Elian and Cuban Father May Be Reunited Today

Six-year-old Elian Gonzalez could be reunited with his father today in a hastily arranged meeting in Washington, but the Florida relatives who are expected to accompany the boy do not intend to relinquish custody, a Cuban American advocacy group said late Tuesday.

The Cuban American National Foundation, which helped arrange the meeting, said that Elian and his great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, were planning to leave Miami this morning for the flight to Washington. The reunion with Elian’s father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, was expected to occur later in the day.

However, late Tuesday night Lazaro Gonzalez emerged from his Miami home to face the cameras and say that Elian “did not want to go.” He did not elaborate.

The consecutive, conflicting announcements threw the situation into confusion.

“There is an agreement between the attorneys for the family, the Justice Department and Gregory B. Craig [the father’s attorney], for a meeting . . . at a neutral location in the Washington area,” said foundation Chairman Jorge Mas.

Mas said that Elian would be accompanied by Lazaro Gonzalez and Delfin Gonzalez, Lazaro’s brother, who has been in Washington for several days. They “will meet by themselves at this location with Juan Miguel, his wife and young son,” Mas said.

Mas said that the only non-family representatives at the meeting will be Assistant Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. and Sen. Robert G. Toricelli (D-N.J.), a close ally of the foundation. Justice Department officials declined late Tuesday to confirm the foundation’s account.

It was not clear what would happen if the meeting takes place, including whether Elian will stay in the area or return to Miami.

The meeting would be Elian’s first with his father since he was rescued more than four months ago after his mother drowned and he was cast afloat on an inner tube off the coast of Florida when their boat capsized as it neared the end of a perilous journey from Fidel Castro’s Cuba to America.

Although Mas indicated that the family does not intend to transfer custody of Elian today, the potential meeting appeared to represent a significant breakthrough in the standoff that has pitted official Washington against both the Castro regime and the anti-Castro community in South Florida.

If the meeting occurs and goes smoothly, it could assuage some of the family’s concerns about the potential trauma of transferring custody to Elian’s father. In addition, it would remove Elian, at least temporarily, from the hothouse political environment of Miami’s Little Havana, where anti-Castro activists have been demonstrating daily in opposition to the boy’s return to communist Cuba.

Earlier Tuesday, a contingent of Miami-area mayors met for nearly an hour with Atty. Gen. Janet Reno but were unable to get her to agree to a monthlong transition period before Elian is turned over to his father.

The federal government does not appear likely to budge on its insistence that the father and son be reunited quickly, the mayors said after the session. They had hoped to persuade Reno to grant a 30-day transition period for the transfer or at least some additional time to calm frayed nerves.

The mayors also encouraged the two branches of the family--Elian’s Florida relatives and his father, wife and stepbrother--to meet and resolve the impasse. Since he was rescued at sea, Elian has been staying in the home of Lazaro Gonzalez, his father’s uncle.

Reno’s office had said earlier in the day that she would personally travel to Miami to meet with community leaders, but Justice Department sources said late Tuesday that she would not be going.

In Miami earlier Tuesday, Elian’s relatives seemed to be grasping at several last-minute scenarios to prevent, or at least postpone, the boy’s transfer.

Lazaro Gonzalez urged in a letter that the father meet with them at “any neutral place in South Florida” so differences over Elian’s future could be hashed out privately.

In the letter to psychiatrist Paulina M. Kernberg, one of the three mental health experts named by Reno to advise the Miami family on the custody transfer, Lazaro Gonzalez suggested that Elian’s father move out from “under the glaring eyes of the Cuban government officials” in Washington and travel to South Florida.

Lazaro Gonzalez suggested that the “essential and long-overdue” meeting with his nephew take place at the Miami Beach home of Jeanne O’Laughlin, the Dominican nun who hosted a visit by the boy’s Cuban grandmothers in January, “or, if necessary, elsewhere in the state.”

But he also stipulated that Elian would return to his Miami home after the meeting.

