Past Tragedy a Factor in Reno’s Caution

Caution has been the watchword for Atty. Gen. Janet Reno for more than four months as she has tried to reunite shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez with his Cuban father.

But when does caution turn to indecision? As another deadline came and went Thursday, the attorney general faced fresh criticism from legal and political observers who questioned whether she has moved too cautiously and has missed months of opportunities to resolve the impasse before it becomes a tinderbox for potential violence. In the process, some fear that she may have lost leverage and credibility in negotiating with the boy’s Miami relatives.

“The Justice Department stares the other side in the face and who blinks? It’s Atty. Gen. Reno,” said professor Bernard Perlmutter, a family law expert at the University of Miami who has followed the case closely. “She has been the voice of reason and sanity . . . but, with respect to having the will to execute the law, that’s where I think the federal government has fallen short.”

Reno’s cautious approach, many observers suggested, may reflect the fact that she has seen the traumatic effects of confrontation before.

First came lethal rioting in Miami in 1980, when she was Miami-Dade County’s top prosecutor, as angry mobs shouted “Reno! Reno! Reno!” in response to the acquittals of four white police officers in the death of a black motorist. Then came the siege near Waco, Texas, during her first weeks as attorney general in 1993, when she approved the FBI’s tear gas attack on the Branch Davidian compound. The move backfired and cult leader David Koresh and about 80 of his followers, including 19 children, died in a raging conflagration.

Tainted by those experiences, “the attorney general’s approach to all this has been tempered by her fervent desire to avoid a confrontation,” said Paul Virtue, the former general counsel at the Immigration and Naturalization Service under Reno.

“She doesn’t relish the specter of INS agents or U.S. marshals taking a boy kicking and screaming from the house on her watch. She still believes--and has some hope--that she can work this out with the family. But her patience has to be wearing thin,” he said.

One former senior Justice Department official was even more blunt in assessing Reno’s caution in the Elian brinkmanship: “It would be a hell of a thing,” he said, “to have her attorney generalship framed by bookends like Waco and bloodshed over Elian.”

Many observers are sympathetic with Reno’s predicament, saying that the defiance of the Cuban American relatives who have temporary custody of Elian and the volatile statements of Miami politicians have left her with few options. Supporters noted that Reno--as in the aftermath of the Branch Davidian episode--has taken full responsibility for how the the Gonzalez matter has been handled, flying to Miami this week in a failed effort to broker a deal. Known as a lawyer with a social worker’s sensitivity, she even met personally with Elian to gauge how well he was handling the ordeal.

“Janet Reno has been extremely patient,” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) said Thursday. “She’s showing that she’s doing everything possible.”

But others question whether that has been the case, pointing to options that they say Reno and federal authorities have left untapped.

Some suggested, for instance, that before turning Elian over to the temporary care of his great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzales, in the days after his rescue last November, INS officials should have gotten a firmer commitment from the relatives to relinquish custody when necessary.

With the law clearly favoring the boy’s return to his father, some legal observers suggested, the INS could have moved more quickly to resolve his status rather than waiting nearly six weeks, as tempers began to flare in Miami.

Once the INS did rule in January that the boy should be returned to his father, Reno could have immediately moved to enforce that order--rather than essentially inviting the Miami relatives to contest the ruling in the courts. In the weeks and months that followed, Reno could have held firm on at least three deadlines imposed on the relatives during negotiations. And she could have sought financial sanctions against the relatives for each day they refused to turn the boy over, several lawyers suggested.

The longer the impasse has lasted, the more defiant the Miami relatives have become, with Lazaro Gonzalez warning this week that federal authorities would have to use force to take his great-nephew away from him.

“This is another hostage situation but the hostage now is the Justice Department,” said Stanley E. Morris, who headed the U.S. Marshals Service from 1983 to 1989 in the Reagan administration.

If he were still head of the marshals and was given the order to retrieve Elian, Morris said, he would dispatch three marshals in plainclothes--making sure two of them were women who might “tend to be a little more sensitive.” He would send along a psychologist to accompany them, let the local police know when they were coming, have them knock on the door and--above all else--avoid confrontation. “If they’re in harm’s way, then you back up,” he said.

But Reno has opted not to use the marshals or anyone else to retrieve the boy and that option is out of her hands for the time being because of a temporary injunction issued by an appellate court Thursday afternoon. For now, the matter is in the hands of the court and Reno and her aides will have to wait some more.

Repeatedly in recent weeks, Reno has been asked if she regrets not having acted sooner to reunite Elian with his father. And repeatedly she has said that she has no regrets, making clear that a “reasonable, measured” resolution is her overriding priority.

“We have the authority to take action,” she repeated Thursday, “but responsible authority means not only being able to take action but knowing when and how to take that action.”

Times staff writers Ronald J. Ostrow and Nick Anderson contributed to this story.