Bush Takes Steps to Soothe Relations With Mexico

Moving to defuse a U.S.-Mexico conflict, President Bush said Thursday he has instructed officials to “eliminate the misunderstanding” over the abduction of a Mexican suspect in the Camarena murder case, and added that he hopes relations have not been damaged.

“We don’t want misunderstanding with Mexico. We don’t need it,” he told a press conference. “We need continued cooperation.”

However, new conflicting accounts emerged Thursday over whether Mexican or U.S. law enforcement initiated the controversial apprehension of Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain. Alvarez, who was seized in Guadalajara, faces trial in Los Angeles on charges that he took part in the 1985 torture-slaying of Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique S. Camarena.

The seizure has strained relations with Mexico, which has accused the U.S. of violating its sovereignty.

On other subjects, Bush said that he would “be very open to” assigning Mexican drug police to the United States “if it fit into our fight against drugs.”

Mexico’s proposal to assign the same number of Mexican police in the United States as the 41 DEA agents currently stationed in Mexico arose during talks Wednesday night about the Alvarez case between Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh and Mexican Atty. Gen. Enrique Alvarez del Castillo.

“We’re going to consider what they raised” at the meeting, Thornburgh said Thursday, returning to Washington from Santa Fe, N.M., where he met with his Mexican counterpart.

But Thornburgh added that he had told Alvarez del Castillo that he would not “accede to any changes that would expose DEA agents or their families to the risk of harm in carrying out their responsibilities.”

This appeared to be a reference to Mexico’s request that DEA agents regularly report on their activities in Mexico to police authorities there.

In the latest conflict over the Alvarez apprehension, a spokesman for Alvarez del Castillo reacted to a U.S. investigation that concluded high-ranking Mexican police officials first proposed the operation. Alvarez del Castillo contended instead that the plan originated with a former Mexican policeman now working for the DEA in Los Angeles.

Fernando Arias, the spokesman, said that DEA operative, Antonio Garate Bustamente, last December proposed a swap of fugitives wanted by the United States and Mexico to Pablo Aleman Diaz, head of the non-narcotics section of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police.

Arias said that Garate proposed trading two Mexicans wanted on fraud charges who had fled to the United States for Alvarez, who is alleged to have administered medication to Camarena to revive him so he could be tortured further before he was finally killed.

After a series of phone calls between Garate and Aleman, Arias said, the deal fell through because Aleman concluded that Mexico would have a problem in turning over a national for trial in the United States.

But Thornburgh said Thursday that a Justice Department investigation has established that Alvarez’s apprehension last month “was originally initiated by high-ranking Mexican police officials who traveled to Los Angeles to indicate to DEA officials their willingness” to turn him over.

Thornburgh, while flying back to Washington on Thursday, said of his meeting with Alvarez del Castillo: “I made him aware in no uncertain terms that I was greatly disturbed by the misconception that existed in this regard and wanted to make him--and through him President (Carlos) Salinas (de Gortari)--aware precisely what the origins of this undertaking were.”

The issue took on heat last month when Salinas delivered a “stern lecture” on the incident to Vice President Dan Quayle during a meeting in Mexico City.

It was in response to a question about the dispute at his press conference Thursday that Bush said he had instructed officials to “eliminate the misunderstanding.”

Thornburgh said that Alvarez del Castillo raised no contradiction “as such” in response to the findings of the U.S. investigation. “He didn’t contradict what I said,” he noted.

Nor did the Mexican attorney general ask for the names of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police found by the U.S. inquiry to have proposed the operation to DEA, Thornburgh said.

Thornburgh declined to discuss other findings of the investigation, which is still under way. He said that the findings would be disclosed in a federal court hearing in Los Angeles, where Alvarez has challenged his apprehension.

Bush and Thornburgh saluted the Mexicans for their continued cooperation in anti-drug efforts, despite the controversy over the Alvarez case.

An Administration official said that newly compiled statistics show that there have been seven major cocaine seizures in the last three months in Mexico. The first was a Feb. 4 seizure that involved an American radar plane directing a joint U.S.-Mexican team to an airport in Monclova, where they seized a plane and 1,700 pounds of cocaine.

The official said that an unprecedented level of cooperation had resulted in seizing a total cache of nearly 10,000 pounds of cocaine.

The largest seizure, on March 29, uncovered more than 3,000 pounds in the town of Sahuayo. It also resulted in the arrest of nine people, including a nephew of Felix Gallardo. Gallardo, former head of Mexico’s largest narcotics trafficking organization, is now imprisoned in Mexico City.

Times staff writer Douglas Jehl contributed to this article.