BY MARIKA LYNCH

 A day after the Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez invited the boy's father to visit them, three
 of the family's attorneys went on national television shows Sunday and suggested Juan Miguel
 Gonzalez was an unfit parent.

 The White House called the allegations baseless. And an attorney for Juan Miguel Gonzalez
 characterized the attacks as a sign of the Miami relatives' desperation to keep the boy.

 Yet attorneys for the boy's Miami relatives said that if federal immigration authorities
 demand it, the child will be turned over peacefully.

 Disparate statements appeared to be part of a day for public posturing for the various
 players in the continuing Elian saga on the eve of yet another crucial day of negotiations.

 The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has threatened to revoke Elian's
 permission to stay in the United States by 9 a.m. Tuesday -- hastening his return to
 Cuba -- if his Miami relatives don't agree to turn over the boy within three days of
 losing all of their court appeals.

 Tense negotiations between immigration officials and the boy's Miami representatives
 resumed this morning.

 Max Castro, a University of Miami research associate, said the paradoxical position
 of the Miami family -- inviting the father to visit, then attacking him on television --
 makes ''absolutely no sense.''

 Unless it's viewed as a delay tactic, ''smoke screens and maneuvers to eventually
 get the result they want,'' Castro told WTVJ-NBC 6's Andrea Brody.

 Castro was one of a myriad of academics, politicians, publicists and lawyers who
 filled local and national airwaves offering their spin on what will happen this week.

 Despite the divisive banter and complicated negotiations, President Clinton on
 Sunday told reporters he was optimistic that a solution will be found.

 ''There are a lot of people on both sides of this issue who are more concerned with
 what is in the best interest of the child than the larger political issues involving
 [Fidel] Castro and Cuba,'' Clinton told reporters Sunday while flying on Air Force
 One to Las Vegas for a fund-raiser.

 ''That . . . gives me hope we can find a principled resolution that is not just a train
 wreck for the child, a train wreck for the rule of law, or a train wreck for all
 concerned. We'll see. I'm hopeful.''

 The 6-year-old, for his part, went to the Miami-Dade County Fair and Exposition
 and later received a visit from the man once known as the ''littlest defector.''

 CHOSE TO STAY

 Soviet-born Walter Polovchak, who two decades ago defied his parents and chose
 to stay in the United States rather than return to the Soviet Union, arrived at
 Elian's Little Havana home wearing a shirt emblazoned with the American flag.

 Polovchak, now 32, said he came to offer his support. He chatted with Elian in the
 backyard through a translator. The boy appeared stressed from media attention,
 Polovchak told reporters. He also said he passed along greetings to Elian from
 his own 6-year-old son, Alec.

 ''He knows the difference between freedom and not having freedom,'' Polovchak
 said of Elian. ''I believe the family should stay strong and hang in there. I believe in
 their cause and that eventually they will prevail.''

 Two other visitors to the Gonzalez house created a minor disturbance when they
 tried to distribute leaflets urging that Elian be sent back to Cuba. Demonstrators
 advocating that Elian stay shouted at the pro-return protesters, and Miami police
 officers escorted them off the street.

 While the INS has the legal right to remove the boy from his Miami relatives at
 any time, immigration officials say they are willing to take no immediate action as
 long as the family agrees to hand over Elian should they lose their appeals.

 WILL COOPERATE

 A member of the family's Miami legal team told ABC's This Week that they would
 deliver Elian to immigration officials if the government demands the boy.

 That's a move that federal officials want to avoid because it could cause a
 confrontation with protesters who want the boy to stay.

 ''If INS shows up tomorrow morning and says. 'We are here to take Elian with us,'
 then we will, of course, comply,'' lawyer Manny Diaz told ABC.

 Miami relatives want a family court to hear the case and insist that Elian's father
 has been abusive and misleading in recent telephone conversations -- at one time
 telling the boy his mother was alive and waiting for him in Cuba.

 Elian's mother and 10 others died on the trip across the Florida Straits. The boy
 survived and was rescued while clinging to an inner tube Thanksgiving Day.

 Linda Osberg-Braun, another attorney for Elian's Miami relatives, speculated that
 the boy's father was under the influence of the Cuban government when he
 allegedly told him that his mother was in Cuba.

 'FORCES IN CUBA'

 ''That's cruel, and we understand that that's because of the forces in Cuba
 coaching him and coercing him to say these horrible things to his son,''
 Osberg-Braun said on CBS' Face the Nation. ''That needs to be discussed. It
 needs to be explored.''

 Supportive members of Congress backed up the attorneys' theories.

 ''They do take kids away from fathers and keep them away from them where
 there's child abuse or problems. We don't know what the situation is,'' Rep. Dan
 Burton, R-Ind., said on CNN. ''All the facts should come out in a family court.
 That's the only way to know for sure that this boy's going to be safe going back to
 Cuba with his father.''

 Sen. Connie Mack, R-Fla., said the father should not be allowed unrestricted
 visitation with his son unless a court grants him that right.

 ''I would ask questions. Why did the mother and the father separate? Why did
 they divorce? What were the circumstances?'' Mack said on Fox News Sunday.
 ''The only way to really find that out is in a custody court.''

 Gregory Craig, Juan Miguel Gonzalez's Washington attorney, questioned why the
 Miami relatives were raising these issues now. The claims of abuse are
 ''outrageous,'' he said.

 Juan Miguel was ''a loving father, who raised this boy for six years,'' he insisted.

 READY TO TRAVEL

 Craig also told CNN that Elian's father is ready to travel to the United States on a
 moment's notice, as long as he can take custody of the boy. Fidel Castro on
 Sunday night reaffirmed what Craig said by reading a letter from Juan Miguel.

 ''If the boy will be immediately allowed to return to Cuba, I am ready to leave
 [today] completely alone, direct to any place in the United States I have to go,''
 the letter said, implicitly including Miami as a possible destination.

 Gonzalez, the boy's stepmother, his baby half-brother, a dozen classmates and
 some adults applied for American visas today at the U.S. Interests Section in
 Havana, the American mission. The group would be ready to leave for the United
 States as soon as Tuesday, Castro said.

 A U.S. government official confirmed that requests for 28 American visas, along
 with the accompanying 28 Cuban passports for the would-be travelers, were
 turned over to the U.S. Interests Section this morning.

 Gonzalez said he would go get his son alone if U.S. authorities promised they
 would turn Elian over to him immediately and allow them to fly back to Cuba right
 away, Castro said Sunday.

 ``I am willing to leave tomorrow, absolutely alone and transport myself to where
 the child is,'' Castro read from a letter signed by Gonzalez.

 The Miami relatives have said that if he were to come, they wouldn't relinquish the
 boy to him unless immigration officials demanded it first.

 Despite that, Craig told CNN that Juan Miguel was prepared to work out
 arrangements for an orderly transfer of the boy.

 ''We care about his transition as much as anyone else,'' he said, and are ready to
 find a way to ''make it smooth, make it sensitive, make it humane.''

 Meanwhile, Miami family spokesman Armando Gutierrez issued a statement
 criticizing Craig and asking that Clinton remove himself from the case because
 Craig represented the president during impeachment proceedings.

 Their relationship presents a conflict of interest, Gutierrez said in the statement.
 Judges previously involved in the Elian case were criticized for connections to
 Gutierrez, a well-known local political consultant.

 Herald staff writers Jay Weaver, Tere Figueras and Daniel A. Grech and Herald
 wire services contributed to this report.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald