From the moment he was plucked from the sea off the Florida coast on Thanksgiving Day, Elian Gonzalez has been the rope in a tug of war between Cuba and anti-Castro Cubans in Miami. Now, thanks to a legally and morally correct decision by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, he can get back to being a little boy with a caring father.

Elian was just 5 years old when the small boat carrying him and 12 others capsized during an escape from the Castro regime. Ten died, including his mother and stepfather. The boy survived by clinging to an inner tube for two days before being rescued by the Coast Guard, brought to Miami, released to the custody of relatives and turned into a political pawn.

Elian, since turned 6, demonstrated astonishing courage and determination during his ordeal and remarkable good cheer and resiliance ever since. Other than the fact that this country can use all such people as it can get, there has never been good reason not to reunite the boy with his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, back in Cuba.

Reunification with the sole surviving parent has long been INS policy in such cases and all that remained for INS Commissioner Doris Meissner to determine was whether the father’s desire to have his son back was genuine or the result of pressure from the Castro government. Mr. Gonzalez provided ample evidence that he, and both sets of grandparents, had close, involved and loving relationships with the boy. The offer by the U.S. government to allow Mr. Gonzalez to enter Florida to retrieve his son must remain just that — an offer designed to ease the transition for Elian. It must not be a condition of his release.

Elian Gonzalez was far too young to have willingly boarded a 17-foot open boat for a 90-mile journey across open ocean. He is far too young to understand the disastrous 40-year conflict between the United States and Cuba that turned him from being a heroic survivor into a political trophy. He is just the right age to be a symbol of why U.S./Cuba relations must change.