By April Witt and Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday , April 25, 2000 ; C01

MIAMI, April 24 –– Lenia Fernandez, veteran of Miami's three-minute war with the federales, keeps circling the block of
Little Havana where Elian Gonzalez doesn't live anymore, searching for others who, like her, know The Truth.

Those photos showing little Elian happy to be with his father?

"They are all [expletive] fakes and everybody knows it," said Fernandez, a 53-year-old, black-beret-wearing costume designer
who was one of the anti-Castro demonstrators in the street the night the feds seized Elian.

Her evidence: Elian's hair looks so much fuller in that first photo of him reuniting with his father than it did just hours before
when a photographer snapped him with a federal agent's gun in his face. His smile appears complete, while everybody here
knows he recently lost a baby tooth. "I'd cut off my right arm right now if those pictures weren't doctored," Fernandez said.
"Hair doesn't grow in four hours. Missing teeth don't grow in four hours. Come on. We are all adults. We're not stupid. What
do they think we are here, morons?"

Here in steamy Miami, conspiracy theories flourish like passion vine, twisting, turning, insinuating their way into fertile minds,
then blooming prolifically. In Little Havana and on Spanish-language radio, the conspiracy theory del dia is that photographs
showing Elian happy to be with father Juan Miguel Gonzalez are phony, fed to American media filled with comunistas by Fidel
Castro and President Clinton.

Miami, home to some of the Watergate "plumbers," has a proud cloak-and-dagger tradition. Some of the theories swirling
around the house-cum-shrine of Elian's Miami relatives are being spun by camouflage-clad Cuban exiles who landed on the
beach at the Bay of Pigs and worked for the CIA against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Or just admire those who did.

What sounds paranoid in Poughkeepsie sometimes proves true here: There are spies among us.

To Javier Hernandez, Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno have sacrificed Elian to their unholy alliance with Castro. "The
boy is already in Cuba," Hernandez said with certainty. "That's why everybody here is so sad. Nobody has seen him [in
Washington], and he never comes out. Here we saw him every day."

A Mexican American carnival novelty salesman from San Antonio, Hernandez arrived with a bagful of products for the Dade
County Fair about two months ago. Instead of heading to South Beach for some merengue dancing afterward as he planned, he
became a denizen along dusty NW Second Street where Elian was living with his great-uncle. "Look," Hernandez says, strolling
up to the chain-link fence surrounding the tiny house. A poster has appeared featuring photographs of a smiling Elian, arms
clasped around the neck of his smiling father.

"Government Fakes Photos," screams the headline, followed by 13 exclamation points. "Reno-Clinton Fakes!!! Fake Photo!!!
Grown Hair and Teeth in Minutes!!!!!!!"

With the discursive gravity of an art history professor, Hernandez annotates the series of pictures.

"White shirt here, blue shirt here," he begins, pointing to shots of Elian being carried from the house, then to those with his
father. "He doesn't even have the blue shirt in Washington. It's here in the house. A member of the family told me."

The pictures have received more textual analysis in Little Havana than a semester deconstructing "Guernica." Notice how pale
Elian looks in that heartwarming reunion photo. Just click on www.nocastro.com to learn about Cuba's propaganda machine
and how easy it is to "digitally alter and doctor photos."

"The photo doesn't show he's been crying or anything," said Greg Paul Allen, one of the demonstrators who tried to block
federal agents during their pre-dawn raid. "It's clear to most of us that they had this photo image already prepared and sitting by
for when they did this."

Then there is the tickle theory. Fernandez, for one, is convinced that Elian, if not drugged for the reunion, smiles for the camera
because he's being tickled. "Haven't you noticed there is always an arm around him?" she said.

Among the other conspiracy theories circling with whirlpool force: Ted Turner won't let CNN tell the real story because Castro
is his amigo. Clinton, Reno and Castro plan to open a resort in Cuba and the Elian maneuver clinched the deal. Castro is
already paying them off through a Swiss bank account. And the United Methodists are in on it, taking money from Castro to
pay Juan Miguel Gonzalez's hefty legal bills.

Dan Ricker, a Miami community activist and self-appointed government watchdog, arrived at the Elian shrine this week
resembling nothing so much as an old Foggy Bottom China hand. All these conspiracy theories, he said, are distracting the city.

"It's an obsession," Ricker explained, not unkindly. "It has moved everyone here beyond reason into reflexive, Pavlovian
responses. In their hearts, I honestly believe they believe the pictures are fake and the other things they say. Anything that
involves Castro can be true to them."

Indeed, the Castro mistica hovers over Little Havana. A dictator who is about to outlast his ninth U.S. president is seen as the
force behind everything from the Clinton administration to the Miami Police Department.

Hernandez, for example, knows a cabdriver who was pulled over in the wee hours Saturday for allegedly driving with his
hazard lights on. A Cuban American Paul Revere, the cabbie knew about the pending raid, Hernandez said, and was coming to
warn the Gonzalez family until the Miami police blocked his way with a false arrest!

Before federal agents took Elian, Lenia Fernandez kept vigil outside his house all night every night for weeks. Around her neck
she wore a whistle. An hour and a half before the agents struck, she spotted headlights and blew it loudly, signaling groggy
compatriots to man the barricades. False alarm.

When the attack came, Fernandez was praying. Afterward she sat in the street and wept for hours. In one hand she clutched a
black plastic rosary and a palm frond tied in the shape of a cross. "This is my weapon," she tearfully told journalist after
journalist as she held aloft the rosary. "This is my weapon. We didn't deserve this."

Now her grief has turned to fury. "I wish I would have had a rifle then," she said. "I would have shot the [expletive] who did
that to that kid. No more praying anymore. I will do anything I have to do. I don't give a damn if I get killed. The truth has to
come out.

"I could get extreme."

                                 © 2000 The Washington Post Company