U.S. Recalls Its Envoy to Mexico Over Terrorist

The Reagan Administration recalled its ambassador to Mexico on Tuesday and pointedly asked whether that country intends to change its “traditional friendly policy” toward the United States as it protested Mexico’s freeing of a Puerto Rican separatist guerrilla convicted in the United States of terrorist offenses.

In a blistering statement read by State Department spokesman Charles Redman, the Administration said the Mexican Foreign Ministry’s decision to release William Morales and to allow him to travel to Cuba was “outrageous and undercuts the fight against international terrorism.”

Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III noted that Mexico has cooperated with the United States in programs to combat both terrorism and drugs. Speaking at a news conference, Meese said: “I hope that this is not a change in that cooperation, but what has happened here is certainly a matter of great concern to us.”

Recognized Signal

By withdrawing Ambassador Charles J. Pilliod “for consultations,” the Administration sent a universally recognized signal of severe anger. In diplomatic practice, recall of an ambassador stops just short of a formal rupture of relations.

Morales, 37, was convicted in New York in 1979 in two separate trials on charges of possession and transportation of illegal explosives and other weapons. He was sentenced to more than 100 years in prison.

But less than a month after his final court appearance, he escaped from the prison ward of Bellevue Hospital in New York, where he had been scheduled to undergo an operation to give him artificial hands. His hands had been blown off when a bomb he was making exploded.

In 1983, Morales was convicted in Mexico of murdering a Mexican police officer and had served five years of an eight-year prison term before his release Friday. The United States first requested his extradition on May 30, 1983. A Mexican court ruled last December that he could be extradited, but Foreign Minister Bernardo Sepulveda announced last week that the extradition treaty did not apply because Morales was a “political fighter for the independence of Puerto Rico.”

Redman said Washington was especially angered by Sepulveda’s characterization of Morales’ action as political. He said that Morales was “implicated in over 50 bombings . . . which from 1976 to 1978 resulted in the death and injury of many individuals.”

“It is inconceivable that an important friend such as Mexico could find such violent acts to be a legitimate exercise of political activity,” he said.

“The decision is particularly offensive to us because, in reversing the finding by the pertinent Mexican court that Morales should be extradited, the action of the Mexican Foreign Ministry could only have been taken for political reasons.”

Meese also stressed that the decision to free Morales was made by the Foreign Ministry, not by the courts or the Mexican attorney general.

“I will be very curious to see if there is any kind of explanation that is more satisfactory than what I have seen so far,” Meese said.

‘Inexplicable Affront’

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater called the release of Morales “an inexplicable affront to otherwise friendly U.S.-Mexican relations.”

Redman sidestepped questions about whether the United States would impose some sort of sanctions in addition to the recall of Pilliod.

“We will be asking Ambassador Pilliod for his assessment as to why Mexico took this action and whether this represents a significant change from Mexico’s traditional friendly policy toward the United States,” he said.

Mexico is scheduled to elect a new president July 6. Although the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party is considered a sure winner, the campaign has been unusually hard fought. U.S. officials speculate privately that Sepulveda may have hoped to win additional support for the ruling party by taking a swipe at the United States. “Gringo-bashing” has always been a staple of Mexican politics.

The withdrawal of Pilliod sends an especially sharp signal to Mexican authorities because the ambassador had sought to smooth U.S.-Mexico relations in the wake of the tenure of the combative John Gavin as ambassador.

Gavin received high marks in the State Department for a systematic effort to respond to what he considered cheap shots against the United States, but he sometimes rankled Mexican officials.