It was candidate Clinton in 1992 who first endorsed tightening the embargo, thereby forcing a reluctant President George Bush to follow suit. Mr. Clinton's move won him a symbolically important meeting with the late Jorge Mas Canosa, who reciprocated by telling other Cuban Americans that it was OK by him if they supported the Democrat.

And as President, Mr. Clinton also has pushed a fairly hard line against Fidel Castro, often overriding the advice of the State Department and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger. In the hours after the Cuban Air Force murdered the four unarmed pilots searching for rafters in international waters two years ago, President Clinton signed the toughest measure yet on Cuban trade, the so-called Helms-Burton bill.

So how is it that this maestro of a politician suddenly has developed a tin ear?

Things have not gone well with Mr. Clinton's Cuba policy of late. Last week Senior U.S. District Judge James L. King slammed the administration for trying to prevent the families of those pilots from collecting monetary damages from Cuba that were legally due them. A part of that money would come from fees that U.S. telephone companies must pay a Cuban-controlled venture for the privilege of sending calls to the island.

Judge King sharply rebuked Mr. Clinton in a way that should have made the presidential ears turn red. The administration ``now apparently believes that shielding a terrorist foreign state's assets is more important than compensating for the loss of American lives,'' the judge wrote.

And that's not all this President should be embarrassed over. A cornerstone of the administration's position in the case was its argument that if Cuba didn't get its cut of the toll money, Castro would -- as he had threatened -- shut down phone service between the United States and the island. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright traveled to Miami to say that as badly as she and the President felt for the victims' families, it would be worse to interrupt communications between Cubans in exile and those on the island.

Many exiles agreed with her, even knowing that it meant letting Castro go free for the murders. And it's true that those people-to-people contacts so prized by the administration probably do have the cumulative effect of destabilizing the Castro regime.

But when the day came for Cuba to carry out the threat by cutting the phone lines, AT&T flipped a few switches and found alternate circuits. The calls still go through.

Which raises this question: If AT&T knew that Castro's threat was empty, why didn't the CIA (which one hopes also knew) inform the President of that fact to spare Mrs. Albright some embarrassment?

Yet as clumsy as Mr. Clinton has looked in handling this case, he is striking even more sour notes in dealing with the current political situation in Cuba -- or rather, in not dealing with it. Perhaps not since the earliest days of the Cuban revolution has Castro faced a more-fragile position at home and abroad.

His recent crackdown on free speech and the secret trial of four dissidents with impeccable post-revolution credentials who dared espouse universal rights has outraged many of Castro's erstwhile friends. The Spanish royal family threatened to canceled a visit; the European Union has condemned the action, and Canada is rethinking its plan to sponsor Cuba's return to the Organization of American States.

And what has Mr. Clinton done? Of course he put out a statement regretting the situation. But his national-security adviser also labored long and hard to make sure that the Baltimore Orioles (owned by Democratic contributor Peter Angelos) could go to Havana next Sunday to play a game against the Cuban national team.

Now, I'm all for using sports as an instrument of diplomacy. But should we play baseball -- a gesture of friendship -- at the very moment when we profess outrage at human-rights abuses? In 1980 President Carter had the good sense and courage to pull out of the Moscow Olympics in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Mr. Clinton would be smart to do the same thing here. A maestro knows that there's a time to play -- and a time not to play. Silence on that ballfield would be deafening.