“This is extremely important, not only to me and Marisleysis [Lazaro Gonzalez’s daughter, who has been Elian’s major care-giver in Miami] but also for Elian so that he can be assured honestly that his going to the meeting will not immediately place him on a plane to Cuba,” Gonzalez wrote.

Such a family meeting, he wrote, “might well help matters a great deal and could not possibly make things any worse.”

A copy of the letter was sent to Reno.

Manny Diaz, one of several attorneys representing Lazaro Gonzalez in his battle to maintain temporary custody of Elian, said that the meeting his client proposes “should be strictly among family members with no lawyers or officials present.”

But a Justice Department spokeswoman all but dismissed the great-uncle’s suggestion.

“This is not a request the Miami relatives can make of the government,” said Carole Florman. “They need to make it to Juan Miguel.”

The Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, former secretary-general of the National Council of Churches, met earlier Tuesday with Elian’s father and said that he reiterated his unwillingness to meet with any family members until Elian is returned to his custody.

The father, she said, “is responding like a father. . . . He wants very much to hold him. ‘It is frustrating to see his image on television and not be able to touch him.’ ”

In other developments, Immigration and Naturalization Service sources said that a hospital meeting in Miami on Monday night between the three Washington-picked mental health experts and Lazaro Gonzalez “was not very helpful” because Lazaro Gonzalez was not willing to budge from his refusal to relinquish the boy.

“It was a disappointing meeting,” said one INS source familiar with those talks. Lazaro Gonzalez “didn’t even seem to understand why Juan Miguel would even have a concern about going to Little Havana, to Lazaro Gonzalez’s house. He couldn’t seem to comprehend that.

“And that’s an indication that Lazaro doesn’t get it. And that’s unfortunate that he wasn’t really concerned about the well-being of this little boy.”

But Lazaro Gonzalez’s lawyers saw it differently.

Attorney Roger Bernstein noted that the meeting took place in a local Miami hospital while Elian was next door with Marisleysis. Yet the three mental health experts declined to talk to the boy.

“They still had no interest in speaking to him,” Bernstein complained. “What are they afraid of finding?”

Bernstein also said that Monday night’s meeting was “very frustrating for Lazaro.”

“He can’t comprehend how the government can be so callous and not consider this child’s mental condition first. Instead, they’ve made a determination first and are hellbent on transferring this kid back to Cuba.

“What is the rush? Why isn’t there a more thoughtful process.”

The INS source, however, said there was no need for the experts to talk to Elian at that meeting.

“They were not there to do a psychiatric evaluation of Elian,” the source said. “That needs to happen once he’s transferred to his father. They were there only to consult with the family and then with us on what would be the best manner to transfer him quickly.”

Further pressuring the Miami relatives, Justice Department officials in Washington filed a legal brief in state family court in Miami in a case brought by the Miami relatives.

The Washington officials said that the Miami relatives’ court effort to keep the child should be thrown out because the federal government, not local family courts, have sole control over which illegal residents “may remain here.”

“A father should not have to await further state court proceedings to get his son back . . . ,” the Washington brief said. “The father is harmed by having to wait. His son is harmed by having to wait.”

On Capitol Hill, GOP lawmakers invited Juan Miguel Gonzalez, his wife and their infant son to visit with lawmakers in the Capitol today.

“We want you to have the freedom to express your true feelings during your visit, without coercion and without intimidation,” the lawmakers said in their invitation to him.

It was unclear whether the father would accept. His lawyer, Craig, said that Juan Miguel Gonzalez is focused only on reuniting with his son.

Interviewed on the CBS “Early Show” television program, Craig said that “the real question is whether Lazaro and the relatives in Miami will orderly and voluntarily turn the boy over to his father.

“I’m hopeful. We’ll soon find out, I think.”

In front of the Little Havana house where Elian has lived for the last 4 1/2 months, the number of supporters dwindled early Tuesday to fewer than 60.

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Serrano reported from Washington and Clary from Miami. Staff writer Art Pine in Washington contributed to this story.