Mubarak Begins Official Visit

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will make his official farewell remarks tomorrow only about an hour-and-a-half after he is welcomed to the White House by President Reagan.

A senior Administration official briefing reporters on the Mubarak visit to Washington, which starts this afternoon, said the Egyptian leader would be officially welcomed to the White House by Reagan and the two Presidents would then meet alone for one-half hour and then in a larger group for another hour. Mubarak and Reagan will again meet alone for about 10-15 minutes before the state dinner at the White House tomorrow night.

There will not be a second day meeting between the two Presidents as there was when Mubarak’s predecessor, Anwar Sadat, Israeli Premier Menachem Begin, and King Hussein of Jordan visited Reagan at the White House last year. One senior official said this was a “new pattern” for state visits to have only one day of meetings at the White House. But another official said that this was an existing policy in which about half of Reagan’s visitors had only met with him for one day.

The official briefing reporters said that the Mubarak visit would demonstrate “continuity” in Egyptian-American relations. He said that although this was Mubarak’s first official visit to Reagan since assuming the Presidency of Egypt after Sadat’s assassination last year, he had met Reagan when he had come here last spring as Egyptian Vice President.