BY ANDRES VIGLUCCI, JAY WEAVER AND ANA ACLE

 A showdown between the Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez and the federal government
 seemed inevitable today with the relatives refusing to hand the boy over - telling the
 government they had to come and get him.

 Although Lazaro Gonzalez said he would not take the boy to Opa-Locka Airport this
 afternoon, where the handover was supposed to take place, he also would not obstruct
 justice, said family spokesman Armando Gutierrez.

 "He is going to stay in the house," Gutierrez said. "When the marshals come he will open
 the door and say 'Take the boy.' ''

 Last night, the Miami relatives spurned a personal appeal from U.S. Attorney General
 Janet Reno and challenged the government to send in federal agents to take the boy
 ``by force.''

 ``Our position is we will not turn over the child -- anywhere,'' said Lazaro Gonzalez,
 Elian's great-uncle, after Reno asked him face-to-face to voluntarily turn over the boy
 to be returned to his father, who is waiting with his wife and baby in Washington, D.C.,
 to return to Cuba.

 Minutes later, speaking in the U.S. attorney's office in downtown Miami, Reno said
 she intended to enforce the order ``in a fair, prompt way.'' She declined to elaborate.

 Surrounded by his grim-faced lawyers outside the Miami Beach home of Sister
 Jeanne O'Laughlin, the Barry University president who hosted the meeting, Gonzalez
 called Reno's demand ``a traitorous act.'' One of his lawyers said the family will seek
 an emergency order today barring the government from enforcing its order.

 ``I want you all to know, the whole world to see, they are preparing to take a
 child from my home, they are training federal agents to attack my house,''
 Gonzalez said.

 This morning, a videotape that was created by the family and the boy after last
 night's meeting was shown on Univision. In the video, Elian says that he does not
 want to go to Cuba and he asked his father to stay in the United States.

 If Gonzalez refuses to turn over the boy, the government has said it would seek
 an emergency court order to compel compliance.

 Reno would not provide any details, but indicated action would be swift. ``It is not
 in the interests of anyone, least of all Elian, to let this drag on,'' she said.

 She said the boy was present during the meeting at O'Laughlin's house: ``It was
 so touching because when he walked into the room, it was like looking at the
 spitting image of his father, only 25 years younger.''

 The attorney general, a Miami native, appealed to the community to remain calm
 as the drama comes to an end.

 ``Let's make this community a model of what Fidel Castro's Cuba is not,'' she
 said. ``Let us come together to work out this problem in the best way to protect
 the rule of law and this boy.''

 Reno flew to Miami on Wednesday in a bold move to break open the impasse
 over Elian's fate at the invitation of O'Laughlin. Her two-hour meeting with
 Gonzalez, Elian and other members of the Miami family ended without a clear
 resolution. Later, both sides continued discussions in a phone conference after
 Reno went to the U.S. attorney's office in downtown Miami.

 Reno went into the session with hope that Elian's relatives would agree to
 accompany the boy to Washington for the reunification.

 A LETTER

 Accompanied by Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris
 Meissner, she came armed with a letter instructing the relatives to accompany
 Elian to the Opa-locka Airport at 10 a.m. today.

 While they left the meeting without handing over the letter, they faxed a revised
 version to the Gonzalez family's lawyers near midnight Wednesday. Because of
 the delays in the negotiations, the time for the hand-over was moved back to 2
 p.m.

 The letter -- a legally binding federal order -- outlines two options for family
 members: They can board a government plane to take Elian to his father in
 Washington, or they can turn him over to an INS official who will deliver the boy to
 Juan Miguel Gonzalez.

 About 200 Miami-Dade police officers were told to report to the Opa-locka airport
 today for the transfer. At least two cars of federal agents were stationed in front of
 O'Laughlin's house.

 Following Lazaro Gonzalez's statement, he and his daughter Marisleysis left the
 house with Elian to return to their Little Havana home. The federal agents left
 O'Laughlin's house about the same time.

 In comments after the meeting, O'Laughlin said the Miami relatives continued to
 ask that Elian's father, now in Washington, D.C., awaiting reunification with his
 son, travel to Miami to meet with them. But Juan Miguel Gonzalez made it clear
 Wednesday that he was through negotiating with his relatives after Lazaro
 torpedoed an already announced family meeting that had been scheduled
 Wednesday in Washington. The government said the purpose of that meeting was
 to turn over Elian to his father.

 ASKED TO HELP

 The Miami relatives had taken Elian to O'Laughlin's house at midday after asking
 her to once again intercede in the case.

 The lightning visit by Reno came after two days of fast-moving, and constantly
 changing, developments in the four-month custody battle.

 O'Laughlin phoned Reno on Wednesday morning with an offer to mediate, telling
 the attorney general that she could help negotiate a solution to the impasse, a
 government source said.

 Reno decided to go to Miami in the afternoon after aides spoke to Lazaro
 Gonzalez's attorneys. Meissner was given 15 minutes' notice to join Reno for the
 flight to Miami.

 Meissner urged Reno to stick to a plan in place for several days to impose a
 Thursday morning deadline on the Miami relatives for the boy's surrender. Reno, a
 Miami native and former state attorney, felt her personal intervention would help
 persuade the relatives to cooperate in a hand-over.

 A WAY OUT

 O'Laughlin's offer to mediate, with Elian present at her house, for the first time
 seemed to provide the government a way to remove the boy away from the
 demonstrators that have surrounded the Miami relatives' Little Havana home for
 weeks, threatening to block federal officials' path.

