O’Neill Assails Iacocca Firing, Urges Reappointment

House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. said Friday that the firing of Lee A. Iacocca as chairman of a national advisory commission on restoring the Statue of Liberty had “brought unintended ridicule on our government,” and he urged that Iacocca be reappointed.

In a telegram to Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel, who fired Iacocca on Monday, O’Neill said that for the good of the planned centennial celebration of a renovated Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island in New York Harbor, “I urge that you rescind your order.”

O’Neill added: “I am sure that President Reagan agrees with me that Lee Iacocca is exactly the kind of private-sector hero we should be honoring in the years ahead.”

‘Unintended Ridicule’

O’Neill, a Massachusetts Democrat, told Hodel that firing Iacocca had “hurt this important effort to honor our nation’s history” and had “brought unintended ridicule on our government.”

White House spokesman Larry Speakes has said there was no White House involvement in Hodel’s decision to fire Iacocca.

Hodel dismissed Iacocca on the ground that there was a potential conflict of interest in having the Chrysler Corp. chairman serving as chairman of both the federal Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Centennial Commission and the private Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation Inc., which is raising money for the restoration.