's diplomats.
In recent months, a diplomat at the U.S. mission in Havana, First Secretary Timothy Brown, was the subject of a heated exchange of diplomatic notes between the two sides, foreign diplomats said.
The notes, whose contents were not made public, concerned Cuban allegations about Brown's activities in Cuba and U.S.
allegations about the response of Cuban security forces.
Cuban authorities initially accused Brown, the U.S.
diplomat who monitors human rights in Cuba, of inciting political dissidents to stage a rare public anti-government demonstration at the Aug. 28 trial of another dissident, who was jailed for three years for ``spreading false information.''
Brown, along with foreign journalists and relatives and supporters of the man on trial, was present outside the Havana courtroom, but he denied inciting any protest.
Another diplomatic protest note, this time from the U.S.
side, which accused Cuban security services of harassing Brown when he attended a Sept. 8 religious procession in Havana in honour of Cuba's Catholic patroness, the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre.
Cuban authorities denied any harassment, although Brown was shadowed everywhere he went during the procession by a Cuban security agent walking at his elbow, and he and other U.S.
diplomats were constantly filmed by a Cuban security cameraman.
Whatever the Cuban reaction is to the latest expulsions by Washington, it is almost certain to be defiant.
President Castro said in October he felt Havana was justified in sending spies to the United States to infiltrate and report on Cuban exile groups planning what he called ``terrorist activities'' against the island. But he denied any spying on U.S. military targets.
17:38 12-23-98
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited