Reagan, Thatcher Get Allies to Tighten Terrorist Statement

President Reagan teamed up with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher today to prod reluctant allies into rewriting a weak draft declaration on terrorism, producing what they hoped would be seen as a concerted challenge to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi.

But coaxing five other leaders to agree to the final, five-paragraph statement required Thatcher to “hammer away” at French President Francois Mitterrand and Reagan to hint at further U.S. military action, aides said.

“Why should this summit concern itself with terrorism?” Reagan asked in a confidential paper he gave to the other leaders. “One reason . . . is the need to do something so that the crazy Americans won’t take matters into their own hands again.”

The result was a statement which singled out Libya by name and listed six steps against terrorism which the summit nations agreed to support.

But while American and British officials declared the statement a triumph for their leaders, it fell short of Reagan Administration wishes.

Sanctions Not Mandatory

France’s foreign minister made a point of puncturing the appearance of Western unity, announcing that his government did not consider the sanctions against Libya to be “strictly obligatory” and would allow Kadafi to keep his embassy in Paris.

And economic sanctions against Libya, which the Administration has been urging on Europe for several years, were never even seriously discussed.

The process of bringing all seven nations to a joint position on terrorism began weeks before the summit meeting, when working groups of foreign policy specialists--dubbed “sherpas” after the Nepalese mountaineers who guide climbers to the Himalayan peaks--met to produce an initial draft.

Draft Statement Cautious

The result was a bureaucratically cautious paper which neither named Libya nor offered specific steps to deal with terrorism. Reagan and Thatcher arrived in Tokyo already determined to reject it.

At a working dinner Sunday night, Reagan and Thatcher came armed with position papers which “became the focal point for a much more muscular approach,” an Administration official said.

The leaders ordered their sherpas into a hotel conference room for the night to produce a revised draft. Their task was to reconcile the zeal of Reagan and Thatcher with the wariness of the Japanese and the insistence of Mitterrand that the summit could only recommend policy changes, not require them.

But the result was predictable: In an effort not to offend each other, the sherpas produced a document that skirted every controversial issue.

Thatcher Leads Charge

When the leaders gathered again this morning, Thatcher led a charge to toughen the statement. With Reagan cheering her on, Thatcher took on the task of lobbying Mitterrand, who insisted that a stronger statement was not necessary.

“She carried a lot of water,” a White House official said of Thatcher. He noted that Reagan and Mitterrand are polar opposites--politically and personally--and said Reagan was probably incapable of persuading Mitterrand to change his mind on anything.

By midday, Mitterrand had backed down on the issue of naming Libya and agreed that the statement could include a list of concrete steps that countries could take against terrorism.