WASHINGTON -- An American citizen who worked for decades for the Marxist government of Cuba and remains an outspoken admirer of President Fidel Castro contributed $62,000 to the Democratic Party and its candidates for the 1996 election, The Herald has learned.

John Henry Cabañas appears to have violated the U.S. embargo on Cuba by working for the Havana government. And two former Cuban intelligence officers say they knew Cabañas as a Cuban counterintelligence agent who spied on foreigners in Havana.

Cabañas flatly denied to The Herald that he ever worked for Cuban intelligence, and said he gave the funds in a completely legal effort to influence U.S. policy makers to lift the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

Cabañas, founder of an airline charter company that arranges flights to Cuba, has raised suspicions among many exiles -- including some who advocate a political dialogue between Washington and Havana -- because he has prospered in business through his high-level contacts in Havana, including his friendship with Castro.

A Key West native who moved to Cuba soon after Castro's revolutionary triumph and lived there for 27 years before returning in 1988, Cabañas defends his activities and politics.

``I am truly, genuinely and convincingly, a precursor and front-row player in the effort to improve relations between my country and Cuba,'' Cabañas said in an interview. ``I am a legitimate American, and I would never do anything . . . to violate the national security of my country.''

There is no evidence that Cabañas' political contributions were illegal or came from a source other than himself, and it is unclear what benefits, if any, his contributions got him. But they add to questions about Clinton administration campaign funding from questionable sources, including Asian businessmen, foreign companies and convicted Cuban-American drug trafficker Jorge Cabrera.

In the wake of a money-raising blitz that produced everything from White House coffees to evening sleep-overs for big donors, the Democratic Party has been forced to return nearly $3 million in contributions. Congress and the FBI are investigating whether laws were broken.

White House special counsel Lanny Davis declined to comment specifically on Cabañas or whether his contributions would be returned.

However, Davis said the president has ordered the Democratic National Committee to have ``tighter screening procedures to review contributions in the future.''

Born in Key West

Cabañas was born in Key West 55 years ago to a Cuban family that has lived in the United States since 1854. He never became a Cuban citizen and says his donations merely reflect his constitutional right to petition his government on policy.

``I want to improve U.S. policy by lifting the embargo on Cuba, with food and medicines as a first step, then broader exchanges of goods, travel opportunities and information,'' he said.

Underlying that effort, Cabañas said, is his unwavering support for the Castro regime.

``I support the revolution very strongly, very passionately,'' he said. ``I am integrated into the revolution in the deepest part of my being . . . I love Fidel like my father, and I believe he loves me like his son.''

Federal records show Cabañas gave $45,000 to the Democratic National Committee in three payments between Dec. 18, 1995, and Election Day 1996. Cabañas, his two sisters and his charter company steered an additional $22,500 to Clinton and Democratic lawmakers.

Breaking into the fund-raising scene in 1995, Cabañas did not penetrate the inner circle of Democratic donors during the last election cycle. He was not even included among the 60 or 70 South Floridians who sipped cocktails and had their photographs snapped with Clinton during fund-raisers in Bal Harbour and at the Biltmore.

Rounding up contributions

Cabañas also gave at least $8,000 to one Republican: Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, who is leading a wide-reaching Senate probe into campaign-funding abuses. Through a legal practice known as bundling, Cabañas rounded up $1,000 contributions from relatives, friends and co-workers and parlayed them into a private meeting with the senator last year.

A registered Republican, Cabañas said he supported Thompson because he believed in his prospects as a candidate for the presidency in 2000.

``To be honest, liberals do not have the authority to be effective on changing Cuba policy,'' Cabañas said.

Thompson's office confirmed Wednesday that Cabañas had met briefly with Thompson, but said the senator was not persuaded to alter his views.

``Senator Thompson's record is fairly clear; he's been hard line on the Cuba issue,'' press secretary Alex Pratt said.

Treasury Department officials say that since 1991 two Cabañas companies, C & T Charters and Caribbean Family and Travel Services, have been licensed to do business with Cuba. As recently as 1994, he was also given U.S. permission to broker a long-distance phone deal on behalf of LDDS, which was the first to win Havana's approval to upgrade telephone service.

In the name of a partner

Obtaining such licenses requires applicants to undergo rigorous vetting, Treasury officials said. But the department's formal authorization for the two travel companies is in the name of a partner, Miami attorney Skip Taylor. It is unclear whether Cabañas' unusual past was carefully scrutinized.

For starters, Cabañas appears to have flouted the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba for decades by spending money and receiving payment for his work on the island before he left in 1988. U.S. law ``prohibits a person from knowingly and willfully engaging in a transaction with Cuba or a Cuban national,'' a Treasury Department lawyer said.

Cabañas argues that he did not violate the embargo because he never worked in offices that were ``juridically'' part of the central Cuban government -- a defense that Treasury officials called irrelevant.

The discrepancy is just one example of how Cabañas has managed to move easily between Cuba and the United States without severing his ties to either land. Moving comfortably between English and Spanish, introducing himself alternately as John Henry and Juan Enrique, Cabañas has found opportunities where others find only obstacles.

Moved to Cuba in 1961

His family helped Fidel Castro and joined the 26 of July Movement when Castro visited Key West in 1955 looking for money to support his revolution against Fulgencio Batista. Then they went against the tide of immigration, moving to Cuba in 1961.

Cabañas graduated from the University of Havana. He worked in the late 1960s for the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples, an ideological outreach agency under the Cuban Communist Party's Central Committee.

In 1970, Cabañas moved to the Cuban Radio and Television Institute, where his job included dealing with foreign journalists. In 1979, he became vice deputy director for an institute spinoff that handled foreign sales and purchases.

But Cabañas was all along a full-time agent of the Interior Ministry's State Security Department, recruited for counterintelligence work because of his perfect English and American background, two former Cuban intelligence officials told The Herald.

Domingo Amuchastegui, a defector who spent 20 years as an Interior Ministry intelligence officer, said he knew Cabañas as a neighbor and fellow militia member, and watched as Cabañas was enlisted in counterintelligence.

Spy-spotting?

His job was to spot spies among foreigners in Cuba, including diplomats, journalists and tourists, Amuchastegui said.

Another former Cuban intelligence official, an ex-major in the Interior Ministry's intelligence section, said he met Cabañas during the filming of a Cuban TV documentary series that detailed Havana's intelligence coups over the CIA. The official, who asked not to be identified, said he also knew Cabañas as a member of Section L, the counterintelligence section.

Cabañas acknowledges knowing both accusers, but mocked their allegations and said he had nothing to hide because his support for Castro was strong and public.

``Write this, write that I am more than someone who would be a mere agent, because an agent works for a salary, takes orders,'' he said. ``Not me. I am a revolutionary. It's a low blow to call me a small-time agent or small-time official. I am rich. Not a millionaire, but rich, and I don't take salaries or orders.

``Write this too,'' he added. ``If Fidel offered me the job of head of military intelligence, I would consider it. I would consider it's a good job, because you get the rank of general, and it would be a steady job with a good future, because this is a government that is stable and will last.''

Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald