BY CAROL ROSENBERG

 WASHINGTON -- Planning to return to Cuba on Monday, Elian Gonzalez's
 grandmothers on Saturday tearfully asked Attorney General Janet Reno to let
 them take the child with them. A clearly moved Reno pledged to resolve the
 custody dispute as soon as possible.

 ``The attorney general showed enormous compassion for these two courageous
 women'' during a 45-minute chat in which Reno and the women ``simply talked
 back and forth,'' said the Rev. Bob Edgar of the National Council of Churches.

 Edgar was among 10 people in the unusual Saturday meeting in the attorney
 general's suite, as was Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner
 Doris Meissner.

 According to a statement from Reno, Mariela Quintana and Raquel Rodriguez
 ``made a very compassionate and heartfelt plea to be reunited with their
 grandson. They asked when Elian could return to his father and the rest of his
 family in Cuba.''

 ``We maintain that the law recognizes the unique relationship between parent and
 child and family reunification has long been a cornerstone of both American
 immigration law and INS practice,'' Reno's statement added.

 `COME HERE'

 Elian's family in Miami rejected turning the child over to his grandmothers.

 ``They flew in a Learjet to New York to meet with strangers. They flew to
 Washington to meet with politicians and bureaucrats when the person they love is
 here with the family that was waiting for them,'' family spokesman Armando
 Gutierrez said. ``Tell them to come here.''

 In an interview with MSNBC broadcast late Saturday on NBC 6, the grandmothers
 blamed the Miami relatives for the problem. ``We raised him; how much can they
 love him if they have hardly seen him?'' Quintana said. She repeated their vow not
 to go to Miami, saying they don't trust the exile community.

 The Cuban women cried during the session in Washington. Reno and Meissner
 did not, although they were obviously moved, according to a Justice Department
 official, who said the grandmothers greeted the Clinton Cabinet member and her
 immigration commissioner with traditional Latino kisses on both cheeks.

 Before the meeting, a Justice Department source had said Reno and Meissner
 would urge the grandmothers to go to Miami to see their grandson. Saturday,
 officials, declining to be quoted by name, said Reno gave no such advice.

 In the MSNBC interview, Quintana quoted Reno: ``She said this is no longer in
 their hands. This is some sort of federal problem. We don't really understand
 these things very much.''

 PREPARED TO RETURN

 In New York, National Council of Churches spokeswoman Carol Fouke said no
 Miami trip was planned and the women were expecting to fly from New York to
 Cuba Monday afternoon.

 ``The grandmothers wanted to see Elian, they want to take him home to Cuba,
 they want to meet him -- anywhere but Miami,'' she said.

 Clinton administration officials want family members to resolve the fate of the child
 who was found clinging to an inner tube off Fort Lauderdale on Nov. 25. Although
 Reno has repeatedly said it is within her power to return the child to his father,
 reunification plans are frozen while the U.S. government defends a suit brought by
 Elian's family in U.S. District Court in Miami.

 The women arrived at the Justice Department from New York at 12:40 p.m. with a
 Cuban cleric and two escorts from the National Council of Churches. They spent
 more than two hours inside, Reno spokeswoman Gretchen Michael said.

 The grandmothers would not speak with reporters after the meeting. But Edgar
 spoke briefly and distributed a copy of the letter they handed Reno.

 `HONOR MEMORY'

 It said: ``Returning Elian to his family will honor his mother's memory, return the
 family to normality and, more importantly, return Elian to the normality of life with
 his father, brother, family, friends at school, his toys, dog and parrot.''

 They thanked Reno for affirming the paternity rights of Juan Miguel Gonzalez, the
 boy's father and son of Mariela Quintana. Rodriguez is the mother of Elizabeth
 Brotons, who perished in the crossing from Cuba to Florida a day or so before
 Thanksgiving.

 The letter also said, ``We only have Sunday to see him and we not only want to
 see him, but we also want to return with him to Cuba.''

 Others at the session included Justice Department lawyer James Castello, who
 has been coordinating the various legal challenges of the Gonzalez case; Willie
 Ferrer of Hialeah, a Cuban-American aide to Reno who acted as translator; a
 church translator, Oscar Bolioli; Edgar, general secretary of the National Council
 of Churches and a former Democratic congressman; Dr. Joan Brown Campbell,
 former council general secretary, who has made reuniting the child with his Cuba
 kin a personal crusade; and the Rev. Oden Marichal of the Cuban Council of
 Churches.

 Herald staff writer Eunice Ponce and Sandra Marquez Garcia contributed to this
 report.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald