"I didn't keep notes, but I'll tell as much as I can remember about every major
 event in the case." ARMANDO GUTIERREZ, political consultant and publicist

BY LUISA YANEZ

 He was there from the start, even before Elián González became a cause célbre.

 He was there when every deal to hand over the boy was brokered and broken by
 the boy's great-uncle, Lázaro González, and his team of attorneys.

 And he was inside the house when federal agents stormed the Little Havana
 home to snatch the boy, who was 6 years old at the time.

 If there was a true insider in the saga, it was Armando Gutiérrez, political
 consultant and publicist turned official spokesman and confidant to the González
 family.

 Now, Gutiérrez is writing a book about the five-month ordeal. Fittingly, Gutiérrez is
 calling the book The Spokesman, a term that became part of his name.

 And he promises to tell all.

 ``I didn't keep notes, but I'll tell as much as I can remember about every major
 event in the case,'' Gutiérrez said. ``I look at the experience as being on a roller
 coaster.''

 It was a grueling ride, he said. From late November to April 22, when the boy was
 reunited with his father in Washington, D.C., Gutiérrez said it seemed like he
 worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

 Gutiérrez doesn't have a book deal and said he'll publish it himself. He hopes the
 book will hit the streets by late next month.

 Details withheld during the saga will be revealed now, he said.

 For example, he'll tell if anyone coached Elián for his video message to his father,
 where Elián referred to former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno an ``old lady''
 and defied his dad, saying that he did not want to return to Cuba.

 Other tidbits: the mood in the house before the raid. What was said at the
 powwow at Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin's Miami Beach mansion. And who made the
 decision to hold a news conference in Washington, D.C., the day after the boy
 was taken.

 But, Gutiérrez said, he'll start at the beginning -- his beginning.

 Like Elián, Gutiérrez fled Cuba as a child with his mother, leaving behind his
 father, who later joined the family in Miami.

 ``I could identify with Elián,'' Gutiérrez said.

 He got involved in the case after visiting the González home with local politicians.
 He realized the family needed his help dealing with the onslaught of media and he
 jumped in. He put everything aside and worked without pay.

 Gutiérrez said he never planned to write a book, but after watching the Fox Family
 Channel's The Elián González Story, which aired in September, he changed his
 mind.

 He said that he had the Gonzálezes' blessing to tell the real story.

 ``I'm gonna tell it like it was,'' he said.