Retired Air Force Col. Ed Hubbard, a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, on Wednesday identified the leader of the Cuban interrogation team that tortured him: the country's current minister of higher education.

``That's the guy,'' Hubbard said, visibly shaken, as he held a picture of Cuban Gen. Fernando Vecino Alegret in his youth. A military specialist in anti-aircraft defenses in the 1960s, he is known to have visited North Vietnam around 1967.

``Of all the pictures I've seen, this is the one that most clearly and accurately can be identified as `Fidel.' I can state with 99 percent certainty that it's him,'' Hubbard said during a news conference at the Miami offices of Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla.

``Fidel'' is the nickname given by American POWs to one of three Cuban interrogators at the POW camp known as ``The Zoo,'' a former French movie studio on the southwestern edge of Hanoi.

Documents declassified by the Defense Department's Prisoner of War, Missing Personnel Office for a string of congressional hearings in 1996 provided extensive and gruesome details of the interrogation program, called the Cuba Program.

Review of documents

Ros-Lehtinen said she will meet today in Washington with Defense Department officials to review the declassified documents and ask for a congressional investigation.

``I shall not rest until an investigation is made of the events in Vietnam and everything possible is done to identify the men who directed these torture sessions,'' the lawmaker said.

Vecino's picture will be shown to the 16 surviving POWs who underwent the Cuba Program for confirmation that he was indeed ``Fidel,'' Ros-Lehtinen said.

Vecino now is 61. The photo shown to Hubbard was reportedly made in 1958, when he was 20, and given to El Nuevo Herald by a Cuban exile after The Herald published a report Aug. 22 describing the torture sessions.

Declassified documents from the Defense Department and the U.S. Air Force reveal that from August 1967 until August 1968 a group of 19 American prisoners were questioned and tortured by Cuban officers under the Cuba Program. One of the prisoners died of his injuries.

First reports came in 1973

American intelligence agencies first received reports of the presence of Cuban interrogators in 1973, after the release by Hanoi of American POWs. Since then, several of those agencies tried to discover the Cubans' identities, but without success.

Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, who attended the press conference, said he supports Ros-Lehtinen's campaign.

``The photo you have seen -- which Colonel Hubbard identifies with 99 percent certainty -- is that of Vecino Alegret,'' he told reporters. ``It shows how the Castro regime rewards torturers and their terrorist nature.''

Members of prominent Cuban-American organizations such as the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association (2506 Brigade) and the Cuban American Veterans Association also attended the event. Both groups honored Hubbard with pins and lauded him for his bravery 30 years ago.

Cuba stance was stunner

But a few minutes later, Hubbard gave them all a shock: The best way to topple communism in today's Cuba, he said, is by establishing relations with Fidel Castro.

In a calm, clear voice, he acknowledged his words might be ``distasteful'' to many of the guests at the news conference, but he did not flinch from saying communism would weaken if the Cuban people were more exposed to outside influences.

``Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because we showed them how we live,'' Hubbard said. ``I have to believe the same thing will happen in Cuba.''

The room went silent. Tension was palpable. The news conference ended in a hurry. Hubbard said he knew his comments were not scoring points when he felt a nudge from Diaz-Balart.

``He was very brusque,'' Hubbard said later, reached by phone at the airport in Atlanta. ``He didn't say thank you or goodbye.''

e-mail: palfonso@herald.com