WASHINGTON -- Several Miami charter flight operators, travel agents and freight forwarders with a financial stake in U.S. relations with Cuba donated more than $156,000 to President Clinton, his party and other Democratic candidates for the 1996 election, a Herald review shows.

The campaign contributions occurred at a time of significant shifts in U.S. policy toward Cuba that began in October 1995 with liberalizing measures to ease contacts among ordinary citizens. The policy changed four months later with an abrupt halt to direct flights to the island after Cuba shot down two civilian planes from a Miami-based exile group, killing four pilots.

While there is no indication that the contributions influenced the policy changes, the donations -- primarily from the operators of two charter airline companies -- depict a little-known cash source for Democrats: Cuban-American individuals and companies opposed to the U.S. embargo of Cuba.

The funds compare to more than $800,000 channeled to Republican and Democratic candidates by adherents of the Cuban American National Foundation and other hard-line supporters of the embargo-tightening Helms Burton Act of 1996, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

The anti-embargo contributions mark the debut of Cuban Americans like John Cabañas, director of C&T Charters Inc., and Vivian Mannerud, president of Airline Brokers Co., as players on the national political scene.

Attracting headlines

Mannerud, who gave $80,850 to the Democratic Party, attracted headlines this month when Jorge Cabrera, a convicted drug smuggler, claimed she had solicited a contribution for the Democrats from him during a meeting at the Copacabana Hotel in Havana in November 1995.

According to that account, which first appeared in The New York Times, Mannerud told Cabrera that, in exchange for a contribution, he would be invited to a fund-raising dinner featuring Vice President Al Gore in Coral Gables. Within days of the encounter, Cabrera sent a check for $20,000 to the Democratic National Committee.

In addition to the fund-raiser with Gore, Mannerud had traveled to Washington for coffee with the vice president on Oct. 5, 1995, according to White House records.

Early in his first term, President Clinton set to work on a two-pronged approach to Cuba that was authorized by the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992. He acted to close a loophole in the U.S. trade ban against Cuba by curbing trade through third-country subsidiaries of U.S. firms, but at the same time promoted increased travel and phone contacts.

Something for both sides

This carrot-and-stick approach had something for both sides in the U.S. debate over Cuba policy, and both sides were generous with contributions.

On Sept. 19, 1995, Nilda Serret, who owns a package mailing service to Cuba called Cuba Paquetes, attended a Bal Harbour fund-raiser in honor of Clinton. Having donated $1,000 to his re-election campaign, Serret found herself face-to-face with Clinton in a small private meeting of exiles opposed to the U.S. embargo.

``I think Clinton is a good president,'' Serret said. But, when it comes to Cuba, she added, ``he has too many political pressures upon him.''

Three weeks after that fund-raiser, Clinton eased the rules on exile travel to the island, providing a boon to charter operators and travel agents. By allowing exiles one visit per year on an emergency basis, with no special permission required, the president had prompted a 300 percent surge in bookings to the island.

Opposed to embargo

Most U.S. charter and freight operators licensed to do business in Cuba publicly oppose the U.S. trade embargo. That position may seem self-defeating: under the embargo, a few of the larger firms with Treasury Department licenses enjoy near monopoly control of a lucrative market.

Serret says she opposes the trade embargo out of conviction and humanitarian concern for Cubans, even if that position hurts her business interests.

Whatever the donors' intentions, the U.S. carrot soon withered. After Cuban MiG fighters downed the two Brothers to the Rescue planes on Feb. 24 last year, Clinton ordered a halt to direct flights between Miami and Havana, and stepped up enforcement of embargo rules.

Mannerud, who declined to comment on the Cabrera case, complains that her $80,000 has gotten her very little.

``This president has been very bad for me as far as business is concerned,'' she said. More so than his Republican predecessors, she added, ``this president has been the one who has made the most ill-advised travel decisions.''

Herald staff writer Juan O. Tamayo contributed to this report.

Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald