Bush Cautions Iran on Moves Against Rushdie

Iran’s government “can expect to be held accountable” if Americans or American companies are hurt by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s campaign against British author Salman Rushdie, President Bush said Tuesday.

“Inciting murder and offering rewards for its perpetration are deeply offensive to the norms of civilized behavior,” Bush told reporters at a White House press conference.

At the same time, however, Bush referred to Rushdie’s controversial novel, “The Satanic Verses,” as “offensive” to some and noted that “we are an open society. None of us like everything that’s written.”

Bush also said that he would “take a hard look to see what we can do” about gun-related violence, a statement that a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said was intended to signal some shift in Bush’s so-far solid opposition to new federal gun-control measures. Bush offered no suggestions, however, about what he had in mind and added that “I also want to be the President that protects the rights of people to have arms.”

Bush’s statement about Iran, and similar remarks Tuesday by Secretary of State James A. Baker III, were part of the cautious line the Administration has espoused as it has responded to the furor surrounding Rushdie’s book. Administration officials have tried to condemn Khomeini’s death threats against the British author while reminding world audiences that the publication of “The Satanic Verses” in the West is a private matter over which the government has no control.

Many Muslims condemn Rushdie’s book as blasphemous, and some Islamic fundamentalists have argued that the book’s publication is part of a general U.S.-sponsored conspiracy against the Islamic world.

Bush expressed support for the actions European nations have taken against Iran. But because the United States already has economic sanctions against Iran and no diplomatic relations with the Iranian government, there are few immediate steps U.S. officials can take beyond public condemnation.

On gun control, Bush last week said flatly that he would “strongly oppose” measures that would put new federal controls on semiautomatic weapons. Tuesday’s remarks did not directly contradict those earlier statements but did stress the need for “finding a national answer to this problem.”

Position Clouded

His position was clouded, however, by continuing ambiguity over weapons like AK-47s--the center of the current legislative controversy--and the difference between these semiautomatic weapons and fully automatic firearms.

“I’d like to find some way to do something about these automated weapons,” Bush said Tuesday, “about automated AK-47s coming into this country.”

“I’d like to find a way to be supportive of the police who are out there on the line all the time,” he said.

Bush has tried to draw a distinction between automatic weapons--which fire repeated rounds as long as the trigger is held down--and semiautomatics, which can fire repeatedly without being recocked but which require the trigger to be pulled for each shot.

But importation of automatic weapons already is illegal and their sale is tightly regulated. Semiautomatics, including AK-47s, can be bought with few restrictions in many states. The gun that Patrick Edward Purdy used to kill five schoolchildren and injure 29 in Stockton, Calif., last month--spurring the renewed gun-control effort--was a semiautomatic version of the Chinese-made assault rifle.

Many police officials, as well as gun control advocates, have urged new restrictions on semiautomatic weapons, but Bush, adopting the position of the National Rifle Assn., has opposed any new federal measures.

The official purpose of the press conference was to allow Bush to announce that Rep. Bill Grant, a little-known congressman from north Florida, was switching his registration from Democratic to Republican. The shift provided a bit of good news for the GOP, which has spent most of the last week fending off the negative publicity stemming from the Louisiana legislative election won by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, running as a Republican.

Grant’s conversion is a sign of the steady increase of Republican strength in Florida, where Bush racked up some of his largest election margins in the 1988 election. In 1986, when Grant first won his congressional seat, the local GOP was so feeble that Grant ran unopposed.