Two Top Administration Officials to Confer with Hussein in London

Two top Administration officials will confer with King Hussein of Jordan in London tomorrow and Saturday on the Middle East peace process and other subjects, the State Department announced today. They are Under-secretary of State for Political Affairs David Newsom and Ambassador Sol Linowitz, President Carter’s special Ambassador to the autonomy talks between Israel and Egypt.

State Department spokesman Hodding Carter said that Linowitz will bring Hussein “up to date” on the discussions of autonomy for the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the future prospects for the talks while Newsom will discuss “a wider range of subjects of mutual concern” beyond Linowitz’s sphere of operations. Hussein so far has refused to enter into a discussion of an Arab-Israeli settlement based on the Camp David accords.

Linowitz and his party will-fly from London to Cairo and Jerusalem for meetings with President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin. He will then go to Herzliya for a resumption of the autonomy talks and will visit Saudi Arabia and Morocco before returning to Washington Feb. 4.

Asked why Linowitz, who is representing the U.S. in the autonomy negotiations, is becoming involved with Saudi Arabia and Morocco, Carter replied that while those two countries are “not immediately involved” in the autonomy talks, they would be involved in the “long term peace process.”

Linowitz, who will be making his second visit to the Middle East as President Carter’s personal representative, will be accompanied by his wife; by Cleveland attorney Herbert Harsell, who is his legal advisor and was legal advisor to the State Department until six months ago; and by Robert Hunter, the National Security Council’s Middle East specialist.