A Harsh but Right Action

Elian Gonzalez is with his father today, as he should have been long ago. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno made a difficult decision in ordering him removed from his Miami relatives’ home by armed agents, but she had been properly cautious--even overly cautious--in moving ahead on the legal front and in the police action that took place Saturday morning. Now her office should act promptly in court to settle the issue of the child’s status.

To say there should have been an easier solution is to ignore the political fever that leaders of the Cuban American community in Miami had fueled around the issue. Their case, that the 6-year-old should remain with Miami relatives rather than be returned to his father, who rightly sought custody and was granted it, amounted to a crude political power play balanced on the back of a child. In the five months of legal maneuvers, the boy was often lost in the turmoil, just a 6-year-old kid pedaling his bike in the yard of a distant relative.

On the other side, Reno and the White House moved step by step through the legal tangle and came inevitably to the crisis point. The Immigration and Naturalization Service ruled that Elian should be returned to his father, who, divorced from Elian’s mother, remained in Cuba when the mother and the boy embarked last fall on a boat trip to seek sanctuary in America. The mother drowned when the boat capsized. Her son was picked up clinging to an inner tube and was taken in by his Miami relatives.

The standoff between the attorney general and the boisterous Miami Cubans continued in the courts and the streets until early Saturday. After endless negotiations with the family, Reno made her choice, surely knowing that the result would be dramatic and dangerous, and it was. The sensational news photo of a rifle-toting federal marshal seeming to confront Elian in a closet doorway in the wee hours Saturday made clear just how charged the standoff had become.

Elian’s Miami relatives had argued that once the father had custody, Elian would be whisked to Cuba before their latest appeal for political asylum for the boy could be heard. But a U.S. circuit court has ruled that Elian must remain in the United States until his case is heard, and the father’s lawyer clearly stated Saturday that Elian would indeed remain.

No matter how fervently Miami’s Cuban Americans wave the photo of the armed and armored marshal, other images will supersede it. A photo shot later in the day shows a smiling Elian embracing his dad, a far cry from the traumatic scenes in Little Havana before dawn. This drama has not ended, but it’s taken a positive turn.