BY ALFONSO CHARDY

 The main Cuban exile organizations on Thursday unanimously welcomed the arrival of
 Juan Miguel Gonzalez, Elian Gonzalez's father, to the United States.

 But they also criticized him for not traveling directly to Miami to see his son and meet
 with his Miami relatives to work out an arrangement that would enable Elian to stay here.

 The Cuban American National Foundation, the Democracy Movement and Brothers
 to the Rescue -- the three exile groups most closely involved in the case -- said they
 will do anything Elian's Miami family asks to foster a reunion with the child's father
 in Miami.

 Ramon Saul Sanchez of the Democracy Movement and Bill Schuss of Brothers
 to the Rescue said they're ready to urge demonstrators to leave the vicinity of the
 Little Havana home where Elian has been staying if the Miami family feels that such
 a move would encourage the boy's father to come to Miami.

 ``If the family asks that we call on people not to be here so the father can feel
 more at ease, we would do so,'' said Sanchez, one of the community's key
 promoters of street protests.

 Sanchez's strategy Thursday was to urge demonstrators to flock to the Little
 Havana home with flowers and prayers for Elian's father to come here.

 A Cuban American Foundation press release summarized the sentiments of other
 exile groups.

 ``CANF Welcomes Juan Miguel Gonzalez to America,'' it said.

 GROUP SKEPTICAL

 But beneath the title, the press release blasted Elian's father and expressed
 skepticism that he is free of Fidel Castro's influence.

 ``We firmly believe that if Mr. Gonzalez were free of the fear and pressure instilled
 in him and his family by the Cuban government in the course of the last four
 months,'' the press release stated, ``he would also fulfill his wish, stated so often
 to his family, that he, too, would come to live in the land of freedom.''

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald