State: Reno defends her actions in Elian case

MIAMI -- Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno parked her red pickup truck outside of WQBA-AM's Calle Ocho studio on Friday, strode past flag- and sign-waving protesters and took a spot behind the microphone.

Reno was facing her first Cuban-American radio talk show chat since floating her possible candidacy for governor of Florida:

Most of the 90-minute broadcast was taken up with a wide-ranging, question-and-answer session. At the end, she took a half-dozen quick calls that showed feelings were still raw over the raid that removed Elian Gonzalez from Little Havana.

Outside the studios, about 30 protesters waved Cuban flags and carried signs that read "Reno's racists." The former attorney general could see the demonstrators through a window.

And when Reno departed the studio in her truck, about a half-dozen protesters rushed near the vehicle, yelling "Long live free Cuba," "death for Reno" and "murderer" in Spanish.

"The Cuban community, they can never forgive Janet Reno," said Miguel Saavedra, head of the exile group Vigilia Mambisa.

Elian dominated the talk show.

One caller welcomed her home -- then said Reno was wrong to return the boy. She pledged never to vote for her.

Reno thanked the caller for the welcome.

But mostly, the news was the 62-year-old former Miami-Dade prosecutor's appearance on the 10 a.m. show hosted by Agustin Acosta and Bernadette Pardo. It was her first time on South Florida's at-times feisty Spanish-language radio circuit since saying she is considering challenging Republican incumbent Gov. Jeb Bush.

Reno brushed aside criticism of her decision to send in federal forces to seize Elian, saying, "The little boy belongs with his father."

She also maintained that her Parkinson's disease would not interfere with her ability to govern -- after Pardo asked whether she would be "irresponsible" to run for governor with the unpredictable illness.

"If I can sit here with all these television cameras," Reno replied, "with protesters out there and all my hands do is just shake, you all have to get used to the shaking."

Sometimes, she offered a few sentences in Spanish, the language of choice for the up to 30,000 listeners of El Programa de Agustin y Bernadette.

"Pero, es muy importante . . .," she said countless times, using her signature segue, "It's very important . . ."

She declined to comment on a series of Acosta's questions about controversies that bedeviled her eight-year tenure as attorney general, saying they involved ongoing or protected investigations.

Then the coffee arrived, 42 minutes into the program. "Ahora!," she said, hands trembling as she took a sip. "Gracias."

After Reno sent federal forces to take the boy from his great-uncle's Little Havana home, she emerged as Enemy No. 2 among some Cuban-Americans, second to Castro.

At the time, Reno said she looked forward to the day when she would move back to Miami and hash out the Elian affair with Cuban-American friends over pastelitos, or pastries.

So Friday, while the protesters stood outside the studio, some with photos of Reno decorated with swastikas, she sat before the WQBA microphone and a plate piled high with pastelitos.

"I think about Elian all the time, and what a remarkable little boy he was, what a good job his father and his mother did raising him," she said of her decision to reunite the shipwreck survivor with his father, Juan Miguel.

Her voice cracked with emotion at one point when she spoke of the pain some Cuban exiles suffered during the years living in Cuba, under the Castro regime. But she disagreed with a caller who said she was dooming the child to starve in Cuba, or certain death if he criticized the government.

"If I thought I was sending him back to starvation, I wouldn't have done so," she said. "I haven't seen any evidence that he was starving."

After the show, seven uniformed police and security guards led her to her pickup truck and held back about 25 protesters as she drove off alone.

- The Miami Herald and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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