[Cincinatus' Wife]

Four Cuban border guards arrive in Keys undetected *** KEY WEST - Four armed defectors from Cuba's border guard, clad in green camouflage and black boots, walked onto Key West's main drag after arriving undetected early Friday -- the same day that the U.S. attorney general put the nation on a heightened state of terrorist alert. The men tied their 30-foot go-fast boat behind the Hyatt Key West Resort and Marina, stashing it within a short distance of the Coast Guard station, which failed to spot their 4 a.m. arrival. Police found two AK-47s and eight magazines of ammunition inside the Cigarette speedboat. The incident occurred six days after five Cuban fishermen in a large rickety boat landed on U.S. Naval property close to a cruise ship. The controls of the boat that arrived Friday were in English. Federal authorities suspect Cuban authorities confiscated the craft from a botched smuggling mission and turned it into a state-operated patrol boat. A big metal canopy and blue police lights had been added to the vessel, which still flew a Cuban flag when authorities found it.

Friday's defectors, who are believed to have worked from a station in Bahia Honda on the island's northwest coast, told authorities the Cuban government obtained the boat in 1996. Federal investigators lined up Friday to interview the men and to confirm their identities. ''We do believe they are military people. We think they are Cuban border guards, and we think that they did plan this outing,'' said Keith A. Roberts, a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman. ``This is something I haven't seen in my 11 years being here. It truly is an anamoly.'' Roberts said border officials were keeping the imported weapons ``locked away very safely in our inventory.'' The arrivals, who wore Cuban Ministry of the Interior patches on their shirts, made it about two blocks from where they landed -- down a wooden dock, past the hotel pool, past an outdoor Jacuzzi -- before flagging down a Key West police officer. Soon after, one turned over a Chinese-made handgun.

'FRUSTRATED' MEN The men told a Spanish-speaking officer that they were frustrated with life on the island and decided to embark on the trip, which, with the boat's twin 200-horsepower engines, took three hours. ''They stated that they were basically tired of the impoverished conditions and frustrated with not being able to own their own homes and their own cars and that type of thing and that's why they left,'' said Tara Koenig, a Key West police officer. Then the men asked if they could call relatives in Miami. The men, who said they were with Cuba's Tropas Guardafronteras -- Border Guard Troops, identified themselves as Yoadris Rodríguez Camajo, Egar Raúl Batista Gamboa, Ofil Lara Corria and Rodisan Sugura López.***

[Cincinatus' Wife]

In Cuba, History's Joy -- and Curse*** With the government collecting most of the profits, the few private Cuban-owned tourism companies have dwindled. Paladares, the tiny restaurants operated by Cuban citizens in their homes, once numbered some 1,500. Now a mere 200 remain. And despite high prices, heavy taxes have forced many of the remaining small businesses into the red.

Still, given that the Castro regime exerts an iron grip on the rest of Cuba's economy, many Cubanos are rushing into tourism -- a trend that has caused a brain drain in high-skill professions. Thanks to hard-currency tips, educated Cubans can multiply their incomes by switching to tourist-industry service jobs. For example, the taxi driver who brought me from the from the airport was an aeronautical engineer, and one of our hotel's bartenders was a doctor.***