BY JOSEPH TANFANI

 In seeking an answer to the Elian Gonzalez impasse, veterans of volatile crisis
 negotiations say their best advice for Janet Reno is to take a deep breath, back
 off from the brink -- and keep talking.

 Even as the situation seemed hopelessly frozen on Thursday, with Elian's Miami
 relatives insisting they will never turn over the boy, several experts say the
 government shouldn't give up on a settlement. There may yet be a better solution
 than federal agents going through an angry crowd in Little Havana to grab Elian,
 they say.

 ``The government is going to have to show infinite patience,'' said Clinton Van
 Zandt, a retired FBI agent who once served as the bureau's chief hostage
 negotiator and now owns a Virginia consulting firm. ``We've got a line in the sand.
 That doesn't mean we have to cross the line. This really calls for reason.''

 Van Zandt, a veteran of the Waco standoff and the prison riots of Cuban
 detainees, said he would try bringing in a respected leader like Auxiliary Bishop
 Agustin Roman as mediator.

 During a critical juncture in one prison standoff, Roman came to say Mass and
 suggested that the detainees throw down their weapons, defusing the crisis.
 ``There were Cubans en masse throwing knives and spears over the top,'' Van
 Zandt said.

 Roman said Thursday that the church should only get involved as mediator if the
 family asks for help. That hasn't happened.

 RIGHT APPROACH

 Seasoned hostage negotiators say Reno seems to be taking the right approach:
 patience and offers to keep talking, backed by a firm insistence that the Miami
 relatives ultimately must follow the law.

 ``You don't get discouraged. You're always thinking: Is there some angle, or some
 person we can use that potentially could have influence?'' said Robert J. Louden,
 a retired New York detective who supervised the New York Police Department's
 hostage negotiation unit. He now heads the criminal justice center at New York's
 John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

 ``You don't have a script,'' he said. ``As time goes by, people's resolve changes,
 people's thoughts change.''

 The first tactic of negotiating is to move the argument away from an all-or-nothing
 debate. So far, there seems to be no possible middle ground for Elian Gonzalez --
 he either stays in Miami or returns to Cuba.

 Still, compromise might not be a lost cause, experts say.

 William Monning, a conflict resolution expert at the Monterey Institute of
 International Studies, suggested an arrangement where Elian could return to Cuba
 but spend summers in Miami -- ``Something so when he leaves, it's not the end
 forever.'' Or there could be some agreement that the boy could become a U.S.
 citizen and return when he becomes an adult.

 ``You could break down some of the absolute nature of the distance between
 Cuba and Miami, for this family,'' Monning said, noting that might be impossible
 given the hostility between the two governments.

 ``Part of what the Miami family needs is to save face as having stood up for what's
 right for Elian,'' Monning said. ``That's what the government needs to be able to
 offer them.''

 `NO MAGIC TIME'

 How long should the government wait before sending marshals to take Elian?

 ``There's no magic time,'' Louden said. ``If you think there's a glimmer of hope that
 the individual inside would listen to your reasoning, you keep going.''

 If there's no deal, experts say, the government must start with the lowest possible
 show of force -- unarmed agents walking up to the house and asking for the child.

 That's just what marshals have in mind, as a last resort.

 ``Very up front and businesslike. You knock on the door, almost like Joe Friday,
 say: `You knew we were coming, and here we are,' '' Louden said. ```We would
 like you to help us do this.'''

 Louden and Van Zandt said it would be disastrous to stage a surprise operation to
 grab the boy at night. Federal authorities have promised not to do so.

 ``The last thing we need are American law enforcers going in like jackbooted
 Nazis or Castro's storm troops,'' Van Zandt said. ``Whatever is done has to stand
 the light of day.''

 Herald staff writers David Kidwell and D. Aileen Dodd and researcher Elisabeth
 Donovan contributed to this report.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald