A LOOK AT HALF-CENTURY OF PRESIDENTIAL ISLAND DIPLOMACY

Islands have always figured prominently in American diplomacy. Considering their size, population and relative standing among the world's nations, islands have given most modern presidents fits. Except for economic giants like Japan, islands tend to be thorns rather than partners or even worthy opponents.

Consider how islands have figured in the administrations of the past half-century:

-- Roosevelt had the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, which provided the emotional as well as military reasons to enter World War II.

-- Truman had the A-bomb attacks on Japan.

-- Eisenhower had both the Cuban revolution and the Hawaii statehood issue.

-- Kennedy had Cuba again, this time with Soviet missiles aimed at key U.S. targets.

-- Johnson sent U.S. troops to the Dominican Republic to thwart a feared Communist scourge.

-- Nixon turned the White House into an island when he erected a nearly impenetrable stone wall that lasted until his resignation.

-- Ford's first foreign-policy crisis was the invasion of Cyprus. Greeks criticized him for not using U.S. influence to stop the Turks.

-- Carter made the entire country an island when he kept U.S. athletes from participating in the Summer Olympics in Moscow after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

-- Reagan celebrated a military victory after U.S. troops liberated a handful of American medical students in Grenada. He also engaged in economic skirmishes with Japan.

-- Bush had to start paying attention to Cuba again with the collapse of the island's political and financial backing as the Soviet Union evaporated. He escalated the economic sniper attacks on Japan.

-- Clinton has two island problems that won't go away: Cuba and Haiti. So far his administration's policies have changed about as often as the tides that bring thousands of refugees on anything that will float.

It would be easy to turn all of the island problems from Roosevelt to Clinton into a parody of the modern presidency. But the problems are serious, and they aren't going away.

Cuba has to be of concern to the United States because of the instability of a small country ruled by a despot so close to our shores. No matter how President Clinton's advisers decide to handle the situation, Cuba will ultimately be this country's cleanup responsibility. The island's economy and infrastructure are a shambles. Unless these problems are addressed, the flight of desperate Cubans will continue in spite of efforts to halt the flow.

The Haitian problem may be due, in part, to the ego of the United States. This stems from the foreign-policy concept of recent years that holds that governments with any appearance of democracy must be upheld at all costs. Never mind the unsavory facts about gunpoint democracy. Insisting on the return to power of Haiti's Aristide, whose election has raised more questions than it answered, isn't going to address the poverty and misery of the people of that island country.

Islands. No man is one, the poet said. But presidents of late tend to be consumed by islands whose needs and wants are blurring the focus on major issues both foreign and domestic.