White House Rejects Idea of Meeting With Rushdie : Iran: Fitzwater calls the author’s visit a book promotion. The writer of ‘The Satanic Verses’ remains under a death threat issued by Khomeini.

The Bush Administration on Wednesday rejected suggestions that it should meet with author Salman Rushdie and portrayed his visit to Washington this week as an effort at book promotion rather than as a campaign for freedom of expression.

“There’s no reason for any special relationship with Rushdie,” White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater told reporters. “I mean, he’s an author. He’s here. He’s doing interviews and book tours and things authors do. But there’s no reason for us to have any special interest in him.”

Rushdie has been living underground for three years, ever since the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late Iranian ruler, called for his death and imposed a $1-million bounty on his head. The dispute arose after Rushdie, an Indian-born writer living in Britain, published a novel, “The Satanic Verses,” that Khomeini claimed was blasphemous to Islam.

In public and private statements Wednesday, Administration officials demonstrated their aversion to stirring up new controversy with Iran and an unwillingness to embrace Rushdie as a symbol of religious persecution.

“We have often said that we want better relations with Iran. We have worked toward that goal,” Fitzwater told a White House news briefing.

The press secretary pointedly refused to say that Iran’s lifting of its religious decree, or fatwa, condemning Rushdie would be a condition for improving relations with the United States.

Although maintaining that the Administration believes in freedom of speech, State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said that any meeting by senior U.S. officials with Rushdie “could be misinterpreted by those individuals who, as you are well aware of, have an extreme dislike for Mr. Rushdie.”

Although the Bush Administration has said in the past that it would not give in to terrorism, one senior Administration official acknowledged that the safety of U.S. officials was a factor in deciding not to meet with Rushdie.

The official said members of Congress were warned that there could be efforts at retaliation against any American officials who participated in such a meeting. Despite the warning, several senators met with the author Wednesday in a session organized by Sens. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.).

Rushdie flew secretly from Britain to Washington this week to commemorate the publication of a paperback edition of “The Satanic Verses” in the United States. He gave a speech here Tuesday night.

When told Wednesday of the Bush Administration’s icy remarks about him, Rushdie replied: “I’m not here doing a book tour. The purpose of the paperback is to make a point about First Amendment rights . . . . This doesn’t have to do with an author promoting his book. It has to do with an author trying to save his life.”

Some defenders of freedom of expression said they were outraged at the Administration’s comments.

“The refusal of the White House to meet with or support Salman Rushdie is a moral and intellectual disgrace,” asserted First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams.