Meese Asks Solicitor Gen. Not to Join Staff Walkout : Atty. Gen’s. Exit Sought by Senators

Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd today called Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III “the crown jewel of . . . sleaze” and urged him to quit, but President Reagan reiterated his support for his old friend, the focus of an 11-month-old criminal investigation.

The attorney general suffered another setback today when Solicitor Gen. Charles Fried, who ranks fourth in the Justice Department hierarchy, refused to give an immediate answer when Meese personally urged him not to join two other senior department figures who resigned Tuesday, department sources said.

At a meeting in Meese’s office, Fried told the attorney general he would consider what to do in the next few days, said the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Reassessing His Future

On Tuesday, Fried, who argues the government’s position in Supreme Court cases, said that the resignations had prompted him to reassess his own future. He said he needed time to think the matter through.

Congressional reaction against Meese was strong the day after the resignations of the No. 2 Justice Department official, Deputy Atty. Gen. Arnold Burns; and the head of the department’s criminal division, Assistant Atty. Gen. William Weld.

Of Meese, Sen. Bob Packwood of Oregon, the first Republican to call for his ouster, said “you finally reach a place where there is a cloud of suspicion, a sufficient cloud of suspicion, that I think you owe it to the President to remove yourself.”

Campaigning in Madison, Wis., Vice President George Bush said that he is worried about the effectiveness of the Justice Department--”these were good people that left”--but that it remains up to Meese whether he should resign.

But Reagan told reporters during a Rose Garden ceremony: “He’s been a friend for over 20 years. I have every confidence in him. . . . I’m not going to comment any further.”

As the calls mounted for Meese to step aside, presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater knocked down rumors that Nancy Reagan, in concert with White House Chief of Staff Howard H. Baker, was finally urging the President to ease his longtime friend from office.

“I never heard that said by anyone--that they wanted him out,” he said.

‘Department Operating Fine’

Fitzwater said today that Reagan sees no need for Meese to step aside in light of the resignations of Associate Atty. Gen. Arnold I. Burns and William F. Weld, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, and four of their top aides.

Another top Justice Department official, Solicitor General Charles Fried, said the resignations are leading him to reconsider his own future at the Justice Department.

Fitzwater said Reagan has not had any discussion with Meese about the leadership vacuum at Justice “that I am aware of.”

“Operations will continue at the Justice Department,” Fitzwater said. “No change that I am aware of (is in progress). The Justice Department is operating fine.”

Fitzwater also declined to comment on Byrd’s call for Meese’s resignation.

“He ought to get out,” Byrd (D-W.Va.) said. “The country cannot have confidence in the Justice Department when the top law enforcement officer obviously has to spend an inordinate amount of his time defending himself.”

“He should be spending his time fighting the war on drugs, crime,” Byrd said.

Byrd opened his regular morning meeting with reporters by saying: “Mr. Meese has become the crown jewel of the sleaze factor in Reagan Administration history.”

“It’s just cloud after cloud after cloud, building in layers over his head to the point where all confidence in this agency is being seriously eroded,” Byrd said.

Meese has been under investigation for nearly 11 months by James McKay, the independent counsel who last May 11 began looking into Meese’s involvement with the scandal-plagued Wedtech Corp.