BY HERALD STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES

 Elian Gonzalez's father, traveling with his wife and infant son, arrived in the United
 States early today to claim custody of the 6-year-old shipwreck survivor.

 ''I have arrived in Washington where I expect for the first time in four months to
 hug my son,'' he said.

 Moments after his arrival at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C.,
 Juan Miguel Gonzalez made a combative statement in which he accused U.S.
 politicians, journalists and Miami's Cuban community of exploiting his son.

 Gonzalez also alleged that anti-Castro elements in the United States were trying to
 "obtain political advantage from this tragedy.''

 Gonzalez described the Miami relatives as ''faraway relatives who had never seen him
 (Elian) before'' and said he wants to return immediately to Cuba with Elian.

 ''I am told that I have to wait two months before I can return with Elian (to Cuba),''
 he said, calling it a ''new injustice.''

 Protesters at the airport shouted "Welcome to freedom" over Gonzalez's remarks,
 but he did not acknowledge them.

 Juan Miguel Gonzalez's attorney, Gregory Craig, who had traveled to Havana on
 Wednesday to meet with him, said on his return that, based on comments from
 the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Elian's father expected ``the process
 for transferring to him the care and custody of his son, Elian, will immediately
 begin.''

 A Clinton administration official said Wednesday night, however, that no physical
 transfer of the child was expected today, the day talks resumed in Miami between
 INS and lawyers for the child's Little Havana cousins.

 U.S. immigration officials are counting on Gonzalez's arrival to break a logjam in
 five days of talks with the boy's Miami relatives.

 Begun a week ago, the talks have been stalled by uncertainty over Juan Miguel's
 arrival and by the Miami family's proposal that a trio of psychologists examine
 Elian. Talks resumed on Thursday.

 With the father's arrival, INS said it was optimistic that the negotiations would
 soon conclude.

 "The government is still hoping to get a cooperative solution with the family with
 the the goal being the reunification of the father with his son," said INS
 spokeswoman Karen Kraushaar. "We welcome the development of the father's
 arrival in the United States. We feel it is a positive step and it will help us go
 forward toward reuniting the father and son."

 With the father's arrival, INS officials are no longer threatening to revoke Elian's
 immigration parole. Instead, they will shift the temporary custody from the boy's
 great uncle to his father. Although INS officials say they will only discuss how the
 boy is to be turned over to his father, attorneys for the boy's uncle say they have
 not yet agreed to turn the boy over.

 A letter could be sent by week's end notifying Elian's Miami relatives that custody
 was officially transferred to Juan Miguel; instructions on how to execute that
 transfer would follow in a second letter, perhaps early next week.

 In Miami, family spokesman Armando Gutierrez said the family wants the father
 to come to Miami and work out the custody dispute with his uncles and cousins.
 Cuban officials had said the father would stay with the head of the Cuban
 Interests Section in Washington, D.C.

 ``If he goes to the Cuban Interests Section, we feel he is still not a free man
 because he is still controlled by the Cuban government,'' Gutierrez said.

 However, family attorney Roger Bernstein conceded that the arrival of the father in
 the United States could affect today's scheduled negotiations over Elian. ``If he
 comes to the U.S. as a free man and he can make decisions on his own, then his
 arrival would change the dynamics of the negotiations,'' he said.

 WHAT IF

 In Little Havana, Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez was asked by one of about
 150 people gathered outside his house last night what would happen if federal
 agents came to pick up Elian.

 ``What do you think you're here for?'' Lazaro responded.

 Today, about 80 Cuban exiles gathered at the house. Elian played on a slide
 outside the home and fired a toy gun.

 Elian's Miami relatives will tell him about the arrival of his father in the presence of
 a psychologist, Gutierrez said.

 In Havana, Cuban President Fidel Castro declared victory as he announced the
 impending trip at the closing session of a university students' congress.

 ``The battle for Elian has been won -- in judicial terms, in legal terms, in political
 terms,'' he said.

