President on Horseback for First Time Since Surgery : Rapidly Recovering Reagan Goes Riding

In one of the clearest demonstrations yet of his quick recovery from cancer surgery, President Reagan went horseback riding Saturday for the first time since the operation six weeks ago.

“Essentially, he’s moving back toward his regular regimen,” White House spokesman Albert R. Brashear said.

White House sources, who asked not to be named, said Reagan and his wife, Nancy, rode for about 30 minutes. The President was seen among a group of seven persons on horseback.

Limited Exercise

During the first two weeks of his vacation, the 74-year-old President had refrained from riding, his favorite pastime at his 688-acre ranch 20 miles north of here. He had limited his exercise to strolls with his wife.

Reagan has made only one major public appearance, at a California Republican Party fund-raiser in Los Angeles on Thursday night. In that speech, he said he was “feeling fine. And when we get back to Washington, there’s going to be full steam ahead.”

While the recuperating President has remained almost out of sight, aides here have sought to ward off speculation of a weakened presidency by planning a “fall offensive” against what they portray as a free-spending Congress.

They also have announced new tests of sophisticated anti-satellite weapons and charged that the Soviets are using potentially dangerous chemical dust to track U.S. diplomats in Moscow. Both have been seen as efforts to toughen the U.S. stance at this fall’s Soviet-American summit in Geneva.

Focuses on Education

Earlier Saturday, Reagan focused his weekly radio address on education, denouncing “so-called experts and a large battery of misguided opinion” that calls for “value-neutral education.”

The President quoted a Gallup Poll reporting that most Americans want schools to teach “a standard of right and wrong,” as well as basic reading and writing skills.

He insisted that “the good Lord who has given our country so much should never have been expelled from our nation’s classrooms.”

“Our forefathers found their inspiration, justification and vision in the Judeo-Christian tradition that emphasizes the value of life and the worth of the individual. It most certainly was never their intention to bar God from our public life,” Reagan said.

Controversial Remarks

These remarks echoed controversial statements several weeks ago by Secretary of Education William J. Bennett, who said in a strongly worded speech to the Knights of Columbus that American values and those of the Judeo-Christian tradition were “flesh of the flesh, blood of the blood.”

Bennett also denounced “almost four decades of misguided court decisions” that had taken prayer out of classrooms and curtailed the federal government’s ability to finance educational programs in parochial schools.

Bennett’s speech was widely criticized by civil libertarians and educators, who saw it as an effort to blur the constitutional division between church and state.