President Reagan, stressing his determination to keep the United States marines in Lebanon, said today that his decision will not be determined by Presidential election year politics.
“I will tell you now, no decision that I’m going to make on anything of this kind is related to the election or the (nominating) conventions or anything political,” the President said at an impromptu news conference at the White House.
“There is no harder job, or part of this job, than putting our forces — let me say — someplace where young men and women could be endangered and, certainly, what we do in that regard is not based on any political consideration.”
Although most political experts expect Reagan to seek a second term, he has not officially announced his candidacy. He is scheduled to announce his decision in a nationally televised speech from the Oval Office January 29. When he was asked today whether he had already made his decision, he replied: “You’ll know January 29, won’t you?”
BASIS FOR DEPARTURE OF MARINES
The President said the U.S. will leave Lebanon only if it achieves its objectives or “if there was a complete collapse and there was no possibility of restoring order.” But he stressed, “We’re making more progress than appears on the surface” towards the objectives of having the government of President Amin Gemayel achieve national reconciliation and assume control over all of Lebanon.
The President added that the other members of the multinational force — France, Italy, and Britain — have all in the last few days “reaffirmed their determination that the mission is sound and that we’re all going to stay there.”
Reagan’s press conference came shortly after it was announced that the battleship New Jersey had opened its massive 16-inch guns on the groups shooting at the U.S. marines from the Shouf mountains.
The President stressed that the U.S. is not in Lebanon “to shoot first or enter into combat. But I’m never going to send our men any place where they wouldn’t be allowed to defend themselves.” He added that when the marines have been attacked, “We have retaliated as nearly as we can against those who have actually done the attacking.”
‘WE WANT NO WAR WITH SYRIA’
But Reagan stressed that “we want no war with Syria. Certainly we’re not there to enter into a war. And we continue to try and communicate and negotiate with them to let them know if they’ll stop shooting at us there won’t be any problems between us.”
The President said the U.S. does not have any evidence that it could take into a court and prove that the Iranian government of the Ayatollah Khomeini is behind the terrorist bombings of the U.S. facilities in Beirut and this week’s bombing of of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait. But he said that the group which has taken credit for the actions is “definitely with an Iranian connection.”
However, he said the U.S. did not know whether they were just a group of Iranians or acting at the behest of the Iranian government.
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