BY CAROL ROSENBERG

 Jammed inside WQBA's Calle Ocho studio on Friday, Janet Reno got everything she sought from her first Cuban-American radio talk-show
 chat since floating her possible candidacy for governor of Florida:

 An open microphone and helpful Spanish translation; two tough but respectful veteran radio interviewers; wall-to-wall news photographers
 and reporters; a plate piled high with pastries and, after asking, a shot of Cuban coffee.

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

 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 Agustín 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 Elián, 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 if 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.''

 PROTEST OUTSIDE

 Reno, who drove and parked her red pickup truck herself, arrived late after about a dozen protesters delayed her at the door.

 The hosts were already broadcasting by the time she stepped into the studio at 10:03:27, according to the neon clock on the wall. Sometimes, she offered a few
 sentences in Spanish, the language of choice for the up to 30,000 listeners of El Programa de Agustín 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.

 During the most intense days of the Elián González affair, after Reno sent federal forces to take the boy from his great-uncle's Little Havana home, the former Miami-Dade prosecutor 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 Elián affair with Cuban-American friends over pastelitos.

 So Friday, while about two dozen 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.

 They went untouched as the usually hourlong show stretched beyond 90 minutes. But there was lots of talk, Reno-style, about the little boy whose plight polarized South Florida:

 ``I think about Elián 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 6-year-old 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 see any evidence that he was starving.''

 ISLAND LIFE

 Reno characterized Cuban island life as more subtle than that, and said the proof of its complexity could be found in the tens of thousands of Cuban Americans in South Florida who travel back and forth between the island each year, to visit relatives. Lázaro González, Elián's great uncle, was among them, she reminded listeners.

 Reno also said she was still deciding whether to run for governor but offered no timetable for her decision. She repeatedly indicated the topics that most interested her in that regard -- education, the elderly, healthcare and the environment.

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

 She was asked whether she was glad she agreed to participate in the Cuban radio forum.

 ``Sure,'' she replied. ``I thought it was a wonderful show.''

                                    © 2001