BY CAROL ROSENBERG AND ELAINE DE VALLE

 After days of U.S-Cuban acrimony over a little boy saved from an inner tube at
 sea, the U.S. government Tuesday signaled a willingness to consider returning
 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez to Cuba to live with his father.

 ``We are committed to working with the family of Elian Gonzalez, including the
 father, and all relevant officials to achieve an appropriate resolution to this case,'' a
 State Department statment said.

 U.S. immigration regulations ``recognize the right of a parent to assert parental
 interests in a immigration proceeding,'' it added, explaining that immigration
 service agents would contact the boy's father in Cuba to explain the procedures.

 The announcement capped a third straight day of furious Fidel Castro rhetoric --
 and immediately touched off anger in Miami, where exile activists accused the
 U.S. of bowing to Castro's bullying.

 In Cardenas, Cuba, the boy's father greeted the news with distrust in a telephone
 interview -- but said he would meet U.S. officials in his home to prove his
 paternity.

 ``I have everything. His birth certificate. His mother's birth certificate. My birth
 certificate. The marriage license. The divorce papers,'' he told The Herald. ``I have
 so many photos of him. Some of him here with me at home.''

 Even if the father presents the papers swiftly, the child may not be quickly
 returned. Relatives in Miami can challenge custody in U.S. court.

 Officials in Washington refused to say whether there could be a resolution by
 Christmas.

 Much of the drama occurred Tuesday night when the State Department said it
 would invite Juan Miguel Gonzalez to prove Elian is his son as a first step to
 reuniting the two.

 Fishermen found the child, in shock, aboard an inner tube on Thanksgiving Day
 after tragedy struck a smuggling mission to sneak 14 Cubans across the Florida
 Straits to the U.S. Presumed killed were the boy's mother, Gonzalez's ex-wife,
 and 10 others.

 After treatment in a Broward hospital, he was given temporarily to a great-aunt
 and great-uncle in Little Havana, who said he should remain in Miami in keeping
 with his mother's wishes.

 FATHER'S DEMAND

 His father demanded his return, as did Castro, who on Sunday issued a 72-hour
 ultimatum and unleashed street protests.

 In Havana, tens of thousands of pro-Castro protesters, many of them
 schoolchildren, held a third day of choreographed demonstrations outside the
 U.S. mission on the Malecon, the waterfront promenade.

 Organizers hoisted a huge portrait of the boy.

 A Clinton administration official, speaking on background, said the development
 came so late -- 12 days after the child was saved from the sea -- because the
 Cuban government only formally forwarded the father's request on Friday.

 Wednesday, the official said, the father would be invited to present proof of
 fatherhood -- a birth certificate or other Cuban document plus photos or other
 examples of a relationship to an immigration official, either in Cuba or the U.S.

 PATERNITY ISSUE

 Once paternity was proven, he would be declared the permanent custodian, which
 would solidify his claim that Elian should be brought back to Cuba.

 Cuban exile activists pledged a fierce community response -- including a court
 challenge.

 ``They are obviously bending to Castro's pressure. Clinton is a coward,'' said Jose
 Basulto, leader of the Brothers to the Rescue anti-Castro movement.

 Alarmed, the boy's Little Havana relatives said they would contact community
 activists to mount a strategy to keep the child.

 ``We are trying to notify everyone about the possibility that the boy might be
 taken back to Cuba because of the blackmail of Fidel Castro,'' said Armando
 Gutierrez, speaking for the family.

 In a twist, the boy's father agreed that Castro's tough talk turned the tide. ``When
 our comandante talks, they tremble,'' Gonzalez told The Herald.

 Gonzalez said he has called his son every day since he was recovered and that
 he had to sell his 1956 Rambler to pay for the international calls.

 CHANGED ATTITUDE

 Gonzalez said his feelings toward his Miami relatives have soured. ``When they
 first took my son, I was grateful because they were helping,'' he said. ``But now,
 after what they've done, how can I feel the same way?''

 Family custody lawyers say U.S. law favors the father, and were he to come to
 Miami he would likely be awarded custody on the spot.

 But, if the immigration service declared the father chief custodian, kin in Miami
 could still go to a U.S. Family Court to seek a restraining order -- and demand
 eventual custody.

 The State Department statement came after a day of rancorous Cuban
 accusations that Washington was unwilling to enforce its own migration policies.

 Castro blamed U.S. policy and Cuban exiles for the ``dozens, maybe hundreds'' of
 Cubans who have died trying to reach Florida's shore and receive permanent U.S.
 residency under the Cuban Adjustment Act.

 ``They don't give them visas,'' he said. ``Then they receive them as heroes.''

 DECISION ABOUT BOAT

 In a separate move Tuesday, U.S. officials decided to repatriate six Cubans who
 wielded knives to hijack a fishing boat, the Albacora, from a Cuban dock Monday.

 Tuesday night, the five men and one woman, plus the two-man crew were still at
 sea -- aboard the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Thetis, somewhere in international
 waters. The Albacora bobbed nearby. A U.S. diplomat said that the U.S.
 attorney's office in Miami had decided not to prosecute the case in U.S. courts
 and immigration officials decided the six had no right to U.S. asylum.

 Washington officials denied the decision to return the six and meet with Elian's
 father was bowing to Castro's pressure. Instead, diplomats said both decisions
 were made after careful consideration of the law.

 Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon characterized the standoff
 as American imperialism in a call to the Miami-based, pro-Cuban government
 radio talk show of Franciso Aruca, Yesterday in Miami.
 ``Imagine that a court says that a son of yours, a minor, does not belong to you,
 that you're not his guardian and that anyone else can be his guardian,'' Alarcon
 said.

 ``Every poor child in this world, millions of them in the United States alone, could
 then be removed from their parents and placed in the custody of a rich American,
 on the grounds that he could look after them better because he has more material
 resources.''

 Alarcon said the preferred solution would be for U.S. diplomats to deliver the child
 to Havana next Monday, Dec. 13, for the latest round of negotiations on
 outstanding migration issues.

 Herald staff translator Renato Perez contributed to this report.

                     Copyright 1999 Miami Herald