Comment on S. Africa ‘Careless,’ Reagan Says : He Apologizes for Saying That Country Had Ended Segregation in Hotels, Restaurants

President Reagan apologized Friday for the “careless” wording of his comments two weeks ago in which he indicated that he believed South Africa had eliminated racial segregation in public places.

The President conceded that he was wrong when he told a radio interviewer that the South Africans “have eliminated the segregation that we once had in our own country--the type of thing where hotels and restaurants and places of entertainment and so forth were segregated--that has all been eliminated.”

On Friday, in an impromptu question-and-answer session with reporters in the White House press room, he said: “I’m sorry that I carelessly gave the impression that I believed that it (segregation) had been totally eliminated.”

‘Talking About Improvements’

But he added: “I was not nearly as ill-informed as many of you (reporters) have made out that I was. I may have been careless in my language in that one thing, but I was talking about improvements that actually do exist there and have been made. But as I say, I know that segregation has not been eliminated totally and in some areas there’s been no improvement.”

As a result of reforms adopted by South African President Pieter W. Botha’s government, he said, “there has been great improvement over what has ever existed before.”

With the Senate ready to begin debate next week on economic sanctions against the Pretoria regime, Reagan also renewed his opposition to punitive legislation and defended his Adminstration’s policy of “constructive engagement.” His approach, he declared, is “the only thing that’s shown any signs of improvement” in the explosive South African racial situation.

The President’s nationally televised remarks came as his foreign policy strategists continued to search for a way to avoid a potentially embarrassing confrontation with Congress over U.S. policy toward the country’s white-minority government.

White House officials suggested that Reagan might try to preempt Congress by imposing some of the less punitive provisions of the legislation by executive order. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said that strategy might be enough to prevent Congress from overriding a presidential veto, but an aide to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) declared that such an effort would be “a day late and a dollar short.”

Senate leaders have scheduled a vote Monday to break a conservative filibuster against the sanctions legislation and expect to bring up the measure for a final vote later in the week. The measure already has passed the House, and Senate passage is considered a foregone conclusion. Reagan has hinted that he will veto the bill because, he argues, South African blacks will suffer most from the economic sanctions.

Reagan ‘Reviewing Situation’

White House spokesman Larry Speakes said that Reagan is “reviewing the entire situation in South Africa, not the policy, but the situation. . . . The United States policy of remaining in close touch and remaining involved in South Africa has not changed. The methods of pursuing it are what we will decide.”

Later in the day, White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan met with Dole to discuss ways to defuse the issue. Dole said he told Regan that “it seemed to me that the South Africa bill . . . would be adopted with a large vote.” But the Senate leader said he added, “If the President would implement some of the proposals in the bill, perhaps a veto might be sustained.”

Lugar, who had urged the President to impose sanctions in early August while Congress was in recess, has since abandoned that strategy. An aide said that the Foreign Relations Committee chairman has decided that congressional action is a must.

The bill to be considered by the Senate is a compromise version already passed by the House by a 380-48 vote. It would ban new bank loans to the Pretoria regime as well as computer sales to those government agencies that enforce the apartheid policy of racial segregation, and prohibit the importation of South African gold Krugerrand coins.

Dole has predicted that at least 80 of the 100 senators will support the bill, indicating that support is strong enough in both chambers for the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.