 ``She's there to accomplish getting Elian and his relatives out [Thursday] morning,
 either with her or separately, to meet with Juan Miguel,'' INS spokeswoman Maria
 Cardona said. ``The intention is to bring all of them, because that would mean
 they are doing it cooperatively.''

 Reno's spur-of-the-moment move also appeared to box in the relatives' team of
 lawyers, who continued to issue defiant statements through the afternoon
 suggesting that Lazaro Gonzalez would never agree to turn over the child.

 A federal court judge in Miami last month upheld the government's authority to
 return Elian to his father. Although the family has filed an appeal, Reno retains the
 power to transfer custody to Juan Miguel Gonzalez at a moment's notice.

 The Miami relatives' only legal option now appears to be seeking an order in
 federal court to stop the father from returning with his son to Cuba before their
 pending court appeal is concluded. Reno has said that, barring any such order,
 the government is not legally bound to await the outcome of that appeal.

 FREE TO GO

 But Justice Department officials have said they would encourage Juan Miguel
 Gonzalez not to return immediately to Cuba with Elian, though he is free to do so.

 Three government-appointed mental-health experts who interviewed Lazaro
 Gonzalez on Monday recommended to Reno that Elian be turned over
 immediately to his father, but that to minimize any trauma to the child, they
 remain in the country for a one- to two-week period during which both sides of the
 family could be in regular contact.

 As late as Wednesday afternoon, however, statements from the Miami relatives
 and their representatives were not conciliatory.

 The lawyers said the family members were saying they would prefer that federal
 agents come fetch the 6-year-old boy rather than assist in what they regard as
 sending him into the arms of Cuban President Fidel Castro.

 The lawyers said their clients wanted to talk with Reno face-to-face about their
 demands to have a team of mental-health experts evaluate the boy before forcing
 them to turn him over to his father -- a condition the government has repeatedly
 rejected.

 But Reno, who has been unwavering about reuniting father and son, has refused
 to concede any ground to the Gonzalez family. She wants only one thing from
 them -- to cooperate in giving back the boy at a neutral site.

 ``That's never going to happen,'' Jose Garcia-Pedrosa, a lawyer on the team, said
 Wednesday afternoon. ``That has been an unalterable position.''

 PLUG PULLED

 Late Tuesday night, Lazaro Gonzalez pulled the plug the announced family
 meeting, claiming Elian said he didn't want to go. The government and Juan
 Miguel's lawyer, Gregory Craig, insisted Wednesday that all sides understood
 that the purpose of the meeting was for Elian to be turned to his father.

 ``It was clear that this was agreed upon by all the parties involved,'' a source
 familiar with the arrangements said.

 The government believes Lazaro Gonzalez either misunderstood or was misled as
 to the goal of the meeting, which was arranged by U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli and
 the Cuban American National Foundation.

 On Wednesday, foundation officials denied that any hand-over had been
 contemplated. But Craig called the foundation's denial a ``surprise.''

 The family's ``only requirement would be that Juan Miguel would talk to the
 relatives for 30 minutes only after the transfer,'' Craig said.

 IN MARYLAND

 Juan Miguel Gonzalez remained in Maryland Wednesday, where he has been
 staying with Cuban diplomats since last week. He indicated in a meeting with the
 Rev. Joan Brown Campbell that he was through with negotiating. ``He is going to
 simply ask now that the attorney general issue a court order and that the boy be
 returned immediately to him,'' she said.

 The announced trip by Elian to Washington appeared to put an end to plans by
 Reno to meet with the boy's relatives in Miami on Wednesday -- plans that were
 revived after O'Laughlin phoned the attorney general Wednesday morning.

 Joined by aides, Reno and Meissner flew to Opa-locka Airport in an FBI executive
 jet that touched down at about 6 p.m. They proceeded to Miami Beach in a
 caravan of government vehicles.

 About 50 of the same demonstrators who have kept vigil outside Lazaro
 Gonzalez's modest Little Havana home for days decamped for O'Laughlin's house
 on Pine Tree Drive, where they were kept behind barricades by police.

 Family spokesman Armando Gutierrez awaited Reno's arrival with a bouquet of
 peach-colored roses.

 ANOTHER PROPOSAL

 Meanwhile, an attorney representing Elian's other great-uncle in Miami, Manuel
 Gonzalez, has proposed that he play the role of a mediator because of his good
 relationship with the boy's father and other family members.

 Chicago attorney Jeffery Leving said he spoke with Justice Department lawyer
 David Kline on Wednesday afternoon about the idea.

 ``He seemed interested, but he told me that he would have to move it up the
 ladder for higher-ups to review,'' Leving said.

 ``Manuel is not interested in conflict,'' Leving said. ``I think Manuel would do
 anything to help if everyone agreed to come together as a family.''

 But Manuel Gonzalez said he does not have plans to accompany Elian to
 Washington.

 ``As far as I can tell, that is not going to happen.,'' he said. ``So far I don't have
 any information that I will act as an intermediary. Only Juan Miguel can ask me
 do do that. If Juan Miguel asks me to, I will.''

 Herald staff writers Karen Branch, Tyler Bridges, Manny Garcia, Sonji Jacobs,
 Marika Lynch, Sandra Marquez Garcia, Martin Merzer, Sara Olkon, Eunice
 Ponce, Frances Robles and Carol Rosenberg, Herald writer Mireidy Fernandez,
 Online News reporter Madeline Baro, staff translator Renato Perez, and Herald
 wire services contributed to this report.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald