What price is Elian paying? A pediatrician advising the U.S. Justice Department says the Cuban boy's environment is "psychologically abusive."
	[AP photo: Beth A. Keiser] Elian Gonzalez covers his ears Tuesday as the crowd outside his house cheers at the sight of him.

By BILL DURYEA, WES ALLISON and BILL ADAIR

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 19, 2000

MIAMI -- Elian Gonzalez's view of the largest democracy in the world isn't much wider than the front yard of a modest home in Little Havana.

Just walking onto the doorstep of his great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez's house draws wild cheering from a vigilant crowd that assails Elian's father with the same venom Cuban exiles usually reserve for Fidel Castro. An international cadre of media representatives records every time he kicks a ball in the back yard, beaming the images around the world and straight back into the family television that has rarely been off during this nearly five-month saga.

Tuesday, a pediatrician advising the U.S. Justice Department on the case said it was the environment inside the house that may pose the greatest threat to the 6-year-old.

Dr. Irwin Redlener wrote a blistering letter to Attorney General Janet Reno and Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner, urging the government to remove the boy immediately from "an environment of radical hysteria."

"Elian Gonzalez is now in a state of imminent danger to his physical and emotional well-being in a home that I consider to be psychologically abusive," wrote Redlener, a professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City and an unpaid adviser to Meissner. He assembled the group of experts that interviewed Lazaro Gonzalez last week and made recommendations on how the boy should be transferred.

Redlener's letter was denounced by Cuban-American pediatricians and politicians like Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, who called it an "unbelievable statement by someone who has not met Elian."

"That shows that (he) is just a hatchet man for the Clinton administration," Diaz-Balart said after visiting with Lazaro Gonzalez and Elian, whom he described as being fine. Redlener did not back down from his statements, spending the afternoon on a CNN talk show. He said the boy has been "horrendously exploited in this bizarre and destructive ambience. It has gone on far too long."

An end, though, did not appear imminent late Tuesday.

A federal appeals court in Atlanta has not ruled on whether to extend or terminate an emergency order filed last week to keep Elian in the United States. Although federal authorities have made it clear it is within their power to remove Elian from the Miami home at any time, they have said they will wait for the ruling from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Redlener's letter left little doubt what he thought the result of such delays might be.

"Every day -- indeed, every hour -- of delay in this inevitable and appropriate reunification is harmful to the boy and is the cause of extreme anguish to a legitimately distressed father," Redlener wrote. "Our country has no reason and no right to continue this unconscionable refutation of a parent's moral right to be with his child."

Redlener said he was troubled by the Miami family's recent actions.

"In recent days, the crisis has taken a profound turn for the worse," he wrote. "There are continued, frantic legal maneuverings of the Miami family, a bevy of new, unfounded allegations of paternal abuse raised by the (Lazaro Gonzalez) family about the father's former relationship with Elian, and the release of a videotape showing the 6-year-old boy expressing anger and other most unusual behaviors on what appeared to be a coached, homemade recording."

At a Washington news conference, Miami Mayor Joe Carollo criticized Redlener for drawing conclusions without talking with the boy.

"How could any psychiatrist or psychologist -- by interviewing Lazaro Gonzalez for only an hour -- come to all these conclusions? He never met with Elian or Marisleysis," Carollo said.

Meanwhile, the boy at the center of the controversy continues to lead a strange existence.

Elian has not attended school in more than three weeks, relying on daily visits from a tutor to keep him abreast of his class work. He even does his homework but not always willingly, said Armando Gutierrez, a family spokesman.

The last time he left his great-uncle's house was last week for a visit to the Miami Beach home of Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin for a meeting with the attorney general of the United States.

Elian's haven at 2319 NW Second St. is like hundreds of others in Little Havana, a two-bedroom, one-bath house with a tiny gated yard and a sculpted gardenia bush.

The gate on the chain-link fence out front is kept padlocked, and someone locks it even during the 30-second daily visit from the mail carrier, the only federal official allowed anywhere near the front of the house.

The photographers assigned to the house refer to "good Elian days" or "bad Elian days," depending upon the number and quality of photo opportunities.

And like the media, the adoring crowd is content to view Elian's life in five-minute segments.

Elian on the new swing, with its sign that says, in Spanish, "Elian's Park." Elian trying out his latest toy.

Elian playing tag with uniformed classmates from the private academy, Lincoln-Marti Schools, he had attended until several weeks ago.

Elian apparently flirting with the cute little girl from next door Tuesday morning.

But Elian stars in less childlike scenes, too.

Elian talking on a cell phone in the front yard. Elian meeting with a U.S. congressman. Elian mugging with actor Andy Garcia and singer Gloria Estefan. Elian on his uncle's shoulder, waving to Cuban exile activists as they chant slogans asking God to save the son and damn the father for daring to take him back to Cuba.

Some demonstrators have come to speak of Elian as a child deity. They tie palm-frond crosses on the fence outside the house.

But reporters who have been granted an audience with Elian have noted the apparent normalcy inside the home.

There is laundry to be done. Angela Gonzalez, the matriarch, serves chicken and rice, nothing fancy, from her kitchen.

Marisleysis Gonzalez, 21, the baby of the family until Elian arrived, mothers him as protectively as if he were her own. And the chanting, angry voices that seem so loud outside are muted by the thick, pale masonry walls.

But the scene outside does take its toll. Marisleysis Gonzalez, according to the Miami Herald, has been in the hospital eight times since Elian's rescue -- always for stress-related problems.

The government's other experts, Dr. Paulina Kernberg, a child psychoanalyst from Cornell University medical college, and Dr. Jerry Wiener, professor emeritus in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at George Washington University, say even though they haven't actually met Elian, they have noticed a deterioration in the boy. In the video they have seen, Elian is not as enthusiastic and his big smiles and waves are gone, they say. Gutierrez, the family spokesman, insists Elian is happy and his life is as typical as possible under the circumstance.

"He spends much of his time watching TV and playing Nintendo, just like any 6-year-old," Gutierrez said. "He plays around the whole house. He's a kid."

But the simplest boyhood pleasures become metaphors for the endless saga being played out on the evening news. Tuesday afternoon, Lazaro Gonzalez brought his nephew out front to fly a kite. Without any room to maneuver in the cramped yard, the kite soon became hopelessly entangled in overhead power lines.

- Information from the Miami Herald was used in this report.

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