Washington pins hopes on the lure of legal entry

ITS HAND strengthened by commitments from Panama and Honduras to accept overflow Cuban refugees, the Clinton administration is preparing an offer which will permit more Cubans to emigrate legally to the US, in return for a halt to the continuing tide of rafters braving the Florida Straits.

The plan is to be presented at talks between US and Cuban officials in New York - only a mid- level encounter but the first formal meeting between representatives of the two countries since the refugee crisis began early last month. Washington hopes that the prospect of legal entry will be enough to lure Cubans now held at the Guantanamo Bay base back to their own country, to apply for immigration visas from the US Special Interest section in Havana.

Under a 1984 agreement with the Castro regime, the US undertook to grant 20,000 visas a year. That ceiling has since been increased to more than 27,000, but in practice only 3,000 to 5,000 visas annually have been issued. Just how many will now be granted is unclear, but a return to the full quota could in theory quickly empty Guantanamo, where more than 15,000 Cubans are detained.

However, two large uncertainties remain. One is whether the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, will accept such a deal, or demand wider concessions which Washington thus far adamantly refuses, including moves to lift the US embargo of the island. The other is whether even such an agreement will indeed halt the exodus.

After a weekend lull brought about by storms and President Castro's edict that small children would not be allowed to undertake the risky voyage, the number of rafters is again rising sharply. On Tuesday the US Coastguard picked up 1,582 people, the most since last Thursday.

Hundreds more were reported to be taking to the sea yesterday, in the belief that Guantanamo Bay was a better bet than staying put. Many Cubans are still convinced that those that are interned at the base will - one way or another - eventually make it to the US.

An orderly transit of Cubans from the base back to Cuba and thence legally to the US proper would signify a major policy reversal by the administration, which only last week declared that those sent to Guantanamo Bay would if necessary be held indefinitely.