Elian
Correspondent Bob Simon Interviews Elian Gonzalez
-
Play CBS Video Video Bob Simon On Elian Gonzalez Web Exclusive: Bob Simon talks about interviewing Elian Gonzales. The 11-year-old still has emotional scars from his experiences and also talked about his friendship with Fidel Castro.
-
Video Fidel And Elian Gonzales CBS News RAW: In Havana, Fidel Castro attended the sixth grade graduation of Elian Gonzales, the boy who was taken from relatives in the America to be reunited with his father in Cuba.
-
-
11-year-old Elian Gonzalez at home in Cuba. (CBS)
-
In the early morning hours of April 22, 2000, armed U.S. federal agents stormed the house where Elian Gonzalez was living. His relatives had hidden him in a closet. (AP)
-
-
Interactive The Fight For Elian Hear what some of the major players had to say about the battle for Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez and review highlights of the controversial case.
-
Fast Facts Cuba Learn about the people, economy and history.
-
Interactive Fidel Castro And Cuba Find out more about the communist country and the fiery leader who led the Cuban Revolution.
His father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, was waiting for him in Washington.
“We embraced each other. It was a very emotional moment,” the father says. “They had to help me carry the boy off the plane. I couldn’t even hold him in my arms. It was very overwhelming.”
Elian’s arrival in Cuba seemed to have been designed for a conquering hero, albeit one who was missing his two front teeth. Little Elian embarked on a two-month tour of Cuba, all recorded by Castro’s personal cameraman Roberto Chile, who helped us on our story too.
Then, aside from a festive seventh birthday party at his school, Elian was kept out of the public eye in Cuba until this past April. On the fifth anniversary of the raid in Miami, Elian gave a patriotic speech in front of the cameras and in the presence of Castro.
Che Guevara was yesterday, Elian Gonzalez is today. And that’s precisely how Cuba is playing him. In what’s called the Museum of Ideas in Cardenas, he has already been cast in bronze as the revolutionary hero preparing to throw Superman — in Cuba a symbol of imperialism — onto the rubbish pile of history.
Ramon Sanchez, a leader of the demonstrations in Miami five years ago, today says, in effect, “I told you so.”
“He is being brainwashed by the Cuban regime. When you see a child talking in the same exact way that the dictator has talked for 46 years, you know he has been indoctrinated,” Sanchez says.
In Miami, the house where he lived with his relatives has been turned into another kind of museum. Here, Elian is portrayed not as a revolutionary but as a religious icon.
His clothes are in the closet. His stuffed animals are on the bed. The spot where he was taken by marshals is marked with a cross. There’s been no attempt to disguise who he is meant to resemble.
Delfin Gonzalez looks after the museum. He still insists Elian did not want to go back to Cuba.
We asked Elian if he ever wants to see his relatives in Miami again. He says he does. “Despite everything they did — the way they did it was wrong — they are my family; they are my uncles."
People say, half jokingly, that Elian may have a future in Cuban politics. His father is now a member of Cuba’s National Assembly.
Elian was elected president of his student body last year. Not a bad start. He admits he would like to be a member of the National Assembly, like his dad.
Elian knows that his destiny has been a strange one, and that he will spend the rest of his life trying to figure it out.
With all this, it's easy to forget that the boy who was the centerpiece in a historic tug of war is at heart an 11-year-old kid. So, of course, we had to ask him if he has a girlfriend. He says he does, but he won’t tell us her name. It's a secret.
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