 Arriving with Elian's father in Washington were his 6-month-old half-brother and
 Juan Miguel's second wife, the baby's mother.

 Castro said that Juan Miguel was specifically traveling with his immediate family
 so that Cuban Americans in Miami ``won't say that [wife and son] have been left
 behind as hostages in Cuba.''

 ``Let's see what slander they come up with now,'' he said.

 Word of the intended arrival swept through Little Havana on Wednesday night.
 More than 150 supporters of the Gonzalezes of Miami were gathered outside the
 house where Elian has lived since shortly after he was rescued on Thanksgiving
 Day. Some chanted ``Juan Miguel: Come and Stay!'' urging the father to defect.

 Nearby, others honked their car horns.

 Elian was not at the house when Craig made his announcement. Earlier, his
 great-uncle Lazaro had left with the child and Gutierrez said Elian had been taken
 to the home of a family friend, with his cousin Marisleysis Gonzalez. Later,
 Gutierrez said a sleeping Elian had been returned to the house.

 Gutierrez noted that a family court order prevents Elian from leaving Miami-Dade
 County.

 ALARMED REACTION

 Democracy Movement leader Ramon Saul Sanchez reacted with alarm to the
 development. ``If they take him to the Cuban Interests Section, they will do it over
 our bodies,'' he said.

 In Washington, Craig said: ``It is time for this reunion to go forward, and [Juan
 Miguel] is prepared to stay here until he has achieved that objective.''

 He added: ``It is a great tragedy when a young child loses a parent, as Elian did
 during his trip to the United States. But it is an equal tragedy for any parent to
 face the loss of a young child. . . . The first tragedy cannot be reversed. The
 second tragedy can and must be ended.''

 Elian's mother and 10 others drowned when their boat capsized and sank.

 INS spokeswoman Maria Cardona called Craig's announcement ``a welcome
 development . . . our goal remains to arrive at a cooperative arrangement with
 them on a smooth and orderly transfer of Elian to his father.''

 ``From the beginning of this process our goal has been to reunite Elian with his
 father. We believe his arrival in the United States should help move that process
 forward.''

 Craig met in Havana with Elian's father on Wednesday and said he persuaded him
 to make the trip to the United States -- despite a delay over whether two dozen
 other Cubans would receive visas to escort Gonzalez and his family.

 Others in Craig's entourage to Cuba included Joan Brown Campbell, the former
 general secretary of the National Council of Churches; Thom White Wolf Fassett,
 general secretary of the General Board of Church and Society of the United
 Methodist Church, and Oliver Garcia, an attorney in Craig's influential Capitol
 Beltway law firm.

 Fassett said he believes Juan Miguel Gonzalez did not come to the United States
 earlier because he thought his son would be returned to him in Cuba.

 "He's frankly been reluctant, I believe, because he has had such an open-faced
 reliance on the word of the United States that they would return his child
 according to the law," Fassett said. "He has had more faith in United States in
 this case than some of us have."

 Gonzalez became less optimistic as the battle over the boy dragged on, Fassett
 said.

 "I would characterize him as discouraged but passionate about his need to
 embrace his child," he said.

 INS STATEMENT

 Craig said a statement Monday by the INS that it would begin transferring
 custody of the boy to his father once the father arrived in the United States was
 crucial to persuading Juan Miguel to make the trip.

 On Tuesday, the State Department granted visas to six people -- Gonzalez, his
 wife and baby, a young cousin of Elian's, and the boy's pediatrician and
 kindergarten teacher -- but kept the other 22 requests ``under review.''

 It was not clear if the other three already granted visas would eventually travel to
 the United States.

 Herald staff writers Ana Radelat, Carol Rosenberg, Frank Davies, Marika Lynch,
 Andres Viglucci, and Jay Weaver and Herald staff translator Renato Perez, as
 well as online news writer Madeline Baró Diaz, contributed to this report.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald