WASHINGTON -- The government "will do what is necessary" to reunite Elian Gonzalez with his father soon, a top Justice official said Sunday, as lawyers for the boy's Miami relatives warned that the family can't control protesters if they stand in the way.
Attorney General Janet Reno refused to discuss the use of force as a last resort except to say such plans have not been presented to her formally. "I hope with all my heart that the rule of law prevails, and I expect that it will," she said on CNN's "Late Edition."Eric Holder, the deputy attorney general, said officials want a peaceful transfer this week but will consider taking Elian from unwilling hands if they must. "We don't expect anything like that to happen," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "We will do what is necessary to reunite father and son, however."
In Miami, the relatives fighting to keep the Cuban boy in the United States would not offer a firm commitment to meet Monday with the three psychiatric experts appointed by the government to smooth the boy's return to his father.
Lazaro Gonzalez, Elian's great-uncle and temporary custodian, asked in a letter to Reno that the meeting "be scheduled on a tentative basis" because his daughter was in the hospital and the family wanted her to be part of the discussion.
Hundreds of supporters gathered outside the family's Miami home at times over the weekend, keeping up a peaceful vigil that officials fear could turn confrontational if agreement is not reached on handing over Elian away from that scene.
Outside Washington, such a vigil became noisy and tense Sunday in the Bethesda, Md., neighborhood where Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, is staying at the home of a Cuban diplomat.
Within shouting distance of the house, dozens of protesters chanting "Help is with you" began crossing a police barricade -- trying to get the father to come outside and meet Delfin Gonzalez, another of Elian's Miami great-uncles, who stood with them. Police held the crowd back.
Justice officials, family lawyers and politicians from Washington and Havana filled the Sunday talk shows, demonstrating the preoccupation of two nations with a 6-year-old boy rescued at sea four months ago but left adrift in a wrenching international and family struggle.
In Washington, Juan Miguel Gonzalez
personally thanked the two Florida fishermen who pulled the boy from the waters off Fort Lauderdale on Thanksgiving Day after his mother, fleeing Cuba, drowned.
Cousins Donato Dalrymple, who thinks the boy should stay in the United States, and Sam Ciancio, who thinks Elian should go back to his father, emerged from their visit believing a bond exists between father and son.
"I came here to satisfy my own heart," Ciancio said outside the office of Gonzalez's lawyer. "I am leaving here satisfied."
Dalrymple, who met Gonzalez separately, said: "I do believe that he loves him."
Reno voiced an increasing sense of urgency in settling Elian's fate.
"Each day that goes by only hurts him and I think we must get it resolved as soon as possible," she said on ABC's "This Week."
Attorneys for the Miami relatives said the family will not break the law but also does not want the boy torn away before his interests are thoroughly examined. Lawyer Spencer Eig said the relatives will "unlock the doors, they'll stand back" if officials come for Elian.
But his assurance did not take into account any actions protesters might take to block authorities from the home.
"We really don't have any control over that," said Jose Garcia-Pedrosa, another family lawyer.
The relatives are appealing a federal judge's ruling affirming the U.S. government's decision to send the Elian back to his father.
In the letter released Sunday, Lazaro Gonzalez complained anew that the government-appointed experts coming to meet the family are on a preordained mission.
"I believe that the experts should meet with Elian and his American family before reaching their conclusions," he said. "I cannot understand why they would only meet with the adults and, even then, only after having reached their decision about a child they have never met."
The experts met briefly Sunday in Washington with Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who came from Havana last week, firmly declared his wish to return to Cuba with his son, and yet managed to spark debate about whether he was speaking freely or under duress from Fidel Castro's communist regime.
His U.S. lawyer, Gregory Craig, said Sunday the defiant statement Gonzalez read upon his arrival was in fact written with the help of the Cuban government. But Craig insisted Gonzalez believed everything he said.
"At the end of the day, Juan Miguel owns his own words," he said on NBC.
In Havana, Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon ridiculed claims that Gonzalez cannot speak freely in the United States or seek asylum because consequences would befall his family in Cuba.
"What is the idea, to bring the entire Cuban society to the U.S. just to satisfy a bunch of kidnappers?" he asked rhetorically.
Alarcon said Gonzalez's Cuban relatives hadn't been moved out of their apartments and housed where the Cuban government could better watch them.