News dispatches from Havana quoted ``diplomatic sources'' as saying Tuesday that U.S. diplomats in Cuba had asked the government for proof of its accusation that U.S. elements are behind recent bombings.

It doesn't take much to figure out that the ``sources'' were U.S. diplomats in Havana, putting their off-the-record spin on a story that has rapidly gained gravity since the blasts claimed their first life last week.

What was unusual was that the U.S. diplomats in Havana made it clear they wanted their side of the story told. In the past, they have largely left public comments up to their colleagues in Washington.

And that's the way the charges -- about bombs, U.S. biological attacks on Cuba, financial support for dissidents, invasion plans or subversion plots -- are almost always printed or broadcast: Cuba accuses, the United States denies.

The image persists

Whether or not the charges eventually prove true, the image left is the Cuban allegation.

In a way, that's understandable. From assassination attempts on Fidel Castro to exile terrorist attacks on Cuba, the northern side of the Florida Straits has committed enough mayhem in the past to merit immediate suspicion.

But when does history cross the line into stereotyping?

The men of Alpha 66, who advocate armed struggle against Castro, are a minuscule percentage of Cubans in South Florida. When they first claimed responsibility for some of the bombings -- they later backed off -- my initial reaction was near-laughter.

Yet many outside journalists insist on talking to them for the easy-to-get -- and predictably hoary -- quotes.

Here's an example.

Last week, a Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist wrote about Havana's allegation that a U.S. State Department crop-duster had sprayed produce-eating bugs on Cuba last year.

The first six paragraphs contained the well-known litany of past CIA sins against Cuba and detailed Havana's latest allegation. The seventh paragraph said the United States had denied the charge -- ``naturally.''

And in the next paragraph, it noted that a United Nations panel of signatory nations to the Biological Weapons Convention was investigating the Havana allegation.

It said: ``The international commission, according to The New York Times, has established that a flight occurred on the date and at the location in question and that there was also, `regrettably, a considerable infestation in the territory of Cuba.' ''

Errors and insinuations

Cuba has a strong case, the writer implies. And none less than The New York Times reported it. Yet the column, distributed to hundreds of U.S. and foreign newspapers, contained errors and insinuations.

The U.N. panel did not need to ``establish'' that the flight took place because Washington had openly reported it: A crop duster flying from Florida to Colombia to join that country's fleet of drug-spraying airplanes.

Maybe that reference to drugs is where the columnist came up with the error that the U.S. officials had reported the plane ``was performing routine surveillance along known flight corridors used by drug-runners.''

``Yet the Cubans have introduced film as evidence that they insist support their allegation,'' the writer added, harking back to Cold War-era showdowns where U.S. officials came up with photographs of Soviet missiles in Cuba and Moscow showed film of CIA pilots shot down over the Soviet bloc.

The ``film'' that Cuba presented to the U.N. panel was in fact of crops damaged by the Thrips palmi insect.

Nowhere did the column note that infestations of the tiny bug, which can be borne by the wind for long distances, already exist in South Florida, the Bahamas, Dominican Republic and Jamaica -- in other words, all around Cuba.

Perhaps the CIA did spray crop-eating bugs on Cuba, as Havana alleges. But the column may have reflected an over-simplified view of very complex Cuban issues.

Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald