Castro May Be Out in Year, U.S. Aides Say : Cuba: With the economy on the verge of collapse and Soviet subsidies cut off, the dictator is said to be in ‘geopolitical shock.’ His popularity has plummeted, too.

Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, his country’s economy on the brink of collapse after being deprived of aid from the former Soviet Union, is in a “state of geopolitical shock” and may not survive in office beyond this year, senior U.S. officials say.

Painting a bleak picture of the country, they said Cuba likely will become an economic basket case like Haiti, if Castro manages to retain power beyond 1992, because he is a dedicated Communist who staunchly rejects reforms needed for economic recovery.

So much dissension is building against Castro’s regime, said one government official, that if Castro were to remove emigration barriers as he did in the 1980 Mariel boat-lift, when 200,000 Cubans fled to the United States, “you’d have 3 to 4 million Cubans who would want to leave.”

“The pressure on Castro is unprecedented and getting worse day-by-day to the extent that in a relatively short period of time it could be dangerous for the survival of his regime,” said a leading Cuba expert.

He said the island nation’s economy plunged 15% to 25% last year and can be expected to decline dramatically again this year. “Cuba already is one of the most miserable of the Latin American countries; only Nicaragua and Haiti are worse,” he said.

The outlook for Cuba’s economy, which experts say has stagnated or declined in each of the last six years, has grown even grimmer because of withdrawal of economic subsidies from the old Soviet Union of $4 billion to $5 billion a year since 1985. Another $1 billion or more a year in direct military subsidies also has been withdrawn.

Castro’s popularity has dropped precipitously in the last three years, especially among younger people, and is the lowest it has been in his 33 years in power, said analysts who have carefully tracked political and economic developments in Cuba.

The only things now holding up the Castro regime, officials here said, are the military under Fidel’s brother Raul, 60, the defense minister, and the Interior Ministry, the nation’s police and intelligence service, under Gen. Abelardo Colome, 52.

That may be enough. Castro, a tough and resilient foe, has survived everything from a CIA-sponsored assassination attempt to a 30-year-old economic blockade. Analysts said that they do not discount that his highly disciplined military and police could retain power for him for several more years. But if he goes, they say communism in Cuba is dead.

“If Fidel Castro were assassinated or dies or is incapable of continuing to be the force at the center, then communism will collapse,” said a senior analyst. “And if there is a military coup, it’ll come from the younger ranks. Castro depends on all the officers of the early ‘60s generation to keep the lid on the military, but younger officers strongly resent the relatively high life style of the senior officers and the fact that some of them have two houses--one for their wife and one for their mistress.”

If Fidel were to die in office or be unable to continue to govern, his brother, Raul, a four-star general, would be next in line to succeed him. He has been heir apparent since the early days of the 1959 revolution. But Raul’s stature and effectiveness have been seriously undermined by his role in the case of Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa. Raul led a highly public prosecution of Ochoa on drug-trafficking charges. Ochoa, considered a military hero as commander of Cuban forces in Angola, was executed in July, 1989, on what many consider trumped-up charges.

Next in line after Raul, analysts said, would be Colome, Cuba’s only three-star general, or Carlos Aldana, 49, a Politburo member and foreign policy expert. Colome handles the levers of repression and is an old crony of Raul. Aldana poses as a moderate but is a Stalinist who takes his cue from Fidel, the analysts said.

Despite Fidel Castro’s drop in popularity, Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the Cuban leader has been a cult hero for so long he “would not bet on a military coup.” But if economic conditions keep deteriorating, Rudman said, “there may be attempts to overthrow him and that could be very bloody because he retains very strong control over the military.”

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), a key member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who has had extensive briefings on Cuba, believes that “it’s clearly coming to the end of the road for Castro. The economic situation is bound to worsen and that makes his position precarious. He may lose his regime and, if he has bad luck, his life.”

Government analysts said Castro, 64, who stopped smoking his trademark cigars in 1986 after experiencing some physical problems, appears to be in excellent health. “He’s incredibly resilient,” said one analyst. “His mental health is excellent and he makes decisions clearly and quickly and is able to manipulate and control the way he always has. He makes frequent public appearances and tires out everybody around him . . . .”

Washington officials said they do not expect Castro to repeat the kind of mistake he made in 1980 when he angrily said he would remove emigration barriers for any dissidents who wanted to leave. After 200,000 fled to the United States, he restored the barriers. Officials here said that almost 2 million Cubans had signed up hoping to leave. “A mistake like that could ignite the situation, but he’s acting with great caution these days,” said one official.

A 1966 U.S. law gives Cuban immigrants virtually automatic permanent residence once admitted to the United States, a privilege accorded to no other nationality. Despite repeal efforts over the years, the law remains in force as a testimonial to the power of the Florida-based Cuban-American lobby.

Although the granting of permanent residence is technically at the attorney general’s discretion, Cubans arriving here have only been excluded when found to have a criminal record or to be suffering from an excludable disease. Thus of the 200,000 who fled during the Mariel exodus, only 1,500 were found to be excludable. Most are still in U.S. detention camps.