BY CAROL ROSENBERG

 WASHINGTON -- Elian Gonzalez's grandmothers and Little Havana family
 crisscrossed Capitol Hill on Thursday, waging conflicting campaigns for and
 against awarding the child American citizenship, even as the future of proposed
 legislation appeared increasingly uncertain.

 ``He doesn't want to go back,'' cousin Marisleysis Gonzalez said soon after
 arriving in town on a MasTech Learjet to take part in a Cuban American National
 Foundation-sponsored pro-citizenship blitz. Of the child's Miami Beach visit with
 the grandmothers a day earlier, she added: ``I saw him approach his
 grandmothers and . . . it was still the face of fear.''

 Countered paternal grandmother Mariela Quintana, whose schedule and security
 were being run by Havana's diplomatic mission in Washington: ``My grandson is
 different, he's changed completely. He must be saved -- urgently.''

 During their Miami Beach visit, she said, he showed little expression and didn't
 cry. ``Before, he would spend the whole day hugging and kissing us.''

 `NODDED HIS HEAD'

 But the grandmothers also told the press that the child warmed up to them once
 they produced a family photo album and spoke about people back home in
 Cardenas, Cuba. ``We told him we wanted to bring him back to Cuba. He nodded
 his head, yes,'' Quintana said.

 The family feud was staged amid a day of news conferences -- always separate,
 at times almost simultaneous in nearby corridors of the Cannon House Office
 Building -- while Senate and House leaders haggled behind the scenes about
 bringing competing bills on the boy's future to the floor.

 Strategists have decided to let a Senate citizenship bill come first. But the
 Republican leadership said the timetable for a vote was uncertain, as senators
 returning to town for President Clinton's State of the Union address increasingly
 expressed distaste for the Cuba-U.S. political drama.

 There is strong Democratic opposition in the Senate to the idea of giving the child
 citizenship, and Republicans appear divided. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., a
 member of the Foreign Relations Committee, pledged a fight to keep the measure
 off the Senate floor.

 PARTY DIFFERENCES

 In the House, meanwhile, Republican Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana
 Ros-Lehtinen of Miami advocate citizenship, while their Cuban-American
 Democratic rival, Rep. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, wants to give the boy a
 resident alien card, on the theory that it's less controversial.

 Foundation spokesman Fernando Rojas, who escorted the Little Havana family,
 said his influential lobby was supporting both bills, to see which had the best shot
 at passing. He said both would strip the immigration service of a say in the child's
 fate and shift a custody decision to a Florida family court.

 Citizenship foes Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y.,
 meantime, circulated legal opinions from eight law school professors that the
 citizenship move was unconstitutional.

 For her part, Attorney General Janet Reno warned Thursday that a citizenship
 vote could have unanticipated consequences for U.S. efforts to recover
 American-born children from other countries.

 WORDING IMPORTANT

 ``It's going to depend on just what the legislation says,'' Reno said at her weekly
 news conference. ``We've had a number of issues raised in hearings before
 Congress with respect to circumstances where one parent will take a child to
 another country.''

 Both Elian family entourages stuck to a fairly predictable script Thursday --
 visiting offices of outspoken supporters as they shuttled between the House and
 the Senate.

 In a related effort, the Miami-based Jorge Mas Foundation bought full-page ads in
 capital newspapers that display a fictional letter to First Lady Hillary Rodham
 Clinton from the boy's dead mother.

 Complete with a snapshot of Elisabeth Broton and Elian against a backdrop of
 ocean, the letter recounts the mother's deadly journey and concludes:

 ``Please, Mrs. Clinton, a desperate mother needs your help. I beg you to open
 your arms and take my son into your village. Don't let them send my little boy to
 Fidel Castro. As I gasped for life in the middle of the ocean . . . I prayed to God to
 spare him. God heard me, will you?''

 At her weekly news conference, Reno was asked whether she was concerned by
 the fact that the grandmothers' visit was being run by Cuban officials. ``I think that
 is something that they have got to deal with,'' she replied.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald