Elian, Dad Reunited After Raid

Elian Gonzalez was reunited with his father Saturday after a SWAT team of federal agents, armed with semiautomatic weapons and firing pepper spray, rushed the home of the Cuban boy’s Miami relatives and seized the child near a back bedroom closet.

Crying “Help me! Help me!” in both English and Spanish, the frightened 6-year-old was hurried from Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood in a predawn raid, taken by helicopter to a waiting government jet and flown to Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Washington, where he was turned over to the long-waiting arms of his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez.

The reunion was warm and emotional, said the father’s attorney, Gregory B. Craig. It followed five months of anxiety and extremely harsh feelings that have consumed the case of the little refugee, whose mother drowned as he was set adrift on an inner tube in the Florida Straits.

“There was a huge relief on Juan Miguel’s face and a huge smile,” Craig said after watching the initial embrace of father and son. “I saw absolutely no evidence of any kind of trauma or any kind of fear or any kind of uncertainty” on Elian’s part.

Indeed, even as Elian’s Miami relatives flew to Washington to try to see the boy Saturday, photos showed a smiling Elian with his father, stepmother and little half-brother, Hianny. In one shot, Elian, dressed in a blue Batman shirt, beamed as his father held him in front of the camera.

Those images were starkly different from the pictures and TV footage from Miami. In one Associated Press photograph, a federal agent in full attack gear aims a large firearm in the general direction of the terrified child; the agent’s finger is poised near the trigger.

On television, a crying Elian was seen being whisked by an Immigration and Naturalization Service agent out of the house and into a police van. Outside, agents fired pepper stray to control a small crowd of Cuban Americans, some of them hurling rocks and other debris in anger.

As the sun came up on a startled Miami, protesters roamed through the streets. Sometimes the crowds were more than 1,000 strong. More rocks and debris were thrown at police officers. Truck tires and American flags were burned as well. Police in full riot gear tried to control the protesters, and more than 260 arrests were made by late afternoon.

Back in Washington, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno defended the heavy use of force. She gave the green light for the raid after last-minute negotiations crumbled overnight. Her decision was supported by President Clinton.

“We had received information that there were guns, perhaps in the crowd, perhaps in the house,” Reno said. “The safety of all involved was paramount. And when law enforcement goes into a situation like that, it must go in prepared for the unexpected.”

But members of the family of Lazaro Gonzalez, the boy’s great-uncle in Miami, said there were no guns in the house. They were angry over how the raid was pulled off, complaining of being pushed and shoved--and frightened by the number of guns carried into their home. They insisted they would have relinquished the boy to his father peacefully had the Justice Department been more cooperative.

Agents Take Boy From His Rescuer

In perhaps the saga’s greatest irony, Elian was handed over to the agents by Donato Dalrymple, the fisherman who helped rescue the boy from the Florida Straits on Thanksgiving Day.

“They ripped him from my arms,” Dalrymple cried. “This isn’t supposed to happen in America.”

The raid drew harsh criticism from several top Republicans, including presidential candidate George W. Bush, who said it produced a “chilling picture” that “defies the values of America and is not an image a freedom-loving nation wants to show the world.” Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) compared the agents’ tactics to those used in Castro’s Cuba.

Democratic candidate and Vice President Al Gore issued a noncommittal statement. He said he would have preferred the matter be resolved “through a family court and with the family coming together.”

In Miami, if not the nation, the story of Elian--complicated by post-Cold War politics, lawsuits and accusations of child abuse from both sides in the custody battle--exposed deep cultural fault lines.

To many Cuban exiles, the boy was a symbol of all that was blessed about democracy and all that was evil about the regime of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Many blamed his father for not coming to Miami. They did not believe he could speak freely, even from Washington, while surrounded by agents of the Cuban government.

But many non-Cubans in Miami found the case less complicated: The father wanted the boy back, an INS investigation in Cuba had shown Juan Miguel Gonzalez to be a fit father and the two should be reunited.

“Operation Reunion” was set in motion after all-night negotiations fell through between Miami intermediaries for the family and officials with the Justice Department and the INS.

The last discussions between Reno and the Miami relatives called for Lazaro Gonzalez and his 21-year-old daughter, Marisleysis, to bring Elian to a neutral hotel or conference center near Washington, according to a senior Justice Department source.

Sites discussed included the Wye Plantation, a center on Maryland’s Eastern Shore that has been used for Mideast peace conferences, and the Airlie House near Warrenton, Va. But the Miami relatives countered that the meeting would have to take place in the Miami area. Justice officials turned them down.

