BY CAROL ROSENBERG

 ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Md. -- Cloistered among Air Force families celebrating
 Easter, Elian Gonzalez spent his first full day in five months with his family from Cuba
 snuggling with his father and kicking a ball on the ground of the sealed military base that
 maintains President Clinton's jet, Air Force One.

 ''They spent the day very quietly bonding with each other, talking with each other, getting
 reacquainted,'' said the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, who spoke with the boy's father
 through a translator by telephone.

 Attorney Gregory Craig, meanwhile, delivered film of the family Sunday to The Associated
 Press. One photo showed the family snuggling on a park bench somewhere near the
 temporary base townhouse where the family is staying. Another showed father and son with a
 ball. Both wore jeans and matching beige bomber jackets.

 Craig called ''preposterous'' suggestions in Miami that photos released earlier were fake.
 He called the family reunion ''so special.''

 The base, about 10 miles southeast of the White House, is 6,800 sprawling acres where
 4,000 Air Force personnel and their families live in suburban-style housing.

 EXCLUSIVE ADMISSION

 In all, about 24,000 people -- officers, their families and civilian Department of Defense
 employees -- regularly pass through the gates, some to work on the fleet of aircraft that
 take government officials around the world.

 But the military on Sunday turned back Elian's Miami relatives, notably Lazaro and
 Marisleysis Gonzalez -- seeking to deliver an Easter basket to Elian -- because ''we're
 a closed base,'' said Air Force Lt. Col. Dana Carroll, a post spokesman.

 Next month, about one million people will be permitted inside for an open house
 featuring aerial acrobatics by the Blue Angels. But Sunday, only people with military
 identification cards and their guests were granted access.

 Inside, Carroll said, Air Force officers, who mostly live in duplexes, townhouses,
 and apartment-style housing, attended several chapel functions as well as brunches
 and Easter egg hunts at the officers club.

 An Easter Bunny also was on hand, distributing eggs and candy.

 PRIVACY PREVAILS

 But Carroll would not say whether Elian participated -- referring all questions to
 the Department of Justice, which said that at the request of the boy's father, Juan
 Miguel Gonzalez, all details of the family's reunion were being kept private.

 A Clinton administration official did say, however, that Cuban officials have visited
 the family ''two or three times'' since the family's arrival Saturday. At all times, the
 Cuban officials were escorted by U.S. Marshals. The official said the visits had
 been made at the request of Juan Miguel Gonzalez.

 Earlier, Campbell, a church leader who saw Elian and his father at the base after
 the boy's SWAT-team style removal from Miami, said the family would leave the
 base soon for the U.S. government's Wye Plantation on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

 Speaking from New York after church services, Campbell said the scene
 surrounding the base -- with a handful of protesters and camera crews camped
 outside -- was ''too testy.''

 The Wye Plantation is even more secluded than the Air Force base and has
 been the setting for Arab-Israeli peace talks because it is far from public view.

 'TIME FOR PEACE'

 Craig said Sunday that the child was happily ensconced with his father,
 6-month-old half brother, Hianny, and stepmother.

 ''It's time for some peace here with this boy,'' he said. The child had not been
 seen publicly since Saturday's federal retrieval operation because the family
 wanted ''solitude and privacy,'' Craig said.

 But Craig did not rule out a future visit with the Miami relatives, saying the family
 should contact him privately rather than calling press conferences and issuing
 demands.

 At the State Department, an official said diplomats were still studying Cuban
 requests for visas for some of Elian's classmates to join him in the United States
 while the Gonzalezes await a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling on whether the
 6-year-old boy should be allowed to request political asylum.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald