Thursday April 20 11:03 PM ET

Gore Sees Elian 'Family Solution'

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000420/el/gore_cuban_boy_4.html

By SANDRA SOBIERAJ, Associated Press Writer

FORT LEE, N.J. (AP) - Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites) said Thursday he ``advised'' Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives to abide by the law as he rejected an appeal by the Cuban boy's father for public support for a reunion with his 6-year-old son while custody is litigated.

``That decision ought to be made according to what is in the boy's best interest. Usually a family court or a decision maker following those kinds of procedures gives tremendous weight to the views and preferences of a surviving parent, but not always if there are other factors involved,'' Gore said on CNN's ``Larry King Live.'' He did not say what other factors should weigh into the decision.

Hours earlier, the father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, asked Americans to help him persuade the Clinton-Gore administration to end the five-month father-son separation.

A caller to the talk show told Gore the Miami family was ``breaking the law'' by refusing an order, after their temporary custody was revoked, to return Elian to his father. ``Do you condone this lawbreaking?'' the caller asked.

``I advised them to abide by the law and they have said that they will,'' Gore replied.

Spokesman Chris Lehane later clarified that Gore has not spoken with Elian's U.S. relatives. ``That's a public counsel he's proffered,'' Lehane said. ``He has not been in contact personally.''

Earlier, in New Jersey, Gore urged the feuding relatives to get together ``without government officials or lawyers'' to try to resolve their increasingly entrenched and contrary positions.

Gore, pressed by reporters, refused to criticize the handling of the case of the shipwrecked Cuban boy by President Clinton's and his administration.

``I'm not going to get into that. I respect the way they're going about this and I hope we'll be able to get the family members together,'' Gore said during a round robin of local TV interviews in a Fort Lee school corridor.

Like the Miami area, where Elian is staying, New Jersey has a large number of Cuban-Americans.

``I think it would be a constructive step if the family members could all meet together without government officials or lawyers to try to reach a family solution to this,'' Gore said.

``I'm still confident that might happen. I think everybody wants this thing to be over in the way that's in the best interests of the child.''

Gore, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has made clear he will strongly compete for the 25 electoral votes of Florida, where many in the influential Cuban-American community oppose turning Elian over to his father for a return to Cuba. Some have surrounded the relatives' home in Miami where Elian is staying and vowed to block his removal.

Gore declined to criticize those Little Havana demonstrators, either.

``I haven't been there to see the scene for myself. It's kind of hard to get a picture of it just from a television angle,'' Gore told New York's WNBC-TV.

He evaded repeated questions on whether he agreed with Attorney General Janet Reno's assessment that Elian should be with his father, who is waiting in Washington for a reunion and return to Cuba, while a court decides if the boy should have an asylum hearing.

``My position is the same as it has been. I think it would be a constructive step if the family members could all meet together without government officials or lawyers to try to reach a family solution to this and that's what I would recommend,'' Gore said.