It was imperative from the Justice Department’s standpoint that Juan Miguel Gonzalez regain formal custody of the child at any meeting. But the Miami relatives turned down this provision as well.

In further talks, the Miami family’s intermediaries proposed that all family members stay at a neutral location until a federal appeals court case is decided, in late May at the earliest. But Juan Miguel Gonzalez faxed a counterproposal late Friday that called for a much shorter joint stay.

In describing the talks, Reno said afterward that “every step of the way, the Miami relatives kept moving the goal posts and raising more hurdles.”

A Postponement, Then Retrieval

Reno gave the go-ahead for Operation Reunion about 4 a.m. After a brief postponement when the Miami faction asked for more time, she ordered the retrieval to start again.

Well-armed agents arrived abruptly at 5:15 a.m.

“He was crying, ‘Don’t take me!’ ” said Marisleysis Gonzalez, who was near hysteria minutes after an INS agent scooped up the child in a white blanket and rushed him into a police van outside. She expressed outrage at seeing “a 6-year-old with a gun to his head.”

Inside the house, pandemonium reigned.

Elian had been asleep on a living room couch with Lazaro, according to Marisleysis, when agents used a battering ram to knock down the front door. (Law enforcement officials said that eight agents knocked before entering, as required under federal procedure.)

Alerted by the commotion, Dalrymple, the fisherman, jumped from the floor where he was asleep, picked up Elian and rushed with him into the bedroom where Lazaro’s wife, Angela, was sleeping.

With pepper spray drifting in through the open windows, Dalrymple said, he tried to hide with Elian in a closet.

But in a moment recorded by the Associated Press photographer, a federal agent holding an assault rifle ordered Dalrymple to hand the screaming boy over to an INS agent.

That agent then rushed Elian from the house and into a waiting van. The agent later told her supervisors that the boy was clearly scared. While she rubbed his back to keep him calm, the agent felt just as frightened--particularly with all of the commotion outside, Justice Department sources said.

About 30 Cuban exiles were keeping vigil outside the house when about 20 agents and a series of white vans rolled up in front. Along with family members rushing outside the house were two of their lawyers.

“It was one of the most disgraceful moments for our system and our government that I can recall,” said Kendall Coffey, one of the two family lawyers and a former U.S. attorney in Miami.

Coffey said he was in the house holding on the phone with Aaron Podhurst, one of the Miami intermediaries, when the agents burst in.

“It is an hour of shame for the Clinton administration, shame for the Department of Justice, shame for the INS,” Coffey said.

The van carrying Elian backed down the street and away from the commotion. He then was taken by helicopter from Watson Island, near downtown Miami, to Homestead Air Reserve Base, where he was transferred to a U.S. marshal’s jet and spirited away toward the Washington area--and his father.

Before taking off, a Spanish-speaking physician examined the boy. In the air, a Spanish-speaking psychiatrist visited with Elian.

Officials Work to Calm Boy on Flight

Federal sources said Elian was told where he was going, provided a toy plane and a map so he could follow the jet’s route. He also was given a “play pack” containing Play-Doh, which authorities wanted him to squeeze to ease the stress.

The officials on board the eight-seat jet sought to calm the child, according to INS Commissioner Doris Meissner. She said they told him: “This may seem very scary right now, but it will soon be better. . . . You will not be going back to Cuba. You will not be on a boat. You are around people who care for you. We are going to take care of you. Please don’t be frightened.”

INS agent Betty Mills, who removed Elian from the house, had been carefully coached by psychologists. Mills, 33, an eight-year veteran of the service, explained to Elian what was happening every step of the way.

“All this noise will go over soon,” she said to the boy. “We’re here to take you to your papa.”

When the plane took off, Elian began to cry. It was his first plane ride. But when Mills began talking to him again, he calmed down. She opened the shade to show Elian how pretty the sky looked when the sun was coming up.

“He became completely engaged by how pretty the colors were,” said INS spokeswoman Maria Cardona.

Soon, he fell asleep on Mills’ lap. When the jet landed, Elian’s father went on board to get him. He spent five minutes alone with the boy. He did not want any cameras to record the scene on the aircraft.

When they emerged, Elian clung to his father’s neck, his head nudged into his shoulder.

“You could just tell the father was incredibly happy,” Cardona said.

As the family became reacquainted, Lazaro and Marisleysis Gonzalez, along with Dalrymple, flew on a commercial flight to Washington. They were escorted in a minivan to Capitol Hill and then to Andrews, with Dalrymple flashing a sign that said “Federal child abuse” and the photo of the armed agent confronting Elian in the house.

