MANCHESTER, N.H. 6 (AP) - Vice President Al Gore declined today to say whether he thinks 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez should be sent back to Cuba. ``Due process'' should rule the case, he said.

Gore said it would be a big help if the boy's father came to the United States to have his say about the boy going home to him as the Immigration and Naturalization Service decided on Wednesday.

``If the father comes to free soil and says without fear of intimidation, without the paid demonstrators hired by Castro chanting outside the window, without the full control of a dictator hanging over his head ... this is what I think is in the best interest of the child, then that settles the case,'' Gore said.

Gore, campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, was questioned about the case at a news conference in Manchester. The immigration service said a day earlier that the boy should be returned to his father in Cuba by Jan. 14.

The boy was rescued at sea on Thanksgiving Day after his mother, stepfather and nine others died while trying to reach Florida. He has been living since then in Miami with relatives who want him to stay in the United States.

There have been large protests in Cuba, where President Fidel Castro and others have demanded the boy's return.

Gore, who is counting on Cuban-American support for help in the Florida primary, declined to give his personal opinion on where the boy should end up. ``That should be determined not in the political process but according to due process,'' he said.

Former Sen. Bill Bradley, Gore's rival for the Democratic nomination, said Wednesday, ``When I first heard about this situation, I thought Elian Gonzalez should stay in the United States, but I'm not going to second-guess the INS.''

The Republican presidential candidates have been critical of the decision to send the boy back.

The boy's U.S. relatives have asked Attorney General Janet Reno to reverse the decision and say they will ask a federal judge for a restraining order.

AP-NY-01-06-00 1142EST

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press

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