Gets News During Oval Office Meeting : Disaster Stuns Reagan Into Silence

President Reagan halted an Oval Office meeting with top aides when he learned that the shuttle carrying the teacher he sent into space had exploded, and he stood in “stunned silence” as he watched a television replay of the fiery disaster.

Presidential spokesman Larry Speakes said Vice President George Bush and Reagan’s national security adviser, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, interrupted the meeting between Reagan and senior aides to tell him of the explosion.

Reagan went immediately to his small study to watch developments on television.

“The President is concerned; he is saddened; he is anxious to have more information,” Speakes told reporters at a briefing.

The spokesman added that “quite frankly, the President stood there in almost stunned silence as he watched the television.”

Reagan had been scheduled to host a luncheon for television anchors and network White House correspondents in the Roosevelt Room near his office. But the principal anchors hastily left the White House when they learned what had happened, and Reagan, after first postponing his session with them, canceled to await further reports, leaving Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan to begin the luncheon meeting late.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Peter Roussel, who was present in the Oval Office while Reagan was being briefed for the meeting, said Bush and Poindexter walked in together.

He quoted them as saying, almost simultaneously, “We hate to interrupt, but we have this report.” Roussel said one of the men then read a typewritten report of the explosion to Reagan.

Asked whether the subject of the teacher was brought up in those first moments, Roussel said, “Nobody even mentioned that.”

Teacher on Their Minds

Asked if the President said anything about Christa McAuliffe, the teacher on board the flight, Speakes said, “It was something that was on all of our minds, that it had the first teacher in space, the first civilian” on board.

During his 1984 reelection campaign, Reagan surprised the world when he announced that a teacher would be the first citizen-passenger to fly aboard the space shuttle. Last July, after a national competition during which 11,000 teachers applied, Bush announced at a White House ceremony that McAuliffe had been selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from among 10 finalists.