This is the last of a series of interviews with candidates for the Presidency. Excerpts are on page B11.
This article is based on an interview by Steven R. Weisman and Francis X. Clines and was written by Mr. Weisman.
WASHINGTON, March 28 – President Reagan said today that it would be ”most unwise” for the United States to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and he strongly suggested that he would veto legislation in Congress to require such a step.
In an interview, Mr. Reagan said a bill requiring the embassy to be moved ”should never have been introduced in Congress.” He said the disposition of Jerusalem, the West Bank of the Jordan River and other areas ”must be negotiated” between Israel and the Arab countries.
Asked if he would veto legislation on the embassy, the President said: ”I am hoping I won’t have to. But like the several previous Presidents before me, I think that that is a most unwise thing.”
President Seems Relaxed
Although the Administration has opposed the legislation, Mr. Reagan has not addressed the issue publicly. He said the United States ”has no right to put itself in the position of trying to lean one way or the other on those areas for negotiation.”
The 37-minute meeting with the President was part of a series of interviews by The New York Times with all the Presidential candidates. It covered the same topics discussed in the interviews with Democratic candidates, which were published in late December and early January. The date of the interview with Mr. Reagan was set by the White House.
Mr. Reagan, looking relaxed, was seated in a wing chair in the Oval Office. He alluded to the Presidential campaign when he declined several times to specify his plans for future budget cuts and revisions in the tax system. These were among the points he made:
– In defending his Administration’s covert assistance to rebels in Nicaragua, Mr. Reagan said he saw ”no dichotomy” between American support for the Government of El Salvador and its support for those seeking to overthrow the Government in Nicaragua. Both efforts, he said, were aimed at bringing about ”democratic rule.”
– The President said that demographic changes were bringing a ”day of reckoning” for Federal programs that provided benefits to individual people, including Medicare and Social Security. He said he would seek to ”reorder those programs” if re-elected, but promised not to ”pull the rug out from under anyone who is presently dependent on” them.
– He said that if re-elected he wanted to simplify the tax structure to ”broaden the base” of Federal revenues. He said this would be done by taxing people who are now ”totally tax free” or who are paying ”well below what they should be paying.” Again, he declined to be specific, saying ”this is a study that has to be made.”
– On military spending, Mr. Reagan said the reduction in the rate of increase that he recently accepted would defer but not eliminate his plans for weapons systems and manpower. Other savings are to be achieved by changing certain ”government practices,” he said.
– The President said that tensions with the Soviet Union ”are frankly more evident in rhetoric than they are in actuality.” He said he was ”hopeful” that Moscow would resume nuclear arms talks but he said: ”We’re not going to sit here and negotiate with ourselves while they sit out there not participating, waiting to see what we’ll finally come up with.” ‘Complex and Complicated’
Discussing Lebanon, Mr. Reagan said he did not feel dissatisfied with the information he had relied upon in recent months, despite the Administration’s difficulties in relying on Syria, Jordan, the Lebanese Government and the Lebanese Army.
”We knew that what we were attempting to help with was a very complex and complicated problem,” he said.
As he has before, Mr. Reagan repeated that ”progress was made” in achieving a peaceful reconciliation in recent talks in Lausanne, Switzerland. The talks broke off earlier this month with participants saying they were at a stalemate.
”I still have to say right now the progress, the meetings that have taken place in Switzerland would not have taken place had all of us not done what we did,” he said. He was referring to the peacekeeping force placed in Lebanon by the United States, France, Britain and Italy, which has been withdrawn.
He said the Lebanese Government had tried ”to make peace with” opposing militias ”and find some kind of broad-based government” and ”didn’t succeed.”
But he added ”the very fact that all of us began to be subject to terrorist attacks” was ”evidence of the fact that we were succeeding.”
Mr. Reagan was then asked: ”Was the level of success, as you describe it, worth the price that we paid, the dead marines?”
He paused to reflect, then added in sober tones: ”I don’t know how you answer this thing that is becoming worldwide now, the terrorist method of suicide attacks and so forth. I’d like to say that there’s no cause that’s worth the life of any man, but we know that isn’t true. He Says U.S. Did Good Job
”We did not succeed in what we thought could have gone forward. There has not been, they’re still working at it there, the Lebanese Government.” He went on to say that the United States had done ”a good job” in training the Lebanese Army but that ”we couldn’t anticipate” its fragmenting into ethnic and religious factions.
As for the bill to move the United States Embassy to Jerusalem, Mr. Reagan said the effort ”should never have been made, because if we are to have a negotiated peace that will end once and for all the hostility, between the Arab world and Israel, then that would be one of the things to be negotiated.”
The bill, introduced by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, a Democrat, has more than 30 sponsors in the Senate and more than 200 in the House. There have been recent signs that the supporters are seeking a compromise with the Administration.
Both Senator Gary Hart and former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, the leading Democratic candidates, have endorsed moving the embassy to Jerusalem.
Mr. Reagan used some of his strongest language to date to denounce the Government of Nicaragua. His comments were unusual because, in the past, Administration officials have sought to avoid acknowledging American support for efforts to overthrow the Government in Managua.
Today Mr. Reagan was asked to ”explain or justify” such covert aid, and he did so by saying that the Government had come to power by ”force of arms,” abandoned its promises to restore democracy and assisted insurgent guerrillas in El Salvador.
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