Bush Says He’s Ready for ‘Maximum’ Iran Dialogue : Effort on Hostages Intensifies

The Bush Administration sent a clear signal to Iran today that the United States wants to encourage “maximum dialogue” on the American hostages in Lebanon despite the Administration’s publicly stated policy of refusing to get involved in “trading off or negotiating for hostages.”

Although insisting that Administration policy has not changed, President Bush said: “I hope I am open-minded enough to talk and to exercise every diplomatic channel I can to free these Americans. And no American is going to be content until these Americans are free.”

Policy Remains Unchanged

In a later interview with The Times, White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater insisted that Administration policy remains unchanged. But Fitzwater said Bush was interpreting the policy in a way that should make clear to the Iranians that the United States wants to establish clear lines of communication through an intermediary to facilitate a dialogue on the hostage issue.

“You can say it’s a signal to Iran, and we clearly want to encourage maximum dialogue,” Fitzwater said.

Fitzwater said the Administration hopes that the election last week of Hashemi Rafsanjani as Iran’s new president means a change of attitude on the part of the Iranian government. “Our policies haven’t changed,” he said, “but we want to state them in a way that maximizes the opportunity for dialogue.”

New ‘Definition’

The Administration has made several statements reflecting what Fitzwater called a new “definition” of that policy, beginning with a comment by Bush in an interview that appeared in Wednesday’s Boston Globe.

Asked if he had forsaken the policy of not negotiating for the release of hostages, Bush said he has no problem saying that “if I can talk to somebody and get the release of an American hostage and do it without, in my view and in the view of the experts, putting others at risk, I’d be glad to do that.”

Meanwhile, a senior intelligence source said that “a lot of very delicate things are going on” in negotiations with Iran through third countries to try to seek the release of the eight American hostages being held by terrorists in Lebanon.

Algeria Plays Role

Algeria, which has played a major role in negotiating the release of hostages in several other cases, including when a TWA jetliner was hijacked by Shiite Muslim extremists in the summer of 1985, has emerged as a prominent intermediary in current negotiations, the source said.

Other sources said that Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Jordan also are operating as intermediaries in U.S. contacts with Iran.

Bush, during a brief question-and-answer session with reporters in the Oval Office, promised to pursue every diplomatic channel in seeking release of the hostages, whom he described as “too precious for me to be sticking my head in the sand.”

Effort Energized

The videotape released by terrorists that showed the body an American hostage--Lt. Col. William Higgins--hanging from a rope has energized the effort to free the hostages, Bush said.

“There is a common threat. This is too much. Enough is enough,” Bush declared.