Exultant U.S. Calls Defector No. 2 Defense Official but Cuba Calls Him No Big Coup

The Reagan Administration is exultant over the defection of a Cuban brigadier general--described as the country’s No. 2 defense official--but Fidel Castro’s government today denounced his “strange and treacherous conduct” and said he had been suffering from stress.

Cuba also disputed the U.S. characterization of the defection as a major intelligence coup and said the general had been reassigned to organize an Air Force museum and carry out other historical duties.

Brig. Gen. Rafael del Pino Diaz, identified by the Reagan Administration as deputy chief of the Cuban Defense Ministry, flew a small plane to Key West Naval Air Station in Florida on Thursday with his wife and three children.

Justice Department spokesman Patrick Korten said Del Pino, formerly chief of the Cuban air force, requested asylum on arrival and was undergoing questioning.

A broadcast statement by Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces Ministry today said that Del Pino had been suspended by a military medical commission as a combat pilot on Jan. 27 due to “successive states of physical stress” and eye problems.

The statement said that Del Pino, which it called a hero of the Bay of Pigs invasion 26 years ago, had fled “into the ranks of our despicable enemies” in the United States.

Del Pino was taken to an airfield at Key West this morning for a flight to an undisclosed destination.

“This is a very important guy,” said an Administration official who requested anonymity. The official said Del Pino is believed to be one of the founders and organizers of the post-revolutionary military establishment in Cuba.

Enrique Baloyra, a University of Miami professor, said Del Pino is believed to be in his mid-50s and as a young man was an opponent of the rightist dictatorship ousted by Castro in 1959.

Baloyra said Del Pino joined Castro’s insurrection in the late 1950s and played a role in defeating the CIA-sponsored Cuban rebels who invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.

Some Cuban exiles in Miami said they will not forgive Del Pino for his role at the Bay of Pigs.

“He killed some of our people,” said Pedro P. Rojas, a spokesman for Brigade 2506, veterans of the U.S.-backed invasion in 1961.

“I think he’ll have to be worried about the Cuban exiles, especially the Bay of Pigs veterans,” Rojas said a few hours after Del Pino’s defection.