The decision by the US Attorney General Ms Janet Reno that the Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez should be handed over to his Havana-domiciled father is correct in legal, political and personal terms, whatever the great difficulties the US Justice Department is experiencing in having it implemented. It is to be welcomed as evidence that US-Cuban relations may at last be escaping from the ideological and diplomatic impasse in which they have been encased for so long. The affair has dragged on for nearly five months, ever since the unconscious six-year-old boy was taken from the sea off Fort Lauderdale. He was one of only three survivors from a boatload of 14 Cubans who had set out from Cardenas in an attempt to flee to the US. His mother was one of those killed when their boat overturned. Miraculously Elian Gonzalez had survived. He soon recovered, spoke to his father Juan Miguel in Cuba and found refuge with relatives in Miami.
But that very fact drew him and his family inexorably into the tangled and highly emotional anticommunist politics of the Cuban exile community in Florida. They have refused to release the boy and face the imminent prospect now of seeing him taken forcibly. Ideologically this is based on a deep-rooted hatred of the Castro regime and constantly reiterated attacks on its repressive, totalitarian character. Above all it is a black and white picture, with no room for policy nuance or any allowance for the substantial achievements of the Cuban government under the most difficult conditions of US sanctions.
Dissident voices among the exiled Cuban community urging a more accommodating US policy are swiftly and summarily suppressed - all the more so in a presidential year. The governor of Florida, Mr Jeb Bush, is a brother of the Republican candidate, Mr George W. Bush. And Mr Al Gore, the Democratic candidate, has broken with President Clinton's policy on the return of the child to his father, conscious of Florida's potentially pivotal role in the campaign.
Thus hardline elements in Florida have maintained an effective veto power on US policy towards Cuba. Throughout Mr Clinton's two terms in office they have prevented a liberalisation or relaxation of the trade sanctions that have stifled and distorted the Cuban economy and society. They have also lent credibility to President Castro's own hard line in Cuba. It therefore took some courage for President Clinton and Ms Reno - who herself comes from Florida and knows the Cuban exile community intimately - to adopt the policy that Elian should be returned to his father in Cuba. It remains to be seen whether it can be turned to advantage by whoever wins the presidential election, as a lever to explore an opening towards Cuba. Unfortunately that has been made more difficult by the continuing electoral lock the Cuban exile hard liners have once more demonstrated they possess. They have certainly not enhanced their case by the conduct of this campaign against reuniting Elian with his father.