(Adapted from news reports of 23 April 2000, the day he was taken by the Justice Department from his relative in Miami to his father in Washington)
Some people pointed to a missing tooth. Others said it was
his hair. Still others alleged signs of government drugging. Within hours after
Elian Gonzalez was taken from the home of his Miami relatives, conspiracy
theories arose over photos of the child released after he arrived at Andrews Air
Force Base to be with his father. Attorneys for Elian's father, Juan Miguel
Gonzalez, released pictures of the family Saturday after government officials
brought the 6-year-old Cuban boy to Washington.
Critics compared the father's photo with one taken by the
Associated Press during the raid just hours earlier in which Elian is being held
as a government agent wields an automatic rifle. They said that his hair in the
pictures with his father was longer than in the AP photo and that he appeared
not to be missing a tooth any longer.
Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican from Miami,
said he saw signs that the government was brainwashing the child. ''I saw a
little Band-Aid (in the Maryland pictures),'' he said Saturday evening on CNN's
''Evans, Novak, Hunt and Shields.'' ''I think the drugging has already begun.''
But Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said on NBC's ''Meet the Press,'' ''I
have no knowledge that he was given any kind of drugs.''
Marisleysis Gonzalez, the cousin whom Elian allegedly
considers his surrogate mother, declared Sunday at a Washington news conference,
''That is not Elian. Look how short the hair looks when he was taken out of the
house and look how long the hair is in the picture that they show today.''
Kendall Coffey, an attorney for the Miami relatives, said on
ABC's ''This Week'' that he had taken no position on the allegations of doctored
photos, but ''He seems to have a good bit more hair. And unless they were
developing some hair product with the boy on the flight up to the north, then
our community is very, very suspicious.''
Joan Brown Campbell of the National Council of Churches, a
friend of Juan Miguel Gonzalez who was present when father and son were
reunited, criticized those alleging a conspiracy. ''He had his arms around his
father,'' she said on ABC's ''This Week.'' ''There was real affection there that
cannot be manufactured.''