When they arrived shortly before 8 p.m. EDT, they were turned away at the visitors’ entrance. With them was Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.).

“They’re beside themselves with grief,” Smith said. “I never thought I’d see this in America.”

Earlier in the day in Washington, Reno said Elian and Juan Miguel Gonzalez need time to readjust.

“Let us give him and his father the space, the calm and the moral support they need to reconnect,” she said.

Attorney General Discusses Photograph

Reno also defended her decision to use force and urged the public not to view the photograph inside the house as proof that the child was purposely terrorized.

“As I understand it, if you look at it carefully,” she said, “it shows that the gun was pointed to the side, and that the finger was not on the trigger.”

Clinton, in brief remarks at the White House, said that “the law has been upheld” and that Reno’s decision “was the right thing to do.”

He added: “I hope, with time and support, Elian and his father will have the opportunity to be a strong family again.”

In Miami, many Cuban exiles reacted in fury at the news that Elian had been seized.

Throughout the day, demonstrators blocked intersections, set trash fires and scuffled with police in Little Havana as they tried to keep streets and expressways clear. Most of the arrests were for disorderly conduct. Los Angeles Times photographer Carolyn Cole was arrested in one of the police sweeps.

The assault on the house was shown live by television stations and networks, which kept a 24-hour watch on the home almost from the day Elian was brought there last November.

A few family supporters who tried to block INS and Border Patrol agents at the house were pushed aside or knocked down.

Young men posted as family sentries in the backyard of the small home were ordered at gunpoint to drop to their knees.

Ramon Saul Sanchez, a leader of the exile protests in Miami, was hit in the side of the head with a rifle and felled. Speaking to reporters after he was treated for head wounds at an area hospital, Sanchez urged calm, saying violence would only play into Castro’s hands.

“Castro would never have allowed the father to see the family here,” Sanchez said. “He wanted to push us as far as possible to see violence, and he got it with the cooperation of the government.

“There is,” he added, “a lot of hurt in this community.”

It was the Associated Press photo that infuriated the crowds. It became an instant poster, and within two hours was being held aloft by demonstrators as they vented their anger and frustration with acts of civil disobedience and vandalism.

In Cuba, Miami’s sporadic street protests were played back in Havana throughout the day on Cuba’s state-run television. The images showed a community group that Castro has painted as “the mafia in Miami” being beaten by American police and burning the flag of the nation they chose over their homeland.

Beyond the propaganda value of the imagery, the Cuban government played down Saturday morning’s Operation Reunion.

Castro spoke later in the day at a previously scheduled “Free Elian” outdoor mass demonstration of 400,000 in the Cuban province of Matanzas.

The Cuban president was among the strongest supporters of the Clinton administration’s raid. During a three-hour speech at the site where Cuban militia fighters shot down a CIA pilot during the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion 39 years ago last week, Castro thanked Reno, Clinton and, especially, American public opinion.

“The best prize was to see the smiles on the boy and father’s face,” Castro said.

More Inside

* MAD IN MIAMI--The anger of Miami’s Cuban American exile community spills onto the streets. Hundreds are arrested. A17

* WHAT’S NEXT--Immigration experts predict case could be resolved soon now that Elian is in the custody of his father. A20

* HEALTH CONCERNS--Psychology experts are divided over the emotional health of boy who has lived in the media’s glare. A20

* FACE-OFF--Elian has been transformed into a living visual aid, Howard Rosenberg writes. A20

* QUIET IN CUBA--In Havana, the atmosphere was almost as if nothing had happened. A24

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Predawn Strategy

Shortly after 5 a.m. EDT Saturday, federal agents seized 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez from his relatives’ home in Miami.

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1. Agents used pepper spray to hold back the crowd, while eight others entered the house to take the boy. Within three minutes he was brought by a Spanish-speaking female agent to a van waiting in front of the house.

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2. He was driven to Watson Island, where a waiting helicopter took him to Homestead Air Reserve Base.

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3. At Homestead, Elian was examined by a doctor. By 6 a.m., he was on a U.S. marshal’s plane bound for Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, where he was reunited with his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez.

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Source: Compiled from Associated Press reports

Times research by Anna M. Virtue

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Serrano reported from Washington and Clary from Miami. Times staff writers Mark Fineman in Miami; Lisa Getter, Jube Shiver Jr., Matea Gold and Robert L. Jackson in Washington; John J. Goldman in New York; and researchers Sunny Kaplan in Washington and Anna M. Virtue in Miami contributed to this story.