Wouldn’t Put Words in Reagan’s Mouth : Fitzwater Calls Speakes’ Quote Revelations ‘Damned Outrage’

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater today denounced as “a damned outrage” revelations by his predecessor, Larry Speakes, that Speakes falsely attributed remarks to President Reagan.

Fitzwater vowed to reporters at his regular daily briefing that he would never follow such a practice himself.

Bombarded with questions about Speakes’ statements, made in his book “Speaking Out,” Fitzwater said the questions illustrated “why I resent it so much.”

“To make up quotes casts aspersions on the presidency and on my position and the questions you just asked are the best reasons why it’s wrong, why (Speakes) shouldn’t have done it and why I won’t do it,” he said.

‘Everyone Is Appalled’

“Everyone is appalled that he made up quotes,” Fitzwater added.

Fitzwater said he takes notes during presidential meetings and, “If (Reagan) didn’t say it, I won’t say he said it. I never have.”

Fitzwater said he had not talked to the President about the matter, but “I am sure he would be upset about it. I am sure he is.”

Speakes, interviewed by telephone from New York, said of Fitzwater’s statement: “I’d be better off not to comment.”

But he offered no apologies, saying “It’s an honest book.”

Speakes says in his book that after a Korean Air Lines plane carrying 61 Americans was shot down in 1983, he credited statements made by Secretary of State George P. Shultz to Reagan.

Manufactured Quotes

And he says that during Reagan’s summit meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Geneva he attributed to Reagan remarks that he and an aide had manufactured.

The former spokesman said today that he had informed Reagan of the made-up quotes.

“I generally told him, you know, what I had done, you know, and the reasons for doing it,” Speakes said. “He never objected to, you know, these cases where I said, you know, I’ve gone ahead and done this.”

Reagan met with the National Security Council and with congressional leaders after a Soviet plane shot down the KAL aircraft on Aug. 31, 1983.

Soviets Vs. World

In his book, Speakes says Shultz declared during the congressional leaders’ meeting that the incident was not a problem between the United States and the Soviet Union but “a Soviet versus the world problem.”

“Since the President had had almost nothing to say during the National Security and congressional leadership meetings, I made presidential quotes out of Shultz’s comment about the incident pitting the whole world against the Soviet Union. . . . “ Speakes writes.

“My decision to put Shultz’s words in Reagan’s mouth played well and neither of them complained.”

In his account of the Geneva summit, Speakes says he “felt that Gorbachev was really getting the advantage over us in his give-and-take with reporters, while Reagan was very tentative and stilted” in his comments.

Quotes for Media

“Fearing that Reagan was losing the media version of Star Wars, I instructed (aide) Mark Weinberg to draft some quotes for the President,” Speakes says. “I . . . told the press that while the two leaders stood together at the end of one session, the President said to Gorbachev, ‘There is much that divides us, but I believe the world breathes easier because we are talking here together.’ ”

CBS used the quote in its evening television news and Chris Wallace of NBC reported “the talks were frank. The President’s best statement came off camera, aides quoting him as saying, ‘The world breathes easier because we are talking together.’ ”

“Another Reagan quote which we manufactured that received extensive play in the press was, ‘Our differences are serious but so is our commitment to improving understanding,’ ” Speakes writes.