BY FRANK DAVIES

 WASHINGTON -- Stoic but reflective, Attorney General Janet Reno Thursday defended her decision to seize Elian Gonzalez by force, discussed new details of the raid and described her thoughts at the moment she gave the go-ahead to send in federal agents.

 ``How would he feel, suddenly being put in the arms of a stranger?'' Reno recalled thinking early Saturday morning. ``What would he think? How frightened would he be?''

 The attorney general paused and continued: ``And I kept thinking, I wish I could see him when his daddy gets on the plane.''

 Reno, at her regular weekly briefing, said ``a show of force, not a use of force, to show we were in control'' was necessary to conduct the operation quickly and safely. And she said the predawn hours of Saturday were ``the most appropriate time with the least crowd, the safest time possible to effect the transfer.''

 Justice officials later said that a preliminary cost estimate in the Elian case totaled $578,000. That includes the costs during the final week before the raid of deploying 151 agents and using two marshals planes. The total does not include the agents salaries.

 DEAL NOT CLOSE

 Reno, whose department faces a Senate hearing on the case Wednesday, reiterated that the raid was necessary because negotiations were not close to a deal for a voluntary transfer, and said that the Miami familys rhetoric had hardened in the days before the raid:

 ``They had at one point said, `If you come, we will just stand aside and let you take the child. That was easier said than done, because you had a situation where a crowd was gathering regularly that would have been very difficult for people to move through.

 ``But the family then started talking in the last days about `youre going to have to use force to take the child.' ''

 As for the timing, Reno said: ``I think one never knows what the appropriate timing is . . . One never knows when the best time was, because you only choose one time.''

 Reno said agents entering the home in Little Havana did encounter some resistance, and that some people ``tried to throw ropes around the agents'' by the front door, and pushed a couch against the door. Immigration and Naturalization Service agent Betty Mills was grabbed as she carried Elian to a waiting van.

 After the briefing, a Justice official said that what appeared to be ropes may have been cable belonging to a television cameraman who had raced into the house, with his cable stuck in the doorway.

 LASTING IMAGE

 ``The American people dont like the picture any more than I do,'' she said, referring to a news photo of an armed agent facing Elian. ``They dont like the thought of having to take a little boy to his father in this way. But they had a chance to see it and understand that in a situation like that, it may not be the prettiest thing in the world, but it is effective and it proved to be effective here.''

 That image fueled the anger of several hundred demonstrators who marched in front of the White House Thursday afternoon, chanting slogans denouncing Reno and President Clinton. Many were Cuban Americans who came by bus from South Florida, New Jersey and New York.

 ``Human rights for Elian,'' they shouted. One protester carried a sign with Reno depicted as a tyrannosaurus rex -- a ``Renosaur'' clutching a boy in her claws.

 On Capitol Hill, several Republicans complained that Cuban officials in Washington were being allowed liberal access to Elian and his father, who are staying at a residence at Wye River Plantation on Marylands Eastern Shore about 70 miles east of the capital.

 The House International Relations Committee staff said it has been notified that as many as 10 Cuban diplomats and spouses were authorized by the State Department to visit Wye. Cuban diplomats travel is normally restricted to within 25 miles of Washington.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald