Many Find Video of Boy Disturbing

By FAYE FIORE and GERALDINE BAUM

April 14, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

WASHINGTON — It comes across like some kind of weird electronic hybrid: a poignant glimpse of childhood captured on home video melded with the unsettling spectacle of a POW mouthing the words of his captors.

The grainy image of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez wagging his finger and telling his father “Papa! I do not want to go to Cuba!” appeared to be a final, desperate attempt by family members struggling to keep the child in Miami.

But it may have backfired, in the view of some child development experts, television network executives and callers who flooded talk radio shows as a child’s 45-second tirade played time and again Thursday on radio and television stations across the nation.

There he was, a little boy in a red shirt and shorts, cross-legged in his stocking feet, a string of gold charms dangling from his neck. He sat on a bed against a pine headboard, surrounded by flowered pillows, scolding his father in a hollow tone that sounded to some observers more mimicked than harsh.

Armando Gutierrez, a spokesman for the Miami family, said that the tape was shot late Wednesday night after the family returned from their Miami Beach meeting with Reno. He said that one member of the family, whom he did not name, shot the footage with a camera given to the family two weeks ago.

One source close to the Gonzalezes said that the family released the tape out of frustration that the public had not heard from Elian. The source said that the boy, from his first days in Florida, has said that he does not want to go back to Cuba because he knows his mother wanted him to live in the United States.

The tape now joins the archive of indelible Elian images, even if in vivid contrast to those that preceded it. We’ve seen Elian on a slide, with a puppy, starting school, on a swing. But there was something about the homemade footage that felt wrong, several viewers said. One woman in Miami likened it to videotape of a kidnapped Patricia Hearst.

The circumstances of his case made his words seem even more incredible, child psychology experts noted. How could a traumatized little boy who watched his mother drown months ago make a competent decision about his future?

“The notion that a 6-year-old child should somehow be paraded on TV as capable of determining whether he should stay or go is a tremendous distortion and at some level an abuse of the child,” said Dr. Flemming Graae, interim director of child psychiatry at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Westchester, N.Y. “His mother is gone. His parents were separated. There is a piece of this child that doesn’t want to turn his world upside down again.”

Several experts concluded that the boy had been coached. One characterized Elian’s performance as “robotic” and the video as “a charade.”

Timur Kuran, a professor of Islamic thought and culture at USC and an expert in statements made under pressure, said no one would suggest that Elian was under the same pressure as a hostage attempting to avoid torture or death.

Indeed, it is quite possible that he believed what he was saying: “I do not want to go to Cuba” was repeated in some version four times in his nine-sentence appeal. At issue, though, is how he came to harbor that belief, said Kuran, who has written a book on people who misrepresent their beliefs to accommodate social pressure, escape punishment or win rewards.

“If for days he was told terrible things would happen to him if he went back to Cuba and life would be so wonderful here, it’s not surprising he would respond the way he did,” Kuran said. “Someone 18 or 30 can be influenced this way. That he is only 6 makes it that much easier for the process to work.”

The tape communicated a sense of last resort that may say more about Elian’s Florida relatives than about the boy himself, experts said, as the federal government steps up its efforts to reunite him with his father. Some predicted that the video might tilt fence-sitters away from his Miami kin in the court of public opinion.

“I think a lot of people would have trouble with this. It feels as though it is not age-appropriate,” Graae said.

“He looked like a robot,” observed Dr. Jerry M. Wiener, emeritus professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at George Washington University, who has been advising the government on the case. “How he could be in the care of responsible professionals and have this happen at the same time is simply incompatible.”

In Cuba, the tape seemed to reinforce President Fidel Castro’s official view that Elian is a captive of distant, outlaw relatives who now are resorting to a “cruel” manipulation of the boy and the U.S. legal system in a last, desperate attempt to keep him.

A panel of Cuban psychologists on the evening “Round Table” show, which sums up each day’s developments in the Elian saga on state television, focused their outrage Thursday on the newly released videotape.

The footage of Elian wearing thick gold chains, chewing gum and declaring that he does not want to return to Cuba was broadcast in full several times during the program as the psychologists called it “evidence of psychological torture” that is taking a severe toll both on the boy and his father, who is waiting for Elian in Washington.

“I think it is really cruel for them to make this boy’s father, who has not seen his son in more than four months, see his son for the first time on television saying such a thing,” declared University of Havana psychology professor Patricia Ares Muzio.

Castro offered no comment Thursday. In a rare absence from his front-row studio seat during the program, the Cuban president was busy hosting leaders and dignitaries from more than 100 countries who are gathered in Havana for a long-scheduled summit of developing nations that ends today.

The U.S. media appear to be a likely target of criticism for broadcasting the tape, which apparently was recorded Wednesday and given for distribution to Univision, the country’s largest Spanish-language television network.

It first was shown on ABC’s “Good Morning America” early Thursday but not before network officials were certain of its origins, said ABC spokeswoman Eileen Murphy. Anchorwoman Diane Sawyer, who was roundly criticized for conducting an earlier interview with Elian, attempted to put it in context with a caveat that his words might not have been his own.

“Obviously this story has been moving very quickly, and the video is part of the story,” said Murphy, explaining why the network broadcast it.

Steve Capus, an executive producer at MSNBC, said that he found it “personally disturbing to watch this little boy being put in this position.” But he said he deemed it appropriate for broadcast because the video illustrates the family’s attempt to sway public opinion.

“I think it’s going to backfire,” said Capus. “Look at the boy’s eyes darting back and forth to someone off camera in a way that makes it seem he’s being prompted.”

Capus said he would object to the tape being used repetitiously like “video wallpaper” whenever Elian’s name is mentioned, citing the familiar shots of Elian going down a slide as an example.

“I don’t feel we’re exploiting this boy,” said Capus, adding that the video could validate the father’s charge that his son is being used by his Miami relatives.

“The video illustrates, in some ways beautifully, one of the core issues here: that this boy is in the spotlight, and who has put him in that spotlight,” he said.

Times staff writers Mark Fineman in Havana and Mike Clary in Miami contributed to this story.

The Elian Gonzalez home video can be viewed on The Times’ Web site: http://ukobiw.net/elian