Emotional Bush Protests TV’s Split Images : Panama: He is upset over networks juxtaposing soldiers’ coffins with his ‘frivololous comments.’

His voice choking with emotion, President Bush today protested the use of a split screen by two television networks and CNN showing the caskets of soldiers killed in Panama returning to the United States while he was making “frivolous comments” during a news conference last month.

Bush told reporters that it appeared that he “didn’t give a damn and I do.”

In an emotional appeal, he urged the networks to notify him if such a technique is going to be used.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said the juxtaposition of the two events on the screen simultaneously--the flag-draped coffins arriving at Dover, Del., and the news conference in the White House press room--by ABC, CBS and CNN “absolutely was deliberate.”

Fitzwater said Bush is “very upset about it” and “it’s hard to believe the networks did not understand the significance of it.”

Bush told reporters that he had received a lot of mail “and I had some calls” after his news conference on Dec. 21 “because when I was speaking here in this room the networks juxtaposed against my frivolous comments at the time the split screen . . . it showed American lives. The bodies of dead soldiers in caskets . . . coming home.”

“And I would respectfully request if the urgency of the moment is such, if that technique is going to be used,” he said, “if I could be told about it and will stop the proceedings or if it’s something less traumatic. I could understand why the viewers were concerned about this.

“They thought their President, at a solemn moment like that, didn’t give a damn, and I do, I do,” he said. “I feel it so strongly. So please help me with that, if you would.”