Serving Two Masters

WITH THE FALL OF COMMUNISM, DOUBLE AGENTS seem more likely to inhabit novels than real life these days. But Cuban exile Francisco Avila Azcuy claims he was just that -- a double agent spying on exile commandos in Miami for Fidel Castro while helping the FBI unravel Cuba's espionage network in the U.S. Not uncoincidentally, a Cuban diplomat at the U.N. was expelled after the Spanish- language Miami TV station WSCV secretly videotaped the official discussing a prospective exile raid on Cuba with Avila.

So was Avila the real thing? Officially, both Washington and Havana are mum, although Avila's involvement with...