60 National Leaders Due This Week : U.N. 40th Birthday: Festive Yet Marred

More than 60 world leaders, including President Reagan, will arrive in New York this week for the biggest celebration in U.N. history--a 40th birthday party overshadowed by the bitterness and drama of the Achille Lauro hijacking.

Among those absent may be Bettino Craxi, the caretaker Italian prime minister whose government fell in the political uproar that arose after Italy let Abul Abbas, a Palestinian faction leader accused by the United States of masterminding the hijacking, leave the country.

Craxi said Saturday that he will travel to New York this week if he still holds office when the time comes.

The hijacking and the killing by the four Palestine Liberation Front hijackers of Leon Klinghoffer, 69, of New York, one of the Achille Lauro passengers, caused the elimination of an expected guest at the U.N. anniversary ceremonies.

No Invitation to Arafat

PLO leader Yasser Arafat, who had expected to address the General Assembly, was denied an invitation by his Third World sponsors, who were embarrassed by the political repercussions of the hijacking.

Nevertheless, an impressive list of world leaders will make speeches in the General Assembly’s modernistic hall and toast the U.N. birthday at parties and receptions elsewhere in the towering glass and steel headquarters alongside the East River.

Reagan will be a principal host, entertaining the likes of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and possibly Soviet President Andrei A. Gromyko, who first came here in the 1940s and 1950s--as the Soviet U.N. representative and then as his country’s foreign minister.

Other notables will include Pakistani President Zia ul-Haq, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Lebanese President Amin Gemayel and Radovan Vlajkovic, the current president of Yugoslavia.

Major Security Concerns

The congregation of world leaders obviously poses a huge security problem. More than half the Secret Service’s agents nationwide have been detailed to the task, as well as more than 1,000 other government security agents and thousands of New York City policemen.

Precautions will center on the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where Reagan and many other leaders will stay.

There will also be extra patrols opposite the United Nations in Queens, from where anti-Castro Cubans fired a bazooka at the U.N. building in 1964 while Cuban revolutionary and ideologist Ernesto (Che) Guevara was speaking. The round fell short, but anxious New York police officers have kept patrol boats and helicopters scouting the area at every General Assembly since then.

For Reagan, the trip to New York will serve as a kind of dress rehearsal for his summit meeting next month with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The President has invited several Western leaders, including Craxi, to meet with him and discuss summit strategy.

Reagan to Address Assembly

On Thursday, Reagan will address the General Assembly and meet with major allied leaders at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, directly across 1st Avenue from U.N. headquarters.

Thursday afternoon, the formal 40th anniversary ceremony will take place in the General Assembly chamber and, that night, Reagan will be host at a dinner at the Waldorf for the main U.S. allies.

Post-World War II hopes that the United Nations, born in San Francisco in October, 1945, would evolve into an international mechanism that could prevent further wars have long since vanished. But even its critics acknowledge that the organization has served as a useful forum for international discussion, particularly during flashpoints of political tension.

Perhaps more important, the United Nations and its agencies have performed a wide variety of humanitarian services and have coordinated economic planning and development in the Third World.