Red Carpet for Hussein

King Hussein of Jordan will receive the red carpet treatment when he arrives here today for a week long official visit, including a 21 gun salute as he is greeted by President Carter on the White House lawn. President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Premier Menachem Begin of Israel did not rote that honor when they visited Carter separately in April, although both received State dinners at the White House.

Hussein is due in Washington this afternoon and will return to Jordan next Saturday night. His schedule includes meetings with Carter at the White House tomorrow and Wednesday and a State dinner tomorrow night. He will meet with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee tomorrow afternoon and will also meet with Defense Secretary Harold Brown. He will see Secretary of State Edmund Muskie on Wednesday and will address the National Press Club Thursday.

Hussein was to have come to Washington in April but postponed that visit because its proximity to the Sadat and Begin visits might have created the impression that the Jordanian monarch had softened his position toward the Camp David accords. Jordan remains adamantly opposed to the Camp David agreements. President Carter told an audience of American Jewish editors and publishers at the White House Friday that he would use all of his powers of persuasion to bring Hussein into the Middle East peace process.

Hussein will be visiting Washington in the immediate aftermath of the Venice summit meeting of the nine member states of the European Economic Community (EEC) which declared that the Palestine Liberation Organization and other Palestinian groups have to be “associated with” the peace process.