By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday , April 21, 2000 ; A01

Attorney General Janet Reno has decided to remove Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Miami great-uncle and has instructed
federal law enforcement officials to determine the optimum moment to do so based on variables ranging from Miami traffic to
the weather forecast, officials said yesterday.

Once she is told the time is right on the ground, Reno will decide. Officials said Reno's primary concern is the safety of Elian
and of the government agents involved, and that they expected to move by the middle of next week.

Reno's decision was bolstered--some said pushed--by President Clinton, who for the first time took a firm public position on
the controversy yesterday. "He should be reunited with his son," Clinton said of Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez. "That is
the law."

Clinton's remarks came after an emotional public appeal by Gonzalez for American citizens to "please help me" by calling,
writing letters or "doing whatever you can" to press for Elian's return. "My son is only a 6-year-old child," Gonzalez told
reporters camped outside the Bethesda home of a Cuban diplomat where he has been staying since arriving from Havana two
weeks ago.

"He's a son like every other son or child in America. No different. Anyone who has feelings, who knows the love of parent for
a child, please help me. Don't let people put politics first." Gonzalez said "it hurts me a lot to see what they're doing" to Elian in
Miami.

Clinton's remarks came in a planned question-and-answer opportunity in the Rose Garden as he welcomed Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat for Middle East peace discussions. Choosing his words carefully, he said that Wednesday's appeals court order
preventing Elian from leaving for Cuba until court challenges are resolved had removed "any conceivable argument" from Miami
to delay the reunion. He said that it should happen "in as prompt and orderly a way as possible."

Asked about the appeals court suggestion that Elian may have rights independent from his father's wishes, Clinton said such a
conclusion would be "a dramatic departure from the law." Even if that became an issue during the appeals hearing next month,
he said, the court had said nothing to prevent Elian from being with his father "while all this legal process plays out."

Clinton has kept the controversy at arm's length since it began nearly five months ago, saying that decisions were up to Reno
and the courts. But as Reno has set and let pass a series of deadlines for the child to be relinquished by the Miami relatives and
courts have ruled, White House officials privately have complained that the government has seemed cowed by the potential ire
of the Cuban American community.

Aides said Clinton and Reno spent 45 minutes discussing the Elian case Wednesday night as they flew back on Air Force One
from ceremonies commemorating the fifth anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.

Yesterday morning, Reno met with Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris M. Meissner and senior legal
and law enforcement officials from the department. Among the options discussed was delaying enforcement action until after the
11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals deals with the question before it--whether the INS must consider a political asylum request
for Elian. A federal district court last month rejected the Miami relatives' challenge to an INS ruling that only Elian's father could
make such a request.

The appeals court has scheduled a preliminary hearing on the matter for May 11, but could take weeks after that to reach a
decision.

Reno rejected that option and instructed law enforcement officials, including U.S. marshals and INS agents, to prepare to
activate long-standing plans to remove Elian from the home of his Miami great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, and to inform her when
the time is right do it. Although they are depending on local police to deal with potential violence from demonstrators, federal
officials have long been monitoring the crowd gathered around the Gonzalez home in Little Havana.

Juan Miguel Gonzalez was said to be encouraged by yesterday's developments, particularly Clinton's statement, but he was
scheduled to meet with his attorney, Gregory B. Craig, today for what sources described as an "options meeting." Among those
options, the sources said, was "more self-help," including the possibility of launching court action on his own to press for Elian's
return if the government continues to delay.

In a letter after Wednesday's appeals court decision was announced, Craig reminded Reno that Lazaro Gonzalez already had
defied an INS order to turn Elian over to the INS on April 13. Saying that Lazaro Gonzalez had "resisted all efforts to
accomplish a peaceful transfer of Elian's custody to his father," Craig told Reno "there is no reason to expect any cooperation
from that quarter, and no more time should be wasted in any such effort."

For their part, the Miami relatives continued to ask to meet with the father "with no preconditions," and for an independent
psychological evaluation to examine allegations that the father is abusive and that Elian is afraid to return to him and to Cuba.

"With the allegations that the boy has made, have been made with respect to the father's temperament and past behavior . . .
this is the opportunity to evaluate the boy professionally," Jose Garcia-Pedrosa, an attorney for the relatives, said yesterday on
NBC's "Today" show.

Craig, appearing on the same show, said: "There's no evidence whatsoever that this father abused that child in any way, shape
or form. . . . For them to be raising these allegations at this late date is just simply outrageous."

In terms of a family meeting, he said, the relatives "still claim that they will not give custody to the father, that that's something for
them to decide. If there was a commitment by them that the very first thing they would do would be to hand Elian Gonzalez to
his father, then anything is possible."

Meanwhile, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) yesterday told Secretary of State Madeleine
K. Albright that he hopes she will "respond vigorously" to an alleged assault on demonstrators by Cuban diplomats outside their
government's mission here last Friday night. If the Cuban government refuses to cooperate, Helms wrote Albright, she should
consider "expelling those personnel suspected in the attack."

D.C. police and the Secret Service have said they are investigating the allegations.

Staff writer John F. Harris contributed to this report.

                                 © 2000 The Washington Post Company