Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon News

"I don't think we need a big show"
The Senate GOP's No. 2 backs away from prickly hearings on Janet Reno.
By Daryl Lindsey
[05/04/00]

Bidding for the boat
EBay has a mess on its hands after a rogue auctioneer tries to sell Elián's "genuine" raft.
By Daryl Lindsey
[05/03/00]

Elián and Elio
When will Gloria Estefan and Diane Sawyer stand on their heads for the thousands of children who live with poverty and neglect -- here in the U.S.?
By Arianna Huffington
[05/03/00]

Our Nazi allies
A German amateur investigator finds information on the U.S. government's friendly dealings with war criminals. Meanwhile, the FBI and CIA guard their records.
By Ken Silverstein
[05/03/00]

A play date with Congress?
"Bill Gates is not Elián González," says Robert Bork.
By Daryl Lindsey
[05/02/00]

Complete archives for News

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

The congressional Republicans bellowed their rage and cited the shabbily treated negotiators as one of the reasons for calling hearings about the raid. Not since Pearl Harbor had such an attack been perpetrated, they assured the world. The hearings were aborted when it finally dawned on them that they had learned nothing from the impeachment fiasco.

And now, as the true story of the so-called negotiations that took place in the final hours leading up to the raid emerges, it's time to take a closer look and ask the important question: Which was the gang that couldn't shoot straight?

Aaron Podhurst, the chief negotiator for the Miami family, went out to dinner at a crucial point in the exchange -- 10:58 p.m. -- just as Janet Reno was faxing a tough ultimatum that needed to be discussed, pronto.

It must have been the longest dinner since the Last Supper. Podhurst didn't bother to look at the fax, which sat in his machine in his exercise room, until 2:59 a.m. What was he doing for four hours besides eating? Push-ups? When the lawyer finally looked at the page, he mistook it for another that Reno had sent at 2:59 a.m., thinking it was merely a duplicate. By the time Podhurst finally got around to calling Reno, she told him the family had only an hour to meet her offer.

The naiveté of Podhurst, University of Miami president Edward Foote and other civic leaders who came in at the last minute to help the family, was most apparent the day before the raid. At 4:52 p.m. that Friday, the negotiators faxed the Justice Department a six-point face-saving proposal for the Miami relatives, which included a provision for reuniting the Cuban and Miami arms of the González family in one cozy hideaway. You can almost picture it: Elián getting yanked apart from his father by Marisleysis, who often gets the vapors, and Lázaro, who has a history of trouble with the bottle. Juan Miguel would, presumably, just sit quietly drinking tea in the kitchen.

Problem is, there was absolutely no agreement for transferring custody of Elián to his father. And again they were dictating demands that a psychiatrist and a spiritual advisor "help decide what is in the best interest of the child." The negotiators, it seemed, were the only people on the planet who had never heard Lázaro's mantra, "They will have to rip Elián from my arms."

When Reno didn't answer promptly, they took it as a good omen, but Reno never wavered in her demand that Elián be immediately turned over to his father. Still, the negotiators didn't seem to get it. Did they actually think they were making progress when they were cutting deals worse than anything the González crew had promised to obey and then backed down from before? As one Justice Department official reportedly said, "What the hell is this?"

As for lawyers crossing t's and dotting i's, their vague wording, "We understand that you have transferred temporary custody of Elián to his father," was supposed to mean the Miami family agreed to this. I can just see a lawyer for the family tearing this up and saying, "Gotcha." It would be as binding as one party in a divorce saying, "I understand that you are temporarily taking custody of the Lexus."

Next page | "Let's just sleep on it"