REAGAN, AFTER GENEVA TALKS, PLANS AN ADDRESS TO CONGRESS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807260017-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: October 29, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807260017-4
INLW YORK TIMES
ARTICLE APP 29 October 1985
ON PAGE IL L
Reagan, After Geneva Talks,
Plans an Address to Congress
By BERNARD WEINRAUB
Special to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 - President or missing in Lebanon. Asked what he
Reagan plans to address a joint session
of Congress on the night he returns
from the Geneva meeting with Mikhail
S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, White
House officials said today. .
Mr. Reagan also wants to meet with
leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization in Brussels on his way
home from Geneva, Larry Speakes, the
White House spokesman, said.
"The purpose would be to provide an
immediate and firsthand briefing on
his meeting with General Secretary
Gorbachev and to consult with allies on
East-West relations," Mr. Speakes
said.
A formal reply has not yet been re-
ceived from NATO about the Brussels
meeting, but White House officials said
they expected the session to take place
on Nov. 21, hours after Mr. Reagan's
departure from Geneva.
Waiting for an Invitation
Although Mr. Speakes said Mr. Rea-
gan was waiting to be invited by Con-
gress to address a joint session, an-
other White House official said it was
virtually certain that the President
would speak to Congress on the night of
Nov. 21, shortly after his return from
Europe.
"The idea is that the first thing he
ought to do is report to the American
people his impressions and conclusions
and the nature of his meetings with
Gorbachev," a White House official
said. The summit meeting is to be held
in Geneva on Nov. 19 and 20.
Mr. Reagan's plan to address Con-
gress is similar to President Nixon's
return from abroad on June 1, 1972,
after he signed a treaty in Moscow
limiting antiballistic missile systems
and an interim accord on offensive
weapons. Mr. Nixon flew by helicopter,
from Andrews Air Force Base to the
Capitol to address Congress.
On another matter, White House offi-
cials said Mr. Reagan would decide in
the next day or two about a possible in-
terview with Tass, the Soviet press
agency. Officials said that in the next
few weeks Mr. Reagan planned to dis-
cuss the summit meeting in interviews
with European journalists and in radio
speeches to the American public.
Uneasy about the publicity accorded
Mr. Gorbachev and his proposal for a
50 percent reduction in Soviet and
American nuclear weapons that can hit
each other's territory, My. Reagan and
his staff have decided to step up white,
House efforts to counter the Soviet pub-
lic relations drive. Officials said an
American counterproposal to the
Soviet offer would probably be issued
before the summit meeting.
Meeting With Hostage Families
Meanwhile, Mr. Reagan met late this
afternoon with the families of four of
the six Americans listed as kidnapped
intended to tell the group, Mr. Reagan
said at a Rose Garden ceremony, "All
the things that we continue to do to try
to bring about their return."
The President met with relatives of'
the Rev. Lawrence Martin Jenco, a
Roman Catholic priest kidnapped on
Jan. 8; Terry A. Anderson, chief Mid-
dle East correspondent for The Associ-
ated Press when he was abducted on
March 16; David Jacobsen, director of
the American University Hospital in
Beirut, kidnapped on May 28, and Peter
Kilburn, a librarian at the American
University, who has been missing since
Dec. 3, 1984.
The family of a fifth American,
Thomas M. Sutherland, is in London
and could not be reached by the White
House, Mr. Speakes said. Mr. Suther-
land, the dean of agriculture at the
American University, was kidnapped
on June 9.
The other missing American, Wil-
liam Buckley, a political officer at the
United States Embassy in Beirut, has
no immediate family, officials said.
There have been unconfirmed reports
that Mr. Buckley, who was kidnapped
on March 16, 1984, has been killed.
Relatives Remain Hopeful
After a 15-minute meeting with the
President and a session with Robert C.
McFarlane, the White House national
security adviser, that lasted more than
90 minutes, the families said tonight
that they remained hopeful that the
hostages would be released.
"What we'd like to say about the
meeting," said Paul Jacobsen, son of
David Jacobsen, "is that although our
loved ones are still over there - and
it's a source of pain to us, it's a very
hard burden for us to live with - we do
feel the meeting was very constructive.
"We do feel that President is com-
mitted to getting these men out," Mr.
Jacobsen added. "We feel he does un-
derstand the pressures that are on us."
He said the group had presented a
yellow ribbon to Mr. Reagan "as a
symbol of this American commitment
to get these men back home where they
belong."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807260017-4