U.S. Condemns Terrorist Attack

The State Department condemned the terrorist attack at the Brussels airport today but declined to characterize the Palestine Liberation Organization as a terrorist organization. It also reacted approvingly to the entry into south Lebanon of a Lebanese army battalion which, according to reports from Israel is in fact a pro-Syrian unit commanded by Syrian officers wearing Lebanese uniforms.

Regarding the Brussels airport attack, Department spokesman Thomas Reston said “Obviously the brutal attack on the airport in Brussels we deplore and condemn, as we would any other terrorist attack against innocent citizens.” Asked if he condemned the PLO he replied, “We are condemning acts of terror” which “have nothing to do with on-going problems in the area and (are) not going to lead to their solution.” He reiterated, however that “our position on the PLO has not changed.”

TERRORISTS CAME FROM BEIRUT

(According to reports late this afternoon from Brussels Belgian Police Colonel Francis de Vos said the two terrorists who were captured were armed with Soviet made automatic rifles. He said both were Palestinians, one from the Gaza Strip and were carrying Lebanese or Iraqi passports. One of the terrorists reportedly told police that he and his comrades reached Brussels from Beirut. After the attack, police raided the Brussels residences of well-known PLO sympathizers.

(There were conflicting reports regarding the number of terrorists who participated in the attack. Some reports referred to three, others mentioned four including a woman. The 12 persons injured in the attack were reported to be Belgians.)

In another terrorist incident, the John F. Kennedy Cultural Center in Beirut was bombed early today by unidentified assailants. The building was empty when a high explosive bomb went off on the doorstep, wrecking the lobby and shattering windows up to 200 yards away. Reston said the bombing caused “extensive material damage” but no casualties. He said there is “no indication who is responsible.”

ISSUE OF SHOFIK AL-HOUT

On a related issue, Reston was asked if there is any “legal and moral difference” between Shafik Al-Hout, director of the PLO office in Beirut who has a U.S. visa to address university groups and others in this country, and other PLO members who engage in terrorist acts. Reston replied that “individuals apply for visas, not organizations.” He said that AI-Hout’s name is “intensely familiar” to the State Department as a result of questioning him on his presence in the U.S.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith reported that the State Department has rejected a request by Zehdi Terzi, the PLO observer at the United Nations, to speak at the State University of New York in Albany. He had been invited to speak there tomorrow by the International Student Association, an organization of foreign students on the Albany campus.

Jack Spitzer, president of B’nai B’rith, sent a letter to President Carter urging him to boycott all contact with the PLO. He wrote that today’s attack in Brussels is further proof — “If such proof is needed” — that the PLO “Is not fit to serve as spokesman and representative of the Palestinian people.”