Reagan Denies Trying to Delay Hostage Return

Former President Ronald Reagan on Saturday labeled as “absolute fiction” charges that he or his campaign staff conducted talks with Iran to prevent the freeing of American hostages held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran before the 1980 election.

On the contrary, “I did some things actually the other way, to try and be of help in getting those hostages--I felt very sorry for them--of getting them out of there,” Reagan told reporters who were trailing him as he played golf with President Bush at the exclusive Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks.

Reagan was responding for the first time to recently renewed charges that his campaign had sought to block President Jimmy Carter, his 1980 election opponent, from springing an “October surprise”--the freeing of the hostages--and emerging as a hero only days before the vote.

“I can only assure you there was never any concern on my part that they shouldn’t get out because of the effect on the contest, the elections,” Reagan said.

Asked if his comment meant that he or his aides had talked with Iranian officials during the campaign, Reagan said he had no personal discussions with the Iranian government. And, when pressed further about his staff’s involvement, he declined to elaborate. “I can’t go into details,” Reagan said. “Some of these things are still classified.”

Meanwhile, Bush, in an earlier interview Saturday, said neither he nor Reagan would have sacrificed the hostages’ freedom to nudge their political careers into the White House. Acknowledging charges by some of the former hostages that the Reagan-Bush campaign interfered with their release, Bush angrily challenged Congress to investigate.

“If there’s evidence . . . let them go forward,” Bush said during an interview with local television reporters. “To assign to me the motive that for political gain I would assign an American to captivity one minute longer than necessary, I think is a vicious, personal assault on my integrity and my character as President. I don’t think I’d deserve to be in this office if for one minute I suggested a person be held hostage so I could get political gain. And I know the same is true of President Reagan.”

The hostages were an issue in the campaign because Reagan portrayed his Democratic opponent, incumbent President Carter, as ineffective in winning their release. Reagan campaign officials were said to be anxious during the closing days of the campaign that Carter would issue the surprise announcement of the hostages’ freedom.

The 52 U.S. citizens, held for 444 days at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, were finally freed on Jan. 21, 1981, minutes after Reagan was sworn in as President.

In recent weeks, Gary Sick, former National Security Council aide in the Carter Administration and an expert on Iran, has attracted widespread publicity with allegations that the Reagan campaign interfered in negotiations to win the hostages’ freedom, robbing Carter of a possible second term. On Thursday, eight of the former hostages demanded that Congress investigate whether the Reagan-Bush campaign actually delayed their freedom.

Queried by reporters as he teed off for a morning round of golf with Bush, Reagan said nothing he tried as a presidential candidate in 1980 stalled the hostages’ freedom. “I did some things actually the other way, to try and be of help in getting those hostages--I felt very sorry for them--of getting them out of there,” Reagan said. “This whole thing that I was worried about that as a campaign issue is absolute fiction. I did some things to try the other way.”

During his interview, Bush complained bitterly of political “rumor mongering and hate mongering” directed at him over the hostages and complained that an investigation would be costly, spending “taxpayers’ dollars based on rumors. . . . I don’t think that’s good.”

But he said a congressional investigation may be the only way to clear his name. Congress “can’t just go out there and have a billion-dollar witch hunt,” he said. “So I’d love to get it cleared, and I’ve (said) it as emphatically as possible because this gets to the heart of character. This gets to your soul. This gets to what’s decent and right in the world.”

In other comments during his interview with local television reporters, Bush said he believes Iraqi President Saddam Hussein sheltered some of his nuclear arsenal from allied attacks during the Persian Gulf War, but pledged to seek out and destroy any remaining materials that might be used to develop atomic weapons.

“Yes, probably some of it did survive obviously,” Bush said. But, he added Hussein’s “ability to project all this into an atomic weapon has been set back into the Dark Ages.”

Even so, the President said whatever nuclear materials Hussein has concerns him and should be reported in accord with the peace agreement that followed the war.

“The implications are that he is violating agreements with the overall peace agreement,” Bush said. “So, one, we’ve got to establish the facts. And, two, we have to make clear that he will not remain with a nuclear capacity.”

U.N. experts, responding to as yet unproven allegations that Hussein has nuclear materials, will soon inspect possible sites where Hussein may have hidden nuclear materials during the war, diplomats said Friday.

A Security Council-appointed special commission has requested various governments to share any knowledge about the location of secret chemical and nuclear weapons facilities in Iraq.

Bush, who is spending the weekend in Southern California, devoted most of his day to less serious matters. In addition to Reagan, his golfing partners included Lodwrick M. Cook, chairman of ARCO; David H. Murdock, chairman of Murdock Development Corp., and motion picture producer Jerry Weintraub.

A joking Reagan, once a movie actor, apologized for his lack of skill at golf, saying “I’m camera shy” before hitting his first shot about 150 yards down the left side of the fairway.

After golfing, Bush retired to “Blue Heaven,” Weintraub’s eight-acre Malibu estate, for a Hollywood-star studded, black-tie dinner. Some 200 entertainers, industry officials and GOP supporters were to attend the private outdoor dinner party.

Weintraub, 53, a longtime Bush buddy, was a key fund-raiser for Bush’s 1988 campaign. Since then, however, the movie mogul has fallen on tougher times as his Weintraub Entertainment Group filed for Chapter 11 last year, citing nearly $85 million in debts.