BY CAROL ROSENBERG

 For weeks, Attorney General Janet Reno tried to stay on the fringes of the Elian
 Gonzalez saga.

 From her protected perch at her weekly news briefings, she mounted a spirited
 yet sober defense of the Immigration Service's decision to reunite the boy with
 his father in Cuba. Occasionally, she issued a terse statement after private
 meetings with some players in the drama -- the child's grandmothers, politicians
 and Cuban-American exile leaders.

 But Wednesday, Reno decided to play mediator -- and avert the possibility of
 sending in federal marshals to forcibly remove the child from his great-uncle's
 custody.

 With 30 minutes notice, Reno, who usually flies commercially, and coach,
 ordered up an FBI jet and headed for Miami. Her itinerary and plans were
 unknown, even to her chief spokesman Myron Marlin, who seemed genuinely
 surprised.

 Said a Justice Department official, speaking on background: ``She did this on
 instinct and she has very good instincts: She's from Miami. This is her
 community. She knows them.

 ``She wanted to reach out personally to impress upon both the relatives in Miami
 as well as the community the importance of reunifying this little boy with his
 father -- and to do it quickly, and to do it peacefully.''

 SUDDEN ACTION

 Added an aide, clearly unsettled by the turn of events: ``Her schedule is being
 worked out right now.''

 Reno announced to her staff at 2:30 p.m. that she would go to Miami and told
 Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner to meet her
 at the airport. She whisked a small entourage -- Associate Deputy Attorney
 General James Costello, department spokeswoman Carole Florman, her
 bodyguards -- from Main Justice without a fixed plan. They were in the air about
 30 minutes later.

 Reno decided to come to Miami, the aide said, after a 9 a.m. telephone chat with
 Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, a long-time friend and the president of Barry University.
 The nun then drove to Little Havana to gather up Elian and great-uncle Lazaro
 Gonzalez, stopped by Mercy Hospital in Coconut Grove to collect Lazaro's
 daughter, Marisleysis, and took them all to her Miami Beach home.

 RENO'S APPROACH

 Friends and admirers of Reno, 61, describe her as part social worker, part lawyer
 in her approach to the job of top U.S. law enforcer.

 Wednesday, it seemed, she swept the lawyer aside to play social worker -- and
 put her prestige on the line in a fashion that is atypical of Washington.

 ``You don't just have a political functionary there; you have a real human being,
 one with strength and courage,'' said long-time friend and admirer Janet McAliley,
 a former Dade School Board member.

 Of the unscripted mediation mission, McAliley said:

 ``She's got a lot of capacity to keep trying. It's so consistent with her concern for
 children, trying to bring this resolution about without having anybody get hurt or
 create a violent disturbance -- and, most of all, not have to pull the child out of his
 Miami relatives' arms.''

 In many ways, it is trademark Reno.

 MCDUFFIE CASE

 Admirers recall that she plunged into local mediation, too, in 1980 as Dade
 prosecutor, when her office failed to win convictions of Hispanic police officers in
 the shooting of a black insurance agent, Arthur McDuffie.

 In all, 19 people died in rioting that followed the acquittals and parts of Miami
 burned, causing millions of dollars in damage. Reno was so upset by the
 outcome, friends recall, that she drove herself into Liberty City to commiserate
 with fellow Miamians at a public forum attended by 300 people.

 Nationally, she caused the same kind of a stir in 1993 by swiftly -- and clearly --
 taking the blame for the failed federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound
 outside Waco, Texas, that resulted in a fire and the deaths of about 80 cult
 members.

 PERSONAL CONTROVERSY

 But neither episode seemed to embroil Reno in the kind of personal controversy
 that the Gonzalez case has created:

 First, she publicly differed with her old, respected friend, O'Laughlin, the Barry
 University president who agreed to make her Miami Beach home a safe-haven for
 a meeting between the boy and his grandmothers in late January.

 O'Laughlin traveled to Washington after the meeting to plead with the attorney
 general to let the boy stay with his family in Miami. Reno refused.

 Then, just days ago, Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas singled her out, along with
 President Clinton, as personally responsible for any bloodshed that broke out in
 Miami -- if the child was sent back to Cuba.

 Penelas, like Reno, a Democrat, later said he regretted his remarks. But it was
 symbolic of the resentment among hardline Cuban Americans for the role that
 Reno has played in the Elian drama. On the street, supporters of Elian remaining
 in Miami have said the attorney general is not welcome back in the city of her
 birth.

 McAliley, for her part, said Reno is not intimidated by the insults.

 ``I do know that she's looking forward to coming back to Miami at the end of her
 term,'' she said, quoting a telephone chat of about a week ago.

 In it, Reno reported plans to return to Miami after the Clinton administration and,
 among other things, play chess with McAliley's grandson.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald