CUBANS AT SEA, GOING BOTH DIRECTIONS

What's the scoop on our man in Havana? "The king is dead," some say. Speculation inside Cuba is that Fidel Castro is totally out of it, already deceased, or playing some kind of a trick. The mystery is because the news before and after Fidelissimo's surgery came from government spokespeople, not the big guy himself.

The government in Havana announced a few days ago that Fidel handed the keys over to his brother, Raul, who will be the new warden. Turmoil prevails on the island. Fidel has been everything - the only thing - to 11 million Cubans for half a century. The world's best neighborhood watch program is now active day and night, especially in districts where dissent is strongest. The Cuban exiles in Miami are stirring and celebrating the possible change in circumstances. Many of them would head back home if Cuban officials became receptive to them.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress is planning to throw about $80 million to anti-Castro groups in Cuba who would erase the revolution in favor of American style freedom. One can't forget that this has been done many times before - in Iran, Chile, El Salvador, Iraq, Nicaragua, Viet Nam, etc. - with mixed results. After funding the CIA's many attempts to murder the Cuban leader, Congress is now anxious to take advantage of his apparent demise.

On the day of the news about Fidel, President Bush said, "We want Cubans to gain their freedom." Oh oh! Another Bay of Pigs! Will the Cubans throw flowers at our liberators? How soon will this mission be accomplished?

There seems to be little doubt that Fidel is passing from the scene. If Raul is weak or warms up to his northern neighbors (us), you'll see a crowded sea between Florida and Cuba. Visualize convoys of filled-to-capacity boats fleeing Cuba's security with its free schooling, free health care and subsidized housing for the land of opportunity with untold opportunities and pitfalls. They'll trade security for liberty.

On the sea, they will pass exiled countrymen going back to their pre-Castro home. What irony, nostalgia and excitement. Aged folks will visit the homes they left when the revolution got too hot. Fidel and Che and Raul chased the Batista loyalists and punished them. More than 500 were executed at speedy, no appeal trials held in a baseball park. Those charged with crimes against the people were judged at home plate and shot in centerfield the same day. At least a half million opponents of Fidel fled to Florida, where they set up shop to harrangue the Communist regime by radio broadcasts and clandestine projects inside Cuba.

Watch for a spectacle of flotillas, headed north and south. You shall see Cubans escaping while exiled Cubans rush to the island nation. Both have freedom on their minds, and deserve to find what they are seeking. Neither has had it easy.