Israeli Raid on Terrorist Bases in Lebanon May Lessen Need for U.S. Response

The Reagan Administration appears to be looking at Israel’s air raid against terrorist bases in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon today as a means of taking the United States off the hook on President Reagan’s pledge to retaliate for the terrorist bombing of the U.S. marine headquarters in Beirut.

A State Department source said that the U.S. had no knowledge as yet that the groups hit by the Israelis today were the ones responsible for the bombing of the marine headquarters in which more than 230 Americans died. But he said it is “conceivable” that it is the same group and if so the “need would be lessened” for any American response.

The official U.S. response came from State Department spokesman John Hughes who refused to make any comment on the Israeli raid. However he stressed there was “no consultation or coordination” with the U.S. before the Israel action. “Israel took its own decision,” he said.

Hughes refused to comment on whether the U.S. was still planning to retaliate for the terrorist attack. He said the official policy is the one stated by Secretary of State George Shultz on NBC-TV’s “Today” show Monday in which the secretary said the Administration will no longer discuss the question of retaliation in public.

Reagan has said several times that the U.S. would retaliate once it has found the identity of those who committed the bombing. In his October 26 address to the nation on Lebanon and Grenada, he said there was “strong circumstantial evidence” that the attack on the marine headquarters was committed by the same terrorists who bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut last April. “Those who directed this atrocity must be dealt justice,” the President said in his nationally televised address. “They will be.”