New York Time, April 23, 2000

Excerpts From Attorney General's News Conference

MS. RENO

Eight agents were in the house during the operation. They were there for three minutes. During that time, a female agent picked up Elián and spoke to him in Spanish. The agents then took Elián to Watson Island, where they boarded a helicopter bound for Homestead Air Force Base. There he was examined by a doctor to make sure that there were no injuries. At that point, he was boarded onto a U.S. Marshal's plane headed to Washington, D.C., where his father was anxiously awaiting for his son. . .

[...]

The child has been our paramount concern in this operation. We structured the operation around the child's safety as the first, most important priority. We had Spanish-speaking female agents -- agent -- responsible for bringing the child from the home. We had worked out with our team of experts in advance the kind of conversation that the agent responsible for the child could and should use, in order to be reassuring. That was carefully worked out as between the experts and the people on the scene. The flight has Eliáán accompanied by a child psychiatrist and a flight surgeon, both of whom are bilingual. There is a play pack on the airplane of Play-Doh, other things, food, to amuse him. One of the things that we learned from our experts was that the squeezing of Play-Doh is the best thing that you can do for a child who might be experiencing stress.

I must say, though, that all of our reports so far are that the child has been very calm, has not been anxious, has not been thrashing, has not been crying. And the basic feedback that we have from a series of people now, who have been directly with him, is that he's a real terrific, tough kid.

Q. Did you consult with psychiatrists beforehand to discuss the possibility of the impact of using weapons during the incident, how that might affect the child?

MS. MEISSNER

We discussed the nature of a law-enforcement operation, and we knew, of course, that it could be traumatic, and so we were very, very concerned to set it up in a way that would minimize that kind of fearfulness.