Elian pawn in Clinton’s game with Cuba

Published 5:00 am Monday, April 10, 2000

Did Greg Craig assure Fidel Castro that U.S. security forceswould keep Juan Miguel Gonzalez from defecting if he came to theUnited States?

Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a leader of Miami’s Cuban-Americans,made this accusation last Thursday in a private memo forcongressional Republican leaders. ”That is false,” Craig told meSaturday. ”I don’t know where they get that. They just make itup.” But the congressman says he has hard information to supporthis allegation.

Whatever the truth, there is no disputing that Craig — thenewest and most elegant of Washington’s super-lawyers — is at thecore of the Clinton administration’s campaign to return ElianGonzalez to Cuba. Craig, who now is President Clinton’s personallawyer and his emissary as well, conducted shuttle diplomacybetween Havana and Washington to reunite the 6-year-old and hisfather in one of the world’s last Communist dictatorships.

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But why? There are Cuban exiles who see the president succumbingto Castro’s threatened election-year flood of Cuban immigrants thatwould menace Democratic prospects. But Diaz-Balart, in his memo,sees a broader Clinton design: using the Elian affair to discreditFlorida’s Cuban-American community and eliminate it as a bar to”normalized” relations with the Castro regime.

The presence of Craig, who gained national attention as adefense lawyer in Clinton’s impeachment trial, gives credence tothis thesis. How did the former Yale Law School classmate of Billand Hillary Clinton, a partner of the pricey Williams &Connolly firm, end up representing a penniless Cuban securityguard?

An intriguing question, but one only the Fox News Channel andThe Weekly Standard have shown interest in asking. In longtelevision interviews, Craig has faced uninquisitive interviewers.All that is known for sure is that Craig asked the United MethodistChurch to pay his fee, and that dependably liberal organizationcreated a fund (with secret donors). It is widely assumed thatCraig was prompted into taking this extraordinary client by hisfriend in the Oval Office.

Interviewers also failed to ask Craig about his meetings withCastro during his first trip to Havana to confer with his”client,” Juan Miguel Gonzalez. Craig returned to Washington tosee Attorney General Janet Reno, who thereupon elevated herrhetoric in demanding the boy’s immediate return to Cuba.

Back in Cuba, Craig again met Castro — who then announced hewas sending the boy’s father to the United States. Diaz-Balart toldme he has a reliable source who informed him that the Clintonlawyer, in the words of his memo, ”provided Castro with sufficientguarantees that U.S. security personnel would make certain thatElian’s father will not be allowed to defect.” The elder Gonzalezhas been under U.S. Secret Service protection at the Cubandiplomat’s house in Bethesda, Md.

To the congressman, the Gonzalez family is a in the president’sefforts to ”normalize” relations with Cuba by ending sanctions.The advent of Elian offered a heaven-sent opportunity, according toDiaz-Balart’s memo:

”Castro knew that the Cuban-American community would inevitablywork hard to keep Elian in the U.S. because that community …knows what it is truly like to live in Communist Cuba.

Clinton agreed to back Castro in the Elian case in order toisolate the Cuban-American community and its allies in Congresswith the goal of overcoming codification (of the U.S. embargo) andlifting sanctions on Castro.”

Such a conclusion is not limited to anti-Castro exiles. The samesample of Americans who told the Gallup Poll that the little boyshould be sent to Cuba disputed the Clinton-Reno claim that theU.S. government was acting in the ”best interests of U.S.relations with Cuba.” Only 26 percent agreed with that assertion,while 54 percent believe that ”U.S. relations with Cuba” are atstake.

These ordinary citizens understand why super-lawyer Craig hasworked so hard to return the boy to the Union of CommunistPioneers. They might not perceive that demonization of theCuban-American community as a lawless band is central to a U.S.rapprochement with the Cuban dictator before he dies.

Vice President Al Gore, Clinton’s heir apparent, correctlycalled for Elian’s status to be determined by a family court. Buthe did not reveal his candid opinion of the president’s granddesign for Cuba.