Armed (federal?) agents bring Elian to Georgetown

Human Events, May 19, 2000

What appeared to be a group of armed federal agents-escorted by a motorcade of U.S. Park Police and Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Policebrought Elian Gonzalez to a Georgetown mansion on the evening of Saturday, May 6, 2000, for an event sponsored by R.J. Reynolds tobacco heir Smith Bagley.

Bagley and his wife Elizabeth. are major contributors to the Democratic Party and to President Bill Clinton, who has visited their Georgetown home several times for fundraising events. Mrs. Bagley formerly served as Clinton's ambassador to Portugal, and the couple are frequent guests at the White House, most recently appearing on the guest list for the "Millennium Eve" dinner on December 31.

The Bagleys also run the Arca Foundation, which uses part of the family tobacco fortune to promote pro-Cuban causes, including normalizing relations with the regime of Communist dictator Fidel Castro. Over the past five years, Arca reports that it has spent $3,048,100 in support of its Cuban campaign.

After the Associated -Press broke the news of Elian's Saturday night Georgetown soiree, former Clinton impeachment lawyer Greg Craig, whocourtesy of anonymous donors to the National Council of Churches and, previously, the Methodist Church-represents Elian's father (and, in effect, Fidel Castro) told the Washington Post that he had arranged the little get together so Elian and his father could "get out of the compound out there in Maryland and socialize."

Smoked Salmon and Shrimp

The evening event for the six-year-old Cuban boy featured a menu of smoked salmon and shrimp.

Other than.the Smith Bagleys and Craig, the guest list is unknown-although it is reported to have included Cuban diplomats from the Cuban Interest Section in Washington, D.C. When a reporter asked White House spokesman Joe Lockhart three days later if the evening had been arranged so Democratic high donors could gawk at Elian, Lockhart erupted, "What basis do you have for alleging that?"

Said the reporter: "Well, why else would a bunch of 20 very rich Democratic fundraisers want to, you know, be at a house to meet Elian Gonzalez?"

A "source close to Craig" told NBC News, "Of course it was not a fundraising event. Not one dollar changed hands. It was an opportunity for Mr. Gonzalez to meet some of the city's most prominent citizens. It was a party for the little boy . . . balloons and cake."

Of course, the Clintons did not exchange money with those who spent the night in the Lincoln bedroom or attended coffees in the White House Map Room, either.

The party fundraiser or otherwise-concluded, after four hours, at 9:40 p.m., at which time Elian and his father, escorted by their police motorcade, returned to the Carmichael Farm plantation on the Eastern Shore of Maryland where they have been staying.

No Answers

When asked by HUMAN EVENSs if the apparently armed man seen in a Reuters photograph escorting a manifestly unenthusiastic Elian out of the Georgetown party was an agent of the U.S. government, a Justice Department spokesperson at first said she believed the escorts were from the U.S. Marshals Service.

When asked if this was the only excursion Elian had taken away from the grounds of the Maryland plantation, the spokesman at first said the Justice Department could have no way of knowing. But when reminded that Elian was apparently escorted to Georgetown by U.S. marshals-who serve under the Justice Department-the spokesperson said the department would indeed know of any trips Elian had taken in the company of U.S. marshals, but that she was uncertain if those were, in fact, marshals who had escorted Elian on Saturday.

The spokesperson said she would get back to HUMAN EVENTS with answers as to whether the escorts were U.S. marshals, whether Elian has gone anywhere else but this Georgetown party, and, whether as a matter of policy he and his father are allowed to travel anywhere at all without an escort of U.S. marshals.

After a follow-up call, the Justice Department still had no answers.

According to a report in the Chicago Tribune, the Maryland estate where Elian is now staying "is so large that the Gonzalez family has minimal contest with the U.S. marshals patrolling it in golf carts and the Coast Guard boats keeping round-the-clock watch on the estate's Wye River waterfront."

Reporters on the scene indicated to the Tribune that chances of seeing Elian in Maryland have been so slim that "there isn't much point to a stake-out." Ann Rice, an engineer for NBC News who staked out the plantation, told the paper, "We brought in long lenses. We've used them. We haven't gotten one frame of him."

In the first five days of Elian's virtual incarceration at the plantation, the Justice Department spent $168,000 on security there, not counting the cost of the Coast Guard vessels patrolling the river. The Tribune reported that there are 58 federal agents on duty at the site.

Elian reportedly resides in a guest house on the estate with his father, stepmother and baby half brother. A kindergarten teacher imported from Cuba, along with four kindergarten students also imported from Cuba, reside in other guest houses on the property, and attend school with Elian within the guarded compound.