By MARK FINEMAN, Times Staff Writer

                HAVANA--U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan had just finished a discourse on globalization and
           good governance when Cuban President Fidel Castro rose from the front row of the lecture hall here
           and approached the audience microphone.
                But after just 15 minutes of praising Annan and appealing for better planning in a world "in chaos,"
           the Cuban leader, who is as famous for his marathon speeches as his Third World advocacy, suddenly
           but politely excused himself: "I have to rush to the 'Round Table.' "
                The "Round Table" is, quite simply, Castro's favorite show--a daily two-hour program on state
           television launched earlier this year as a centerpiece of the Cuban leader's national crusade to win the
           return of 6-year-old castaway Elian Gonzalez.
                Almost nothing has kept Castro from his seat in the "Round Table" studio audience--not even the
           run-up to this week's Group of 77 summit, which has drawn scores of dignitaries from more than 100
           developing nations to Havana to chart a new course for the world's have-nots.
                And Castro's brusque departure from the lecture hall Tuesday afternoon to attend a show that
           micro-analyzes the latest reports in the Elian case underscored how this young boy has become a
           personal obsession for the 73-year-old leader--and, thus, for his nation.
                In the 41st year of Castro's rule, the battle to free the "little kidnap victim" from distant relatives in
           Miami powerfully illustrates how the Communist leader has institutionalized and personalized not
           merely this issue but his leadership as a whole--how this nation of 11 million has become like a body
           that is moved by its leader's mind.
                Castro's four-month mobilization for Elian--for which the Cuban government has spent millions of
           desperately needed dollars on such things as 600,000 "Free Elian" T-shirts and an elaborate protest
           plaza--also has served to transform the president's image here from a stern, bearded patriarch of the
           1959 Cuban Revolution to a warmer, fuzzier grandfather figure.
                But analysts here say that for Castro--who fought a bitter custody battle of his own to win back his
           son in the 1950s--the Free Elian crusade is, at its core, an ideological one. It personifies the basic
           forces of communist good and capitalist evil that he has preached to his nation since overthrowing the
           corrupt U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista four decades ago.

                Miami Cubans Called a Mafia
                Since the saga began, the Cuban leader has cast the boy's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, who has
           refused to surrender Elian to his Cuban father or to U.S. immigration authorities, as a tool of Miami's
           anti-Castro political lobby groups.
                In recent weeks, Castro has called those Cuban American groups "Miami mob organizations"--a
           clear reference to the U.S. organized-crime groups that used Havana as a headquarters for decades
           before his revolution. They are a "mafia," Castro asserts, that has no respect for the rights of a father
           to his motherless son.
                Using the evening "Round Table" as the main forum, the Cuban government has gone a step
           further, drawing broad distinctions between those exile groups, which have heavily influenced U.S.
           policy toward Cuba for decades, and the U.S. government itself, which ruled in early January that
           Elian must be reunited with his father.
                In effect, Washington, which has been demonized here through decades of an embargo that Castro
           calls economic warfare, now is cast night after night as an ally in the struggle for Elian--although Castro
           hasn't let up on his tirades against the capitalism and materialism that he says are corrupting the boy
           during his stay in Miami.
                Beyond the "Round Table," Castro has used commanding imagery in the streets to reinforce the
           campaign.
                The new protest pavilion--covering more than a city block beside the seafront U.S. Interests
           Section here--features towering steel arches and a bronze statue of Cuba's historic hero Jose Marti
           holding a small child and pointing toward the diplomatic mission.
                In the boy's hometown of Cardenas, 100 miles from the capital, the century-old municipal museum
           now has a permanent "Hall of Elian," featuring dozens of handwritten messages, drawings and
           photographs of the boy before and after his mother took him on the ill-fated smugglers' journey to
           Florida, in which she and 10 others drowned.
                At Elian's Marcelo Salado Primary School across the street, where a sign on his chair declares that
           "Elian's desk is untouchable," the boy himself has become a central part of the curriculum. Each day,
           teachers use his case to lecture on the advantages of socialism in a nation where literacy is nearly
           100% and education and health care are free to all.

                Many Exhausted by Long Crusade
                But after months that have included massive, state-sponsored street demonstrations and a constant
           propaganda blitz, the crusade appears to have exhausted many here. And there are other images that
           appear--on the surface, at least--to stand out in contrast.
                Every morning these days, hundreds of Cubans throng the neighborhood surrounding the
           glass-and-concrete Interests Section building that serves as the U.S. embassy in Havana--not to
           protest, but to wait for a chance to seek a visa to visit the United States.
                So huge is the crowd and so fervent their desire to visit relatives who have migrated through the
           decades--most to Miami--that Cuban police have had to design an intricate procedure to
           accommodate and control them. In all, records on the scene indicate that more than 6,000 are on the
           waiting list just for their turn to deposit their passports and apply for a temporary U.S. visa.
                "We Cubans have a dual personality, a dual morality," said a 65-year-old retired statistics
           technician in the crowd who identified himself only as Benito.
                "We'll come here to protest because we believe this little boy should be with his father,' he said.
           "But we'll also come here and wait for a visa because, for other reasons, we'd like to visit America
           ourselves."