BY ANDRES VIGLUCCI, JAY WEAVER AND FRANK DAVIES

 Elian Gonzalez's father, his family and three others were issued visas Tuesday to travel
 to the United States, but the timing of their trip was thrown into doubt when the Cuban
 government could not obtain a guarantee from U.S. authorities that the boy would be
 turned over upon his arrival.

 Federal officials continued to insist that they intend to transfer custody of Elian from
 his great-uncle in Miami soon after the boy's father arrives. But they could offer no
 firm assurances on Tuesday to Cuban officials because government negotiators
 remained at loggerheads with Elian's Miami relatives after a fifth day of inconclusive
 talks. The negotiations will resume Thursday morning.

 In the meantime, Elian Gonzalez's cousin, Marisleysis Gonzalez, was released from
 Coral Gables Hospital this afternoon. She is resting at the home of a relative, said
 Armando Gutierrez, a spokesman for the family.

 The 21-year-old Gonzalez, who has been the subject of much media attention
 after becoming a surrogate mother to the six-year-old boy, was hospitalized
 Tuesday when she became pale and nauseated after a round of early morning
 interviews. Gutierrez blamed her collapse on exhaustion.

 Gonzalez has been hospitalized at least six times since Elian came to live with
 her family. Reasons given on hospital forms have alternated between "nervous
 stomach" and "emotional anxiety."

 In December, shortly after Elian's arrival, Marisleysis Gonzalez was admitted to
 Pan American Hospital. In February she was admitted to Hialeah Hospital and
 four days later she was admitted to Mercy Hospital. She has also been admitted
 to two other South Florida emergency rooms, according to Gutierrez.

 Also today, protesters assembled outside the South Florida home of Attorney
 General Janet Reno. Between 30 and 50 people, some carrying signs depicting
 the former Miami-Dade County state attorney as a devil with horns, gathered
 outside Reno's home in Kendall. Gregory Craig, an influential Washington lawyer
 who is representing Elian's father, flew to Havana Tuesday night in an apparent
 effort to persuade Juan Miguel Gonzalez and Cuban authorities to go ahead with
 the trip.

 Craig suggested that the assurances sought by the Cuban government may not
 have to be ironclad before the father leaves Cuba. ''Everyone should want to make
 this work smoothly and easily,'' Craig said. ''For that reason, I personally believe
 in being flexible.''

 U.S. government strategists and legal experts say the father's arrival would
 obligate immigration authorities to turn over custody of Elian to Gonzalez and
 effectively put an end to the drawn-out custody dispute.

 But a top Cuban diplomat said Tuesday that Gonzalez is unlikely to come until
 immigration authorities can tell his government precisely when and how the boy
 and his father would be reunited.

 Whether Gonzalez's trip to the United States occurs at all ''depends on a
 guarantee that he will get temporary custody of his son,'' said Fernando Remirez
 de Estenoz, head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C., after he
 emerged from a late-afternoon meeting with U.S. State Department officials.

 A U.S. official familiar with the discussions said the Cuban government is also
 insisting that the State Department approve visas for 22 other applicants,
 including Elian's schoolmates and a senior Cuban official, if Gonzalez is to stay in
 the United States while a federal court appeal by Elian's Miami relatives is
 concluded.

 ''Either he picks up his son and goes straight back to Cuba, or he stays for an
 extended period of time to await the appeal, but he needs the 22 other individuals
 with him,'' the official said.

 During a televised round-table discussion Tuesday night in Havana, the program
 host read a message from Gonzalez saying the ''support team'' authorized to
 accompany him would be ''indispensable'' to him during a long visit.

 U.S. officials have said those applications will be considered individually, but have
 not said whether they intend to approve them.

 SIX VISAS

 Vicki Huddleston, the head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, personally
 delivered six passports containing the visas for Gonzalez, his wife and child, a
 cousin of Elian's and the boy's pediatrician and kindergarten teacher to Cuban
 Foreign Ministry officials Tuesday afternoon.

