BY CAROL ROSENBERG AND JAY WEAVER

 President Clinton on Wednesday urged both sides to cool the ''political steam''
 surrounding the plight of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez. But in Havana and Miami
 the dispute over the boy's fate remained politically charged.

 In Miami, attorneys unveiled a legal strategy to keep the boy here on grounds
 that Cuba is no place to raise a child while, in Havana, Fidel Castro said the
 boy's father might not be willing to meet with U.S. officials.

 The father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, would meet U.S. officials only if they tell him
 when his child would be returned home, Castro said in a message read to
 thousands gathered in front of the U.S. mission.

 It was another day of tug of war over the boy, even as the Clinton administration
 was trying to calm nearly two straight weeks of tensions.

 ''The question is, and I think the most important thing is, what would be best for
 the child. And there is a legal process for determining that,'' Clinton told a news
 conference.

 He urged that the process be allowed to run its course and that efforts be made
 ''to try to take as much political steam out of it'' for the sake of the boy.

 Clinton repeatedly declined to say whether he favored Elian's return to Cuba. ''Of
 course, I would rather grow up in the United States,'' the President said. ''But
 there may be other considerations.''

 In Miami, meanwhile, lawyers for the boy's paternal great-aunt, great-uncle and
 cousins said they would not challenge the fitness of the boy's father, Juan Miguel
 Gonzalez, 31, to raise his son.

 Instead, they said they would petition a federal court to block Elian's return to
 Cuba on the grounds that the boy would live a better life under America's
 democratic system than under Castro's communist regime.

 ''Our position is not that the father is a bad guy. Our position is [Elian] should be
 granted the freedom for which his mother gave her life,'' said family law specialist
 Carmen Morales, one of five lawyers now working, pro bono, on the case for the
 Miami Gonzalez family.

 Elian was found floating on an inner tube off Fort Lauderdale on Thanksgiving Day,
 one of three survivors of an ill-fated attempt to cross the Florida Straits that left
 the boy's mother, stepfather and nine others dead when their boat capsized and
 sank.

 Since then Elian has become the focus of a U.S.-Cuban dispute over custody,
 with his father and grandparents in Cuba demanding his return while some of his
 relatives here insist that he remain in the United States.

 Spencer Eig, an immigration attorney who has been the family's chief legal
 advisor, said three courses of action would be pursued:

 A routine political asylum plea will be filed with the Immigration and Naturalization
 Service.

 As a first step toward seeking permanent custody, the relatives will petition a
 Miami-Dade family court to be declared the boy's official guardians, saying it
 would not be in the boy's best interest to grow up in a communist country.

 An injunction blocking his return will be sought in U.S. District Court.

 Legal experts unconnected to the case said the strategy is unlikely to succeed.

 ''I know local passions run high on this issue, and Castro's regime is the last
 remnant of the Cold War,'' said University of Miami law professor David Abraham.
 ''But without the ability to show the boy would face persecution in Cuba, there is
 no asylum claim.''

 Abraham added: ''Without showing the unfitness of the father, there is no
 guardianship claim.''

 The U.S. State Department announced Tuesday night that the immigration service
 would invite the father, formally, to present proof of his paternity and that U.S. law
 recognized parental rights in cases of this type.

 'STRICT GUIDELINES'

 U.S. government officials will follow strict legal guidelines on the custody
 questions, Clinton said. The President said he could not comment on the specific
 case, because he did not have an in-depth knowledge of the facts.

 The President's remarks, in response to three separate questions at a nationally
 televised year-end news conference, reflected how much national attention Elian's
 case has received.

 His comments also revealed how the focus of the child custody standoff has
 shifted: For days, acrimony between the United States and Cuba has been on
 display. Wednesday, Clinton and other officials were careful to say nothing critical
 of either side in the dispute.

 State Department spokesman Jim Foley said Wednesday: ''This case will be
 followed according to normal procedures. It has nothing to do with Cuba as such.
 There are no special procedures. It will be followed according to the book.''

 Because the Immigration and Naturalization Service has five workers permanently
 stationed in Havana, at the seaside U.S. Interests Section, Elian's father could
 meet with one of them at the U.S. Interests Section, or an INS representative
 could visit the father in his home in Cardenas, about 85 miles east of Havana in
 Matanzas province.

 NOTE DELIVERED

 Wednesday night, U.S. Interests Section mission chief Vicky Huddleston
 hand-delivered a diplomatic note to Cuban officials just after 8 o'clock.

 U.S. diplomatic sources said the letter explains to the child's father how to
 exercise his parental rights. It also invites him to meet a U.S. immigration service
 officer to present proof of fatherhood.

 In Havana, the government was stonily silent on the development aside from the
 late-night statement from Castro read outside the U.S. mission, where tens of
 thousands of protesters heard political speeches and music.

 Although Castro said the father might not meet with U.S. officials, he also offered
 more conciliatory words, saying that Clinton ''without question'' is trying to find a
 ''correct exit'' to the impasse.

 ''Look for an honorable and dignified formula for both sides that won't allow for the
 least bit of suspicion, manipulation, dishonesty or tricks, that won't delay for a
 second the boy's return,'' Castro urged.

 The streets in front of the mission cleared quickly, although bleachers and
 microphones were still up late Wednesday, and the police presence remained
 strong. Cubans in the areas were reluctant to discuss Elian.

 But the Gonzalez case has struck a cord in Cuba. Both the Roman Catholic
 Church there and leading dissident Elizardo Sanchez of the Cuban Commission
 of Human Rights and National Reconciliation have called for the child's return to
 the island.

 ''The privacy and the innocence of the child should be protected,'' said Cuba's
 Conference of Bishops.

 Aside from the lawyers' wranglings, Miami's response was mostly muted. Exile
 activists said they decided against organizing street protests Wednesday
 morning to illustrate that they behave differently from crowds in Cuba.

 There was one exception: Two dozen people hoisted flags and placards in a
 raucous protest at Plaza de la Cubanidad at Flagler Street and 17th Avenue
 Wednesday, voicing their displeasure with the administration position.

 ''Fidel, Raul, the blame is yours,'' they chanted in unison, fixing responsibility for
 the death of the boy's mother and the other rafters.

 POLICE GUARD

 Elian remained in the temporary custody of relatives in Little Havana -- a 24-hour
 police guard outside the home, placed there at the request of Miami City
 Commissioner Tomas Regalado.

 With television news cameras documenting his move, the boy went to the home
 of other cousins to play.

 In Cuba, the government also expressed satisfaction with a U.S. decision to
 repatriate six Cubans intercepted at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard after they
 allegedly commandeered a docked fishing boat northeast of Havana.

 ''The United States will have complied in this concrete case with the
 commitments laid down in the migration accords,'' the Cuban Foreign Ministry
 said in a statement that sounded friendlier to Washington after days of bitter
 complaints.

 State Department spokesman Foley confirmed that the boat and the six had been
 turned over to the Cuban coast guard.

 ''I can certainly say, because we've had some heated rhetoric from Havana to the
 contrary, that the interdiction of the Cuban vessel on Monday indeed
 demonstrates that the United States remains committed to the full
 implementation of the migration accords and to facilitating migration to the U.S. in
 a safe, legal and orderly manner,'' Foley added.

 Herald staff writers Ana Acle, Alfonso Chardy, Elaine de Valle, Manny Garcia,
 Carolyn Salazar and staff translator Renato Perez contributed to this report.

                     Copyright 1999 Miami Herald