``In a way,'' he said in the presence of President Clinton and the First Lady, ``to be indifferent to suffering is what makes the human being inhuman.''

Wiesel's prophetic words now appear to have fallen on deaf ears. Each day the Clinton administration seems to be moving further and further away from the moral high ground when it comes to U.S.-Cuba policy and the plight of the Cuban people under Fidel Castro's tyranny.

The administration's ill-conceived and ill-timed baseball diplomacy has shifted the focus of debate around the world away from the ruthless Castro regime's human-rights abuses to banal, senseless chatter about batting averages, wood vs. aluminum and outfield padding.

In March, the headlines condemning the Cuban government's crackdown on dissent were wiped off the front pages when the administration responded to the brutality with the words Play ball! Now serious discussion about the stinging rebuke of the Cuban regime by the United Nations Human Rights Commission has yielded to yet- another baseball game.

The two games trivialize the Cuban experience and have served only those who selfishly advocate rapprochement with the Cuban dictator.

Consider: Just as average Cubans were denied tickets to the March game in Havana, Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos impeded Cuban Americans at Monday's game in Camden Yards from exercising their First Amendment rights, denying their right peaceably to express their disapproval of a grossly politicized spectacle.

Ironically but by no means surprisingly, Angelos made it easy for pro-Castro sympathizers, such as the fringe ``Pastors for Peace,'' to get seats. So much for ``people-to-people contact.'' Where have you gone, indeed, Joe DiMaggio?

As international public opinion at last begins to turn against the Cuban government and entire societies take a stand to address crimes against humanity in the Balkans, the Clinton White House incomprehensibly fails to exercise the seriousness of purpose that one expects of the leader of the Free World when it comes to promoting Cuba's liberty.

As Castro's 300-member delegation arrived in Baltimore -- only 25 players among them, the rest mostly State Security -- four human-rights leaders languished in his political prisons, and prominent activist Leonel Morejon Almagro, fearing for the fate of his family and compatriots, issued an impassioned appeal to the world for solidarity.

Sports have long been a favored ploy of politics, and especially of tyrants in desperate need of propaganda to distract attention from all that is vile in their systems. Witness the Soviet Union and other totalitarian East Bloc nations in international competitions at the height of the Cold War. Remember the infamous 1936 Berlin games when the world emboldened a Nazi regime that was preparing to slaughter six million Jews.

At the close of this century, an administration famed for ``feeling'' our pain is committing the fundamental flaws in judgment of which Wiesel has warned. While trivializing the suffering of the oppressed Cuban people, the administration attempts to wrest control of the policy on Cuba away from the strong bipartisan consensus established on Capitol Hill and relinquish it to those who would succumb to the evils of indifference. It is incumbent upon congressional leaders to place Cuba policy back on track.