 As talks between the government and the Miami relatives broke off at the end of
 the day, it was apparent that both sides remained far apart, and they could not
 seem to agree publicly even on the points of discussion.

 The government, anxious to avoid sparking a confrontation in Little Havana,
 reiterated that the only subject of the talks was how the Miami family would
 surrender Elian to his father.

 ''The focus of the government continues to be how best to accomplish the
 unification of Elian with his father,'' said Robert Wallis, district director for the
 Immigration and Naturalization Service in Florida, in a brief statement to the
 media. He took no questions.

 CUSTODY HEARING

 But the relatives' attorneys, at least publicly, appeared to retreat to their initial
 bargaining position that the government should agree to a custody hearing in
 family court -- a demand the government has repeatedly rejected.

 Speaking with undisguised sarcasm, family attorney Spencer Eig said: ''As much
 as we are enjoying our endless marathon negotiations with the U.S. officials, we
 are breaking until Thursday morning at 9:30, when talks will resume.

 ''We of course continue [to say], as a growing consensus in this country believes,
 that Elian deserves his day in court, and there should be a determination in the
 court on the best interests of the child outside immigration issues.''

 New polls show, however, that a growing majority of the American public supports
 sending Elian back to his father in Cuba.

 The relatives' attorneys said they needed a day off from talks today because
 Elian's cousin, Marisleysis Gonzalez, who has been caring for the boy since his
 Thanksgiving Day rescue, collapsed and was hospitalized Tuesday from apparent
 exhaustion.

 ''She needs to be involved in this in a meaningful way,'' family attorney Linda
 Osberg-Braun said.

 BOGGED DOWN

 Government officials say the talks have become bogged down on a demand by
 the relatives that a panel of three psychologists conduct an evaluation of Elian to
 determine whether he can be turned over to his father. The government said it
 would consider a psychological evaluation only to consider how best to make the
 transfer.

 The family lawyers disagreed with that characterization of the talks.

 ''It is a matter of if, not when. Elian's health and his mental health are still the
 priority and we are not going to do anything to jeopardize that,'' Osberg-Braun
 said.

 The relatives also want a guarantee from the government that if Elian is turned
 over to his father, the boy will remain in the United States while their appeal is
 decided. An appellate court in Atlanta has set a hearing for May 11, but the
 government says it is not legally bound to delay returning Elian to Cuba until then.

 A Justice Department official, however, said the U.S. government cannot issue
 guarantees on behalf of Juan Miguel Gonzalez.

 ''He has said publicly he is willing to stay during the process, and his attorney
 has said he will stay, but we are not in a position to make a commitment on Juan
 Miguel's behalf.''

 FALSE ALARM

 Outside the family's Little Havana home, tensions waxed and waned among about
 100 chanting and praying demonstrators, some of whom spent the night there, as
 news and rumors swirled in. At one point, when a protester spotted a bus he
 thought was from the INS, the demonstrators surged through metal barricades
 erected by police to keep them contained. Police allowed them, saying the
 demonstrators needed to blow off steam.

 At about 5:30 p.m., protest leader Ramon Saul Sanchez asked them to move
 back behind the barricade because there was no immediate threat that Elian
 would be removed from the house.

 Nearly three hours later, about 75 people in a noisy brigade marched to Flagler
 Street and 24th Avenue, where they unfurled a Cuban flag in the middle of the
 intersection and stopped traffic for about 10 minutes.

 In Washington, Florida's Republican Sen. Connie Mack and other sponsors of
 legislation to declare Elian a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident indicated
 Tuesday that they may push instead for a nonbinding resolution urging that the
 boy's custody be decided by an impartial panel. Mack conceded that he did not
 have enough support to bring up the legislation soon.

 Herald staff writer Marika Lynch, Herald translator Renato Perez, and staff writer
 Mireidy Fernandez contributed to this report, as did Herald.com staff writer
 Madeline Baro, special correspondent Ana Radelat and Herald wire services.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald