CLINTON OKS RIGHT TO SUE FIRMS IN CUBA IN 6 MONTHS.

Byline: David E. Sanger The New York Times

Seeking to weave his way between conflicting domestic and foreign pressures, President Clinton on Tuesday granted U.S. citizens the right to sue foreign companies that are using American plants seized by Cuba over 35 years ago, then immediately suspended those suits for at least six months.

Clinton's election-year compromise, his aides said, was an effort to demonstrate that he is eager to tighten the economic noose around Fidel Castro while defusing the criticism from Washington and the threats of retaliation from the European Union, Canada and Mexico.

These countries have accused the United States of using threats of legal judgments against foreign companies to force other governments into helping isolate Castro. Those countries have vowed to impose equal penalties against American companies, especially after Clinton moved last week to deny visas to executives and major shareholders of the foreign companies.

By delaying the legal actions, Clinton puts off that conflict with America's closest allies until after the elections in November. Meanwhile, he can argue in Florida and New Jersey, two key states with large Cuban-American populations, that he is working to speed the collapse of Castro's communist government.

Administration officials conceded that Clinton's action Tuesday, taken hours before a midnight deadline set by the Helms-Burton law, was a muddled outcome to a highly charged issue.

``This was classic Clinton,'' one of his top aides said after the president sought recommendations from his Cabinet in a late-night meeting at the White House on Monday. ``It's creative, but it runs the risk of looking like a waffle.''

The move was immediately criticized as such by Bob Dole, the president's likely Republican opponent in November. ``President Clinton's continued indecision until the last possible moment demonstrates, once again, that this president is rudderless when it comes to standing up for American principles around the world,'' Dole said.

Even with delayed enforcement, the measure still could have a real impact, Clinton aides said. The prospect of litigation is likely to discourage companies around the world from risking investment in Cuba, cutting off one of Castro's few sources of new capital - selling his country's decrepit infrastructure.

Clinton's aides insisted Tuesday that by delaying the suits, they have six months to convince the Europeans to act to isolate Castro, or risk a decision by the White House to let the lawsuits go forward.

``If we had allowed the suits today, it would begin a cycle of retaliation and counterretaliation with our allies that would divert attention from the primary issue: Fidel Castro,'' said Sandy Berger, the deputy national security adviser, who pressed Clinton on Monday night to take this course. ``Now, we have the means to focus their minds.''

But if the action was intended to end the criticism from abroad that Washington was being an economic bully, reaching beyond its borders, it was not immediately successful.

Britain said Tuesday that it would consider tougher restrictions against visas for American citizens. This was a direct response to the decision a week ago to ban several of its citizens from entering the United States because they are major shareholders in companies that ``traffic'' in American properties nationalized by Cuba after Castro and the Communists came to power in 1959.

The Helms-Burton law, passed by Congress and signed by the president in March after Cuba shot down two small planes piloted by anti-Castro demonstrators, defines that ``trafficking'' so broadly that it even covers Mexican and Italian companies that have taken over Cuba's crumbling telephone system, parts of which were built by the ITT Corp. in the 1950s.

Canada said Tuesday that it would go ahead with legislation giving Canadian firms the right to retaliate if American courts penalize them for using equipment in Cuba that once belonged to ITT Corp. and American mining companies.