Brother of Murdered Odeh Scores ‘Silence’ by Reagan

The brother of slain Arab rights leader Alex Odeh expressed outrage Friday at the Reagan Administration’s “dreadful silence” since the Oct. 11 bombing that claimed Odeh’s life.

Odeh, West Coast regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, was killed when a bomb blast ripped through his office in Santa Ana.

The day after the Odeh bombing, White House Deputy Press Secretary Larry Speakes issued a statement saying Reagan “extends his sincere condolences to Mr. Odeh’s widow Norma and his three small daughters, as well as to other members of the family.”

But Odeh’s family said Friday that the message wasn’t delivered to them and they read it first in the newspapers,

Phone Call Expected

The victim’s brother, Sami M. Odeh, said: “I honestly believe the President owed my sister-in-law a personal phone call. There’s been a dreadful silence. Not a visit, not a phone call, nothing.”

Sami Odeh said his brother’s widow--the mother of three daughters aged 7, 5 and 2--is “hurt” by the apparent snub from the White House.

Reagan met Friday with Marilyn Klinghoffer, the widow of the New Yorker killed in the terrorist hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro.

Sami Odeh called it “insulting” for the President to visit the Klinghoffer family while ignoring the family of the slain Arab-American civil rights leader.

Officials at committee headquarters in Washington said they would lodge an official protest with the White House after a customary 40-day mourning period.

No suspects have been arrested in the Odeh bombing and no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, FBI officials said.