hose who insist that Elián be sent back to Cuba, in accord with his father's alleged wishes, can't fathom that a father would want anything other than to be together with his son. Oklahoma Rep. Steve Largent joined the ranks of the unimaginative in his op-ed in Wednesday's New York Times, when he assumed that Elian's father truly wants him back with him in Cuba, as any parent would. But — although Mr. Largent may not have noticed — Cuba is not Oklahoma, so Cuban parents may make judgments in these matters that aren't so easily guessed by their American counterparts living in comfortable Tulsa.

Indeed, thousands of Cuban parents have made the heart-wrenching decision to send their young children alone to the States to spare them from Castro's regime. Does Mr. Largent consider them all abnormal? If Juan Miguel Gonzalez was able to express freely what he wants for Elián — which he can't, since members of his extended family are left behind as pawns in Cuba — the decisions made by other Cuban parents in the past tell us that he might well prefer to see Elian grow up without him, so his son could enjoy America's freedoms.

Consider this neglected aspect of Cuban history. In the early 1960's, desperate Cuban parents sent their children to the States through a church-sponsored enterprise called Operation Pedro Pan. When the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 halted all flights out of Cuba, more than 14,000 children between the ages of 6 and 17 had been brought unaccompanied to the US. More than 50,000 additional children with visas were left behind in Cuba when the flights were suspended. The children who had made it to America lived with relatives and foster families until flights were resumed in December 1965, and many families were finally reunited.

Decades later, it is estimated that over 150,000 Operation Pedro Pan relatives have entered the US. Many of the Cuban Americans desperate to see Elián remain in freedom belong to Pedro Pan's American community. Their own experience informs their skepticism about the wishes of Elián's father to see the boy come home to Cuba. Too bad Steve Largent is not so well-informed.