CUBA WARNS AGAINST HELMS BILL

Cuban negotiators began their third round of "migration" talks with U.S. officials in New York today amid worries that Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms' efforts to tighten a U.S. embargo could spark a new boatlift. But lead Cuban negotiator Ricardo Alarcon, at a meeting with TIME editors, flatly denied that Havana had threatened to encourage would-be refugees: "We haven't made the threat, Helms has made the threat." Even so, Alarcon said passage of a pending Helms bill -- a measure to punish foreigners doing business with Cuba -- could unleash "huge waves of rafters." He also attacked the Helms proposal as unrealistic, arguing that under the proposed law, even Britain's Queen Elizabeth would be denied a U.S. visa, since the United Kingdom has invested in a Cuban venture.