Helms frets over latest prospective envoy to Mexico

After Helms, R-N.C., stopped the appointment of former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld last summer, Clinton decided on career diplomat Jeffrey Davidow for the post, although no official announcement has been made. Davidow is a former ambassador to Venezuela and Zambia.

Visas a sore point

As head of the State Department's Latin America bureau, Davidow is responsible for implementing 1996 Cuba sanctions legislation that was co-authored by Helms, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The congressional sources said Helms believes Davidow has not moved aggressively enough to enforce a section of the legislation that denies U.S. visas to top executives of foreign companies that do business on property confiscated from Americans in Cuba.

As a result, Davidow's nomination could be in trouble, said the sources, asking not to be identified. They said, however, that Helms has not made a firm decision to block the nomination.

Helms was unyielding last summer on the nomination of Weld, whom he saw as unfit for the Mexico post based on Weld's support for legalizing marijuana for medical use and needle-exchange programs for drug addicts.

Seat long vacant

Meanwhile, the most important U.S. Embassy in Latin America has remained vacant for 10 months with little prospect that it will be filled any time soon, given the uncertainty over Davidow's nomination.

Once Davidow is nominated and Senate confirmation proceedings begin, Helms plans to use opportunity to review the way Davidow has enforced the Cuba sanctions legislation, the sources said.

Since the sanctions legislation took effect over two years ago, the State Department says, more than 15 executives and their family members from three foreign companies have been excluded from the United States because of their operations on confiscated property.

The visas of several of these have been reinstated because the firm with which they are linked is no longer involved with U.S.-claimed property. Cuba maintains that over 300 foreign companies are operating in Cuba.

Michael Ranneberger, the State Department official responsible for Cuba, said recently the absence of documentation by U.S. companies on the precise location of their seized properties has slowed the implementation process.

``Gathering reliable information is a difficult and time-consuming process,'' Ranneberger said, adding that remedial steps are being taken.