Elian Gonzalez

Six-year-old Elian Gonzalez survived the perilous escape from Cuba to America at the greatest cost to a child (the loss of his mother), only to be subjected to exploitation by the media, the dictator of his unfortunate country and unconscionable cowardice at our government’s highest levels.

Clearly, there is but a single issue to be resolved about Elian’s future: Will he be returned to a life of tyranny under communism or granted the freedom of democracy? To choose anything but the latter is unthinkable. Indeed, those who want to send him back ought to be ashamed.

For Elian’s sake, and for the meaning of America, we should not suffer yet another humiliation by a totalitarian thug masquerading as the leader of Cuba. And we won’t, unless he’s forced to return by a self-absorbed legacy-seeker masquerading as the leader of the United States.

DANIEL B. JEFFS

Apple Valley

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I cannot get over the arrogance of GOP presidential hopeful George W. Bush, who has decried U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore’s ruling that Elian should be returned to his Cuban father (March 22). How dare Bush urge the Clinton administration not to send Elian back, his reasoning being that “a Clinton-Gore Justice Department whose record of putting politics ahead of the law does not inspire confidence.” I call it chutzpah!

BARBARA S. HERMAN

Los Angeles