BY ELAINE DE VALLE AND JAY WEAVER

 In his third letter in 12 days, the father of Elian Gonzalez said Wednesday
 that he wants Cuban diplomats in the United States to visit with the 6-year-
 old boy in his Miami home.

 The letters, signed by Juan Miguel Gonzalez and published in the Cuban
 Communist Party daily Granma, have provoked skeptical comments from
 Miami relatives who say the Cuban government is the author of these
 missives. Still, they have been read by people in high places, stimulating
 serious communications between Cuban and U.S. officials.

 The latest letter, to Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, said, ``You
 will recall that early this year I requested the MINREX [Foreign Ministry] to
 use diplomatic channels to arrange for our representatives in Washington to
 visit Elian and meet with him.

 ``I understand that the MINREX made the approach, but until now that visit has
 not taken place. In view of the time elapsed and my and my family's growing
 concern, I beg you to insist that the United States authorities agree to that visit.''

 Gonzalez has expressed increasing frustration with the U.S. government's failure
 to follow through on its Jan. 5 promise to return the boy.

 Luis Fernandez, spokesman for the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C.,
 said that consular officials there have made several requests to meet with the boy
 and see his living environment firsthand.

 ``The INS has said they are considering, but there has been no response,''
 Fernandez said.

 Said INS Spokeswoman Maria Cardona: ``The Justice Department is consulting
 with the State Department about the request. That's something we've been
 looking at for a while.''

 OFFICIAL RESPONSE

 She also said that the agency would by today have an official response to the
 father's two previous letters written this month. The latest demanded the boy's
 immediate return and rejected the Miami relatives' petition for an ``independent
 guardian'' to represent his interests in the federal court dispute. An earlier one
 requested the boy be placed with another uncle in Miami who agrees that Elian
 should go back to his home in Cuba.

 Previously, a Justice Department source has said it was ``unlikely'' Elian would be
 moved from the Little Havana home of paternal great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez,
 where he has lived since he was found clinging to an inner tube off the coast of
 Fort Lauderdale on Thanksgiving Day. His mother, her boyfriend and nine others
 died in the trip that brought the boy to South Florida.

 Lazaro Gonzalez and other Miami relatives -- with widespread support in the
 Cuban exile community -- are fighting to keep Elian in the United States.

 But Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, speaking at a press conference at the
 nation's capital Wednesday, said such a decision could cause ``international
 repercussions'' and hamper U.S. efforts to return U.S.-born children who have
 been kidnapped or taken to third countries by one parent over the objections of
 another.

 In January, INS ruled that only Elian's father could make parental decisions on
 behalf of the boy and that the two should be reunited. But the child's Miami
 relatives have challenged that ruling in a Florida federal court, claiming he has a
 constitutional right to an asylum hearing here.

 U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler will hear arguments Tuesday on whether he
 has jurisdiction to consider the Miami relatives' challenge of the INS ruling. If the
 judge decides he has jurisdiction, the case could be heard as early as the week
 of March 6.

 That's not soon enough for hundreds of members of the Association of Cuban
 Revolution Combatants, who helped bring Fidel Castro's revolution to power in
 1959. They joined Castro in a gathering Wednesday night at Havana's Convention
 Center to demand the ``immediate'' return of ``our Elian.''

 LETTER-WRITING

 The court's pace has also frustrated the boy's father, who in tandem with the
 Cuban government has launched a letter-writing campaign to focus attention on
 his custody rights and the boy's welfare.

 ``We are worried not only because of his prolonged kidnapping but also because
 we lack direct information about the actual conditions in which his daily life is
 led,'' said the latest letter.

 Said Fernandez, the Cuban diplomat in D.C.: ``The father himself, of course,
 wants to have some kind of supervision over the boy. He wants to know, as he
 has written before, who the family is, who has visited there. . . . Who is the
 psychologist seeing the boy? What kind of medicines is he taking? What exactly
 are the criminal records of everybody involved?''

 Even though the past DUI convictions of Lazaro Gonzalez and his brother Delfin --
 as well as crimes committed by two of the boy's cousins -- have been written
 about in U.S. and foreign media, Fernandez said Cuban officials want to
 investigate on their own.

 ``We don't know if there are more there,'' Fernandez said. ``There are always new
 things coming out.''

 MIAMI FAMILY: NO WAY

 Armando Gutierrez, a spokesman for the family, said such a visit would never
 happen.

 ``Fidel is dreaming. Because he is the one who wrote the letter. Imagine after
 what happened with the grandmothers, how is that family going to let Cuban spies
 into their home? It is putting that child in a cage with a lion.''

 Roger Bernstein, one of the attorneys representing Elian's Miami relatives, said
 he did not know if they would attempt to block such a meeting.

 ``But I'm disappointed that Juan Miguel doesn't come here himself to find out the
 condition of the home.''

 Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin returned to
 lobby members of Congress on the Elian Gonzalez case, urging them to support
 legislation designed to put the dispute in family court.

 O'Laughlin, president of Barry University, supervised a meeting between Elian and
 his grandmothers, then changed her mind about the boy's fate.

 Herald staff writer Frank Davies and Herald translator Renato Perez contributed to
 this report.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald