Reagan Will Veto S. Africa Bill Friday : But Dole Believes Backers of Sanctions Can Sustain Override

President Reagan will veto a tough congressional bill of economic sanctions against South Africa Friday, White House spokesman Larry Speakes said today.

Senate Republican leader Bob Dole said it will be difficult to stop the Senate from overriding the veto.

“The President talked with Bob Dole and others yesterday and told them he planned to veto it,” Speakes told reporters.

Asked if there were any possibility Reagan would change his mind, he replied, “In my opinion, no.”

Reagan, long a staunch opponent of what he calls punitive economic sanctions as a way to help end Pretoria’s apartheid system of racial segregation, argues such measures will only hurt those America seeks to help--the black majority.

The White House had been threatening a veto for a week but this was the first direct word from Reagan of when he actually would reject the bill and send it back to Congress.

Veto Defeat Likely

The bill passed the House and Senate far in excess of the two-thirds majorities required in both chambers to kill a veto.

Dole has been sounding out senators on the prospects of voting to uphold Reagan’s veto, but without any visible success.

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, usually works with Dole and Reagan but has called for enactment of the sanctions measure.

“It will be hard to sustain a veto,” Dole said.

Dole said he talked to White House staff members about Reagan’s plan to issue an executive order calling for milder sanctions than those approved by Congress.

It is an effort by Reagan to show that he is exerting greater pressures on South Africa, though not as much as Lugar wants, and pull away enough support from the bill to provide the margin of votes he needs to sustain the veto.