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If Hillary Rodham Clinton wants to gauge the political fallout of the Vieques controversy on her burgeoning New York Senate campaign, all she has to do is stop for lunch at La Fonda Boricua, a chummy walk in luncheonette in the heart of the Spanish speaking neighborhoods of East Harlem known as “El Barrio.”

“Everybody’s talking about Vieques,” says Jorge Ayala, the easy going, Puerto Rico born owner of the narrow, bustling restaurant that serves 400 lunches and dinners a day to a clientele of regulars that includes artists, teachers, lawyers, police officers and firefighters.

Some customers at the packed eatery on Manhattan’s East 106th Street, express anger that President Clinton has refused to order a permanent end to military target practice on the 52 square mile Puerto Rican island that is home to 9,300 civilians, all U.S. citizens by birth.

Other patrons, stirring midnight black coffee amid lunch hour clatter, voice fears that the White House may soon order U.S. marshals and FBI agents to round up dozens of protesters encamped on the bombing range and make way for the resumption of military training that has been suspended since April.

Many complain that the First Lady has done too little to help end an eight month standoff between Puerto Rico and the Navy over the future of the Vieques target range that has been used to train every East Coast based Navy Marine Corps combat force since World War II.

The President waded into the dispute on Dec. 3 and ordered resumption of military training on the island next spring by the Navy Marine Corps battle group led by the aircraft carrier USS George Washington. Clinton gave a concession to the protesters by limiting future combat exercises to nonexplosive, inert munitions.

The dispute between Puerto Rico and the Navy has become a political litmus test for many in this tightly knit Spanish speaking community that traces its roots to Cuban and Puerto Rican cigar workers moving into the 19th century brownstones after World War I

“El Barrio” enjoys such close ties with Puerto Rico nowadays that residents here read the Spanish language edition of the San Juan Star and lustily debate developments back home as though East Harlem were just another town on the island of Puerto Rico. Neighborhoods like these are home to many of New York state’s 2.2 million Hispanics  1.4 million of the New Yorkers with ties to Puerto Rico.

“Everybody understands Vieques,” says Antonio Martorell, 60, a Georgetown University educated artist who divides his time between New York and Puerto Rico. “Vieques is about life and death and making a living. That’s why the issue has gone so far.”

Gloria Quinones, 55, a retired Puerto Rico born legal aid lawyer with two sons, says both of the Clintons’ actions on Vieques will determine whether she supports the First Lady for the U.S. Senate in next November’s election.

“I would have a very hard time voting for her for the Senate given what the President has done,” says Quinones, whose husband was arrested with nine others during peaceful civil disobedience protest over Vieques at the United Nations on Dec. 7. “If the Clintons don’t resolve Vieques by the time the Democratic Convention takes place in Los Angeles next summer, we Democrats will be there to put this issue in the platform.”

Melissa Mark Viverito, 30, a Puerto Rico born New Yorker who graduated from Columbia University, complained that Mrs. Clinton has not followed up her public statement supporting an end to Navy bombardment with concrete action to change White House policy.

“What counts is what you do, not what you say,” says Mark Viverito. “She has been the President’s equal partner on policy for seven years. Now she stands idly by?”

The Clinton administration’s Dec. 3 compromise calls for the Navy to withdraw from the island in five years, $40 million in economic development assistance and immediate turnover of 8,000 acres of the 22,000 acres that the Navy has owned since 1941.

The President’s plan was designed to reopen the target range that has been closed since April 19 when a Marine pilot mistakenly targeted a range observation post with two 500 pound bombs, killing Navy contract security guard David Sanes Rodriguez, 35, and injuring four civilian workers on the range.

But the White House plan has been rejected by Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Rossello and Puerto

Rico’s political allies here in New York because they said the Clinton administration did not go far enough and immediately end Navy bombardment of an 899 acre target range located 10 miles from the island’s civilian population.

Sixteen New York City politicians with ties to Puerto Rico, led by Reps. Jose Serrano, D N.Y. and Nydia Velazquez, D N.Y., had pointedly warned the President and the First Lady beforehand that the Clinton administration should end 58 years of Navy bombardment or face “potential ramifications to your administration and others who might be seeking to carry on your policies and programs.”

Both the First Lady and her Republican rival, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, are courting Hispanic voters in their quest to succeed retiring Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D N.Y. Both Senate candidates have endorsed Puerto Rico’s demands for a permanent end to military training and phased Navy withdrawal.

But New York’s Hispanic politicians and some lunchtime customers here at La Fonda Boricua say they expect more direct action from Mrs. Clinton because of her influential role inside the Clinton administration.

State Sen. Olga Mendez, whose district includes this neighborhood of aging brownstones, rental apartments and multi story public housing complexes, says the Clintons’ actions on Vieques will determine the breadth of her support for Mrs. Clinton’s Senate campaign.

Mrs. Clinton’s efforts on behalf of education, health care and a social safety net are important, “but Vieques ranks number one because our people are being abused,” says Mendez. The canny veteran of 21 years in the New York state Senate and the longest serving elected Puerto Rican woman politician in America adds: “Now if Hillary influences her husband to take the Navy out of Vieques, she will be crowned St. Hillary in Puerto Rico and New York.”

State Sen. Efrain Gonzalez Jr., whose district includes Hispanic neighborhoods in the Bronx, says his active support for Mrs. Clinton’s Senate campaign is “on hold” until he sees a favorable resolution of the dispute over Vieques. Gonzalez adds: “We’re staying tuned for further developments.”

Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s Senate campaign spokesman, said the First Lady continues to support an immediate and permanent end to bombing on Vieques even though she has not expressed a public reaction to the President’s announcement that military training will resume on Vieques in the spring.

“I never discuss what Hillary talks about with the President,” Wolfson said. “But suffice it to say, she is very clearly on the record urging an immediate and permanent halt to all bombing on the island.”

Clinton’s ability to muster support from grass roots politicians such as Gonzalez and Mendez could make the difference in the outcome of her high profile Senate race. The latest public opinion survey, a Quinnipiac College poll completed Dec. 12, showed the two term GOP mayor leading the First Lady 46 percent to 42 percent. The survey had a margin of error of 3 percent.

Hispanic voters who are expected to be about 6 percent of the vote next November could become part of the influential swing vote that determines the outcome. The President captured 86 percent of the Hispanic vote in New York in 1996. Rep. Charles Schumer, D N.Y., won 82 percent of the Hispanic vote in 1998 to oust Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, R N.Y.

But John Zogby, head of the Utica based polling firm Zogby International, says that the First Lady does not command the traditional margin of support among Hispanics of more than 70 percent that Democrats need to win statewide. The First Lady has averaged support from 62 percent of likely Hispanic voters over the past year, compared to Giuliani’s average of 31 percent, Zogby said.

“That’s not good news for a Democrat,” Zogby said.

Giuliani won re-election as mayor in 1997 with 43 percent of the Hispanic vote.

Clinton’s hopes for capturing a greater share of the Hispanic vote in New York may be hostage to developments on Vieques.

Puerto Rican activists vow immediate demonstrations here in New York if the White House orders the arrest of demonstrators camped out on the Vieques target range.