``Fidel Castro appears healthy for a man of 70, and his political position seems secure,'' Tenet said in response to questions from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. ``Unless he suffers a health crisis, he is likely to be in power a year from now.''
Tenet's views on Cuba, comprising three paragraphs in a 133-page report on current and projected threats to U.S. national security, were issued June 12, two months before Castro turned 71. The report was made public Friday by the Senate committee.
Castro's aging appearance and his failure to give his traditional speech at a July 26 celebration of a historic rebel assault stoked rumors of ill health that culminated in August in exile accounts that he had died. But such talk was quelled in October when the Cuban leader delivered a seven-hour speech before the Communist Party Congress.
CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield declined to say whether the spy agency's assessment had changed since June, but one intelligence official said Tenet's statements still hold.
Asked whether there were any signs of Castro's control weakening, Tenet noted: ``He has faced no challenges in recent years from the Cuban elite, and the last significant case of popular unrest occurred in August 1994'' when brief, spontaneous riots erupted in downtown Havana.
``Nonetheless,'' the nation's intelligence chief added, ``there are differences within the bureaucracy over the pace and scope of economic reform, and the living standards of most Cubans remain depressed.''
The portrayal of a hale Castro firmly in charge is unwelcome news for many Cuban exiles, who last month buried Jorge Mas Canosa, chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation and Castro's most influential antagonist. It comes as Mas Canosa followers are scrambling to shore up the hard-line U.S. policy toward Cuba and as proponents of a change probe for an opening.
The dispassionate assessment contrasts with the CIA's turbulent history in Cuba, including the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, which was crushed by Castro, and successive attempts to undermine and even assassinate the Cuban leader.
Pentagon documents declassified last month brought to light a string of intricate Defense Department schemes, including plans to destroy Castro's image by distributing faked photos of him languishing with beautiful women and efforts to justify a second invasion by simulating a Cuban attack on the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay.
Tenet, who was confirmed in his post earlier this year, told Congress that a repeat of the 1994 Cuban rafter exodus is ``unlikely so long as U.S.-Cuban migration agreements remain in effect.''
The exodus, which led tens of thousands of Cubans to board rafts for Florida and then populate makeshift detention camps at Guantanamo, was resolved with two bilateral accords, which for the first time sanctioned the direct repatriation of unauthorized Cuban refugees. The United States agreed to issue a minimum of 20,000 immigrant visas a year to Cubans.
``Havana continues to express satisfaction with the accords, which met two of its longstanding objectives: expanded legal entry into the United States and the end of automatic parole for interdicted Cubans,'' Tenet said.