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The State Department balked at handing out dozens of visas for a traveling re-education camp, and last week attorney Craig flew to Cuba and persuaded his client and Castro's inner circle that it would be better to let Juan Miguel come with just his new wife and baby, rather than wait for Washington to agree to play host to the circus. The Cubans wanted some assurances of a swift reunion. Craig told them that Reno's patience with the Miami relatives had run out and that the law was on Juan Miguel's side. INS officials were just waiting for Juan Miguel to set foot in America, and they would move to strip Lazaro of custody. Even if no one else in the entourage was allowed to come, Craig said, Juan Miguel would get custody of Elian and could decide for himself whether to return immediately to Cuba or wait out the appeals process in Washington. "The time," Craig kept telling Castro and the Cubans, "is ripe."
So there was the big-gun lawyer, who had helped save the American President from impeachment, instructing the Cuban President how best to work the system. It was enough to persuade Castro and Ricardo Alarcon, president of the National Assembly and Castro's point man on Elian, to turn on the runway lights at Jose Marti Airport. Castro personally saw Juan Miguel off at 4 a.m. Thursday. He had already ordered that diplomatic immunity at Cuba's Washington outposts be waived--to make the point that Juan Miguel would be free to defect if he wanted to, which reflected Castro's confidence that he would not.
The great challenge for Juan Miguel was that he was caught between a government with its own authoritarian rules and a family that was making them up as it went along. A month ago, when relatives assumed Castro would never let Juan Miguel out of the country, they said if he just came to the U.S. they would turn Elian over. Last week when he appeared, a thousand conditions had bloomed. In one breath the relatives promise they will obey the law, but they seem to mean only the laws that work to their advantage. Even though the courts ruled last month that this was an issue for the INS and not a custody fight that belonged in family court, the Miami relatives say they won't be satisfied until local Florida judges--the elected ones most sensitive to the Cuban-exile community--have a chance to rule. The law may not be on their side, but loads of local and national politicians--even a mutinous Vice President Al Gore--are.
The longer Juan Miguel stayed in Havana, living under Castro's surveillance in a government residence, the easier it was for the family to challenge his motives. But once he stepped onto American soil last week, a parent come to claim a lost child, the emotional balance of power began to shift, and so did the relatives' story. One day they would declare that they believe he is a loving father and that they are resisting his claims only because they fear he is being cruelly pressured by Castro. But the next moment family allies would revive charges that Juan Miguel beat his ex-wife and was too explosive to be a fit father. Juan Miguel himself had provided some ammunition: he told ABC's Nightline last January that he hadn't come to Miami yet because he was afraid he would take a rifle and "strafe the s.o.b.s" in Miami's Cuban-exile community.