he Elián González affair has generated some odd inversions. Liberal proponents of the "alternative family" and civil disobedience are suddenly gung-ho for paternal rights and a strong line against demonstrators. Showbiz people — Gloria Estefan and Andy Garcia turned up in Miami to give support to the crowds around the González home — are talking sense about public affairs. Janet Reno, who as a state attorney in Florida 14 years ago found the testimony of pre-schoolers sufficiently compelling to send Grant Snowden down with a mandatory 50-year sentence on child-abuse charges, is deaf to the pleas of little Elián. The image of Latin machismo has gone by the board as Juan Miguel González declines to go to his son in Miami, even under the protection of his cohort of minders, because he claims to fear his own kin and countrymen.

Amidst all this turbulence, we need to keep hold of the fundamentals of the case. Fidel Castro has made it plain that he wants this child returned to Cuba. For him, it is a matter of national and personal prestige. The return of the child will be construed, by Castro, as a major propaganda victory in his 40-year campaign against the U.S. None of this is in doubt, and none of it is very surprising. The driving force of Castro’s revolution has been anti-Americanism. For thirty years he was, in his position as a Soviet client, an actual danger to this country. For the last ten years, since the fall of the U.S.S.R., he has been merely a petty nuisance, poking his finger in Uncle Sam’s eye as opportunity arose, delighting in his power to outrage our sensibilities — as when, six years ago, he had his coastguard sink a boat of fleeing refugees, drowning 14 children and 27 adults.

That Castro should behave in this way is not at all surprising. That’s the Fidel we have come to know these forty years past. What is astonishing — and shameful, and disgusting — is that the government of the United States should be aiding and abetting Castro’s designs. The State Department, the Justice Department, the I.N.S. have all enlisted as Castro operatives to keep Juan Miguel González on a very short leash while he is in the U.S. Why? There is a rumor going round — Robert Novak picked it up earlier in the week — that the Administration has cut a deal with Castro. The U.S. side of the deal is, that the U.S. government will not permit Juan González to defect. While we do not find this rumor very plausible (how could they stop him? what does Castro have to offer us in return?) it must yet be said that the strongest evidence for its truth is the behavior of our own officials. Everything they have done has been consistent with the existence of this deal, or something like it.

What need was there for the federal authorities to be involved at such a high level? One of the philosophical pillars of our political order is the principle of subsidiarity: that matters be dealt with locally so far as possible, and that higher authorities get involved only when local powers cannot cope, or have no clear jurisdiction. The matter of Elián González is, fundamentally, a child-custody issue. Thousands of such issues are dealt with by courts in the U.S. every day. If the father wished to assert his rights, he ought to have done so promptly, in a state court. Higher authorities in the U.S. should have left the matter alone — especiallyonce Fidel Castro began to politicize it. If they felt the need to do anything at all, they should have acted in such a way as to embarrass the aging despot — but better if they had just stayed out. The I.N.S. has jurisdiction? They have jurisdiction over a great many things — several million illegal immigrants they cannot or will not deport, for example. There has been plenty of scope for discretion on the part of our officials at every point in this case.

And, having got involved, why did the Administration press forward with such haste? Nobody that has dealt with Justice — much less the I.N.S.! — has ever associated those agencies with speed and decisiveness. Yet, with a court hearing on the custody rights due May 11th, they have been bending all their efforts to hustle Elián into the arms of his father and out of the country. Why any action? Why these particular actions? Why such a hustle? Why does this case smell so bad?

The display of overweening federal power is never a pretty sight, least of all when the reasons for federal actions are obscured behind dubious lawyers, media campaigns of slander against inoffensive minorities, and backroom deals with dictators. This child’s mother gave her life to bring him to the United States. He is among people who took him in shivering and distraught, who have cared for him and cherished him. His father, it must be said, has a strong claim, but has undermined that claim by very peculiar behavior, probably because he is under Castro’s control. Let these matters be heard in a court of law. To bolster the boy’s case — and to vex Castro! — let Congress give the boy resident status. Heck, give him citizenship. And let the law then take its course. Not the will of the federal government — the law: They are different things.