SENATORS' VISIT SIGNALS COOPERATION WITH MEXICO

MEXICO CITY -- Conservative U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms apparently is ending
his long Cold War with Mexico.

Helms, R-N.C., has for decades been one of the U.S government's harshest
critics of Mexico, taking this country to task for widespread
corruption, lax narcotics enforcement, its sea of illegal immigrants and
its support for Cuba's Fidel Castro.

But leading a five-member delegation of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, which he heads, to Mexico City this week, the 79-year-old
Helms made it clear that his enemy had been the one-party regime that
ruled this country from the time he was 7 years old until last December.

"I have always said that the good people of this great country deserve
an honest government of their own choosing," Helms told a news
conference Tuesday. "Apparently, the Mexican people felt the same way.
Last July, they chose a dynamic new president, Vicente Fox, who is
trying to build a new Mexico for a new century.

"We are here in Mexico because we want to do everything we can to help
him succeed," Helms said of Fox. "We're not here with all the answers to
every issue between our two countries.

"We have come, rather, to try and establish a new spirit of
cooperation."

Fox, a moderate conservative, ended the Institutional Revolutionary
Party's 71-year-hold on Mexican national politics by winning last
summer's presidential elections.

Helms declined to answer most reporters' questions Tuesday, saying he
would make fuller comments after meeting with members of the Mexican
Senate today. But other members of Helms' delegation said their
three-day visit marks a dramatic shift in the way U.S. lawmakers view
various aspects of the U.S.-Mexico relationship.

"To state the obvious, in one sense we're each other's problems, but
we're also each other's solution," said Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware,
the ranking Democrat on Helms' committee. "We sense genuine desire and a
new spirit here in Mexico among the political leadership to resolve the
issues that are both between us and enhance both our security, economic
interests and our relationship."

Republican Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island
and John Ensign of Nevada joined Helms and Biden on the trip.

The group met briefly with Fox shortly after arriving on Monday
afternoon. They met privately Tuesday with Foreign Minister Jorge
Castaneda, Attorney General Rafael Macedo and Economy Minister Ernesto
Derbez. Before flying home today, the U.S. lawmakers were to meet with
Mexican senators.

Helms said he decided to make the trip after meeting in Washington
several months ago with Castaneda, a one-time Marxist intellectual with
whom the North Carolina lawmaker had clashed in the past. When Fox named
Castenada his foreign minister, Helms and his staff complained loudly.

"We began talking about how we could possibly help each other, and I was
so impressed with him," Helms said of Castaneda's visit to Washington.
"I said, `Would you like me to come to Mexico and meet with the Senate
of your country.' He said, `Absolutely.' So that's why we're here."

Biden echoed Helms in saying that, despite a "sense that there's an
attitudinal change," this week's visit wouldn't quickly solve the issues
- -- immigration, drug enforcement and Cuba -- that have caused bilateral
spats in the past.

Among the thorniest ongoing issues, Biden suggested, is Mexico's
continuing supportive relationship with Castro's Cuba, a longtime
nemesis of the U.S. government. Mexico is expected to abstain today in a
United Nations vote on a resolution condemning Cuba for human rights
violations.

"There is obviously a disagreement on Cuba policy," Biden said Tuesday.

He added, however, that based on meetings with Fox administration
officials, the U.S. senators believe that "we will see at minimum a
change in tone."

Biden said he expected the Mexican government to take a harder line
toward some aspects of Castro's regime without having to deal with what
would be "an incredibly difficult decision" to openly support the U.S.
government's Cuba policy.

"This is a process," Biden said. "We're not going to have a fundamental
shift in this relationship in any short order. We do not underestimate
the significance of Sen. Helms leading this delegation any more than the
Mexican government or you all do."

Not surprisingly, perhaps, considering Helms' unpopularity here, the Fox
administration so far has treated the senators' visit as a low-key
affair, with only terse statements about the meetings released to the
press.