NATION : Probe of Priests’ Slayings Hailed

The White House today praised the “great courage” of Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani for acknowledging that government soldiers were responsible for the massacre of six Jesuit priests in San Salvador.

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater, who was traveling with President Bush aboard Air Force One to Florida, praised the Salvadoran investigation into the Nov. 16 slayings, which were among the most heinous politically motivated crimes of the 10-year-old civil war.

“We asked the investigation be thorough and the prosecution move ahead, and it looks like that’s the course he is on,” Fitzwater said.

But the head of the university where the priests were slain dismissed Cristiani’s acknowledgement as insufficient. “It is not enough that they (the armed forces) put forward a sergeant,” Father Francisco Estrada said. “The question is, ‘Who ordered that sergeant to do it.’ ”