Elven rings and the One ring

[Kyote Fields]

In the beginning of FOTR when Gandalf is explaining to Frodo what he'd discovered and known about the Ring he said that the One ring had dominion over even the elven rings.
So did Elrond, Galadriel and Cirdon(sp?) have the three elven rings back before the Last Alliance or did they get them later and, if they had them before, how did they escape Sauron's power?

[bombcar]

Further on in the work, Gandalf explains what happened. The three (and the others) were made with information that partially was from Sauron. However, Sauron had not touched the three, but he knew how they worked, and so when he made the One, it could control the three. But when he put on the one, and spoke
the words that the Smiths of Eregion heard, and knew that they had been betrayed:
then the three had to be removed and not used untill the One was lost.

[Kyote Fields]

So the three elves had the rings but would not use them. I suppose they didn't have the power or pull of the One or maybe just not as much so it would be eaisier to resist putting them on.
But riddle me this...
Gandalf in the same place saysAnd this is the dreadful chance Frodo. He believed that the One had perished; that the Elves had destroyed it, as should have been done. But he knows now that it hads not perished, that it has been found.
At the end of LOTR then when the ring is finally destroyed Sauron is said to have sunk so low that he could not recover (I don't have ROTK with me)
Wouldn't Sauron know, by his being able to regain power and do all he did in Mirkwood and then in Mordor that the One had NOT been destroyed?

[Ñólendil]

Apparently not. Apparenly he was not aware of what would happen if the One was destroyed, not, I guess until it happened. It is possible that when he saw Frodo at last in the Crack of Doom he realized that with the destruction of the Ring he himself would be 'destroyed', but I think rather he feared only that by the loss of the Ring he would never regain his old power and could not completely dominate his enemies. Only when it was destroyed, I guess, did he realize what that meant for him.