Liberal commentators have subsequently characterized the restricted parole of Bosch as a presidential pardon, which is not the case. The move was undoubtedly, however, a complete reversal of Joe Whitley's strong anti-terrorism stance.

Reached at his private law practice in Atlanta, Whitley, who was appointed a U.S. attorney by the former President Bush in 1990, says he stands by the words in his 1989 deportation order. "I felt like I was carrying out my job and my duties and doing what I needed to do," he says. About subsequent decisions, Whitley would only say that "other people might make another call, and that's just the way it is. I can't speak to other people's decisions."

Shortly after being granted his restricted parole, Bosch took issue with the terrorist label in an interview with the New York Times. "Today some American officials call me a terrorist for what I did to try to liberate my country," he said. "But who are they to judge me? Perhaps I made mistakes. But your country, too, is partly responsible for what happened to Cuba and to our struggle to free it."

In 1992, the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on Libya for refusing to hand over the two men accused of the 1988 bombing of the Pan Am flight that exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. Soon afterwards, Cuba requested a meeting of the Security Council to demand the extradition of Bosch and Carilles. There Cuban Ambassador Ricardo Alarcon accused the U.S. of "moral duplicity"; U.S. Ambassador Edward Perkins denied that the U.S. had anything to do with the explosion of the plane and accused Cuba of wasting the council's time.

But Alarcon said that Bosch and Carilles were being provided with shelter in the United States. He submitted a draft resolution demanding that the United States cooperate with an international investigation into the bombing, which was immediately shelved without a vote; not one of the member countries supported the resolution.

In October 1993, right around the time that Lugo and Ricardo were released from their Venezuelan jail, Bosch announced that he was forming a new organization, Protagonist Party of the People, in order to raise cash to purchase weapons for Castro's Cuba-based opponents. It was a direct violation of the terms of his parole. In 1997, Bosch said that he had raised more than $150,000 for the cause.

He continued to deny involvement in the downing of Flight 455. "It was some other patriot," Bosch told the Palm Beach Post. "It was a legitimate act of war." All 73 people on the flight, including the crew and the teenage fencers, deserved to die, he said. "They were all Communists."

In a December 2001 speech in Havana's Plaza de la Revolucion -- where 25 years before, mourners of Flight 455 had gathered -- Castro expressed condolences to the U.S. for the Sept. 11 attacks. "History is capricious and moves through strange labyrinths," he said. "Twenty-five years ago in this very plaza we bid farewell to a small number of coffins. They contained tiny fragments of human remains and personal belongings of some of the 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese -- most of them students on scholarships in Cuba -- and five North Korean cultural officials who were the victims of a brutal and inconceivable act of terrorism." Castro then listed a number of other terrorist attacks against Cuba, ones the U.S. has done little to stop, he claimed.

"On a day like today," Castro asked, "we have the right to ask what will be done about Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, the perpetrators of that monstrous terrorist act."

The tyrannical Castro is, of course, hardly a credible accuser. But he is one voice in a chorus that includes the FBI and a former Republican U.S. attorney general in calling Bosch a terrorist. Clearly Reich's role, if any, in the Bosch affair should be further probed, and a Senate hearing would be an appropriate forum for that.

In that sense, it would almost be a shame for President Bush to use the presidential prerogative to make the one-year recess appointment during these waning days of congressional vacation, as he is reportedly considering doing for both Reich and Eugene Scalia, the son of the Supreme Court justice who is a controversial candidate for Labor Department solicitor general. "We can't wait any longer on either one of them," one anonymous Bush official told the Washington Times on Wednesday. "Scalia and Reich remain under serious consideration" for recess appointments, said another anonymous official.

But the Bosch affair is bigger than Reich, bigger than even the loco politics of South Florida. It touches on not only the United States' historic support of certain terrorists as long as they were enemies of communism -- like the Contras -- but our current willingness to forgive and forget with these terrorists and these terrorists alone. Reich may embody that hypocrisy, but he's a relatively minor player on the U.S. duplicity team.

In Miami last year, the U.S. government prosecuted five admitted Cuban spies. Their defense lawyers argued that Cuba actually needs to spy on anti-Castro militants in the U.S. since the U.S. government is unwilling to do anything about their activities -- Bosch most notoriously. Defense lawyers claimed that Bosch in 1997 told a Cuban intelligence source that he had sent explosives to Cuba for use in anti-Castro activities, though he wasn't sure if they had been used. Cuban intelligence blamed Bosch for a dozen hotel and other tourism-related bombings in Havana that occurred that year -- one of which killed a tourist from Canada, Fabio Di Celmo, 32 -- which Bosch didn't completely deny, telling the Miami Herald that "we had nothing to do with those attempts. Besides, even if we had, we would deny it because it's illegal to [direct bombings] from this country."

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