BY ALFONSO CHARDY

 The prelude to the saga of Elián González was a frantic telephone call from Cuba three
 days before Thanksgiving.

 Juan González Hernández, Elián's grandfather, was on the line from Cárdenas
 alerting his sister Georgina Cid in Little Havana that the boy and his mother were at
 sea.

 Elián's Miami relatives would later cite the call -- at 9:01 p.m., Monday, Nov. 22 -- as
 evidence that the boy's father, Juan Miguel, wanted his son to stay in Miami. But Georgina
 Cid months later would recall the conversation as merely one passing on and seeking
 information.

 ``It was to say that they were on their way and to be on alert and that if we learned something
 of their arrival or whereabouts that we should call them,'' Cid said.

 Three days later, Elián would be pulled from the sea by a pair of men out on a fishing trip
 and a seven-month family squabble over the 6-year-old would blossom into an international
 crisis.

 A review of key events in the Elián case chronicles how misunderstandings and
 miscalculations contributed to creating that crisis.

 Some U.S. officials now admit that two decisions made in the first days after Elian's
 rescue at sea contributed to the problem:

   Releasing Elián into the care of Lázaro González, the boy's great-uncle, without first
 checking with the father. This happened despite the fact that contact was established
 with the family in Cuba while the child was still being treated at Joe DiMaggio Children's
 Hospital in Hollywood.

   Not moving quickly enough to remove the boy from Lázaro's care once immigration
 officials decided he had to be reunited with his father. That decision was made Jan. 5, but it
 wasn't until months later -- on April 22 -- when federal agents took Elián from his
 great-uncle's Little Havana home by force.

 From the outset, Washington's position in the case was inconsistent and filled with
 miscalculations.

 Immigration officials departed from normal procedure by giving the child to Lázaro Nov.
 26, the day Elián was released from the hospital. Normally, when an unaccompanied
 migrant child arrives in South Florida, he is sent to Boys Town -- a facility for
 unaccompanied children -- pending a check for next of kin.

 ``They acted too hastely,'' a Clinton administration official said.

 Maria Cardona, an Immigration and Naturalization Service spokeswoman, said her
 agency released Elián to Lázaro because officials felt the boy needed a caring family
 environment after losing his mother in the tragedy at sea.

 Then, after Elián's father made his first public demand for the boy's return -- three days after
 the rescue -- the U.S. government wavered.

 Initially, INS said custody was up to the courts.

 But the Clinton administration abruptly changed course a few days later after Fidel
 Castro, on Dec. 5, gave the United States 72 hours to agree to return Elián or Cuba would
 boycott migration talks eight days hence. A Cuban boycott of the talks could have led to
 the disruption of U.S.-Cuba accords that prevent another refugee exodus.

 Forty-eight hours after Castro's threat, the State Department signaled a willingness to
 return Elián.

 Clinton administration officials now say the reason the United States reversed course was
 a Cuban diplomatic note containing the father's demand -- not Castro's threat.

 ``That's when we realized there was a father claiming his son,'' said Cardona, the INS
 spokeswoman.

 Raúl Hernández, program coordinator for the United States Catholic Conference, which
 assists the INS in placing unaccompanied minors, said the decision to hand over Elián to
 Lázaro when doctors released the boy from the hospital was not business as usual.

 Typically, Hernández said, INS places unaccompanied migrant children in detention
 pending a ``suitability assessment'' of the household of a local relative willing to care for
 the child.

 In Elián's case, the child went to live in Lázaro's house without a prior assessment.
 The assessment was conducted after Elián was already living there.

 Cardona defended the INS' decision to allow Lázaro to take Elián home, citing the
 traumatic circumstances of Elián's arrival.

 Elián's father insists that he made it clear he wanted his son returned from the outset. The
 first documented instance of that, however, is not until Dec. 11, when a phone call between
 Juan Miguel and Lázaro's daughter -- Marisleysis -- was taped in Cuba. A transcript
 of the call was later published in the Communist Party daily Granma.

 ``I want that child to be next to me,'' Juan Miguel reportedly said.

 Marisleysis replied that Elián did not want to go back to Cuba.

 ``Before the Virgin of Charity and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I swear to you, that I
 asked him if he wanted to go back there with his father, and you know what he
 said to me? `Let him come here if he wants.' ''

 Over the next few weeks, U.S. officials would twice interview Juan Miguel in Cuba
 to determine what he wanted to have happen. On Jan. 5, the INS announced that
 it had concluded that Juan Miguel was sincere in his desire to have his son
 returned to Cuba and that the INS would honor his request. They gave the family
 until Jan. 14 to come up with an agreement for the boy's return.

 ``Not removing the child immediately was a mistake,'' one Clinton administration
 official said.

 ``I disagree,'' said Cardona, the INS spokeswoman. ``From the beginning, we were
 very sensitive to Elián's needs and balanced that with the Miami family's desire to
 review our decision in court.''

 Lawyers for Elián's Miami relatives began taking legal steps to block any INS
 attempt to return the boy to Cuba.

 They sued first in state family court and Judge Rosa Rodríguez barred removal of
 Elián from Miami peding a custody hearing. Another family court judge later
 nullified that ruling.

 On Jan. 12, Attorney General Janet Reno stepped in.

 She rejected Judge Rodríguez's authority to rule in the matter -- but in a
 concession to the Miami family she encouraged it to take the case to federal
 court.

 A week later, lawyers sued in federal court asking it to order INS to give Elián a
 political asylum hearing.

 On March 21, Judge K. Michael Moore ruled for the INS. The Miami family
 lawyers appealed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.

 Elián's father, meanwhile, suddenly agreed to travel to the United States arriving
 in Washington on April 6 with his new wife and their baby. Things came to a head
 April 12 when Reno herself flew to Miami to make a personal appeal to Lázaro.

 Spurning Reno's appeal, Elián's Miami relatives challenged the government to
 send in federal agents to take the boy by force.

 In the predawn hours of April 22 armed federal agents raided Lázaro's home and
 flew Elián to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington where his father
 awaited.

 Since Elián's Miami family was still appealing Judge Moore's decision, INS
 ordered Juan Miguel not to leave the United States with the boy.

 On June 1, a three-judge panel of the appeals court in Atlanta upheld Moore's
 decision. Miami family lawyers then appealed to the full court, which rejected the
 appeal on Friday.

 On Monday, the Miami family appealed to the Supreme Court, which turned down
 the case on Wednesday -- the day Elián returned with his father to Cuba.

 Herald staff writers Andrés Viglucci, Elaine de Valle, Jay Weaver, Ana Acle,
 Frances Robles and Sandra Marquez Garcia contributed to this report.