Bush On Call if President Needs Him : Hasn’t Visited, Says: ‘Don’t Know That My Presence Is Required’

WASHINGTON —  Vice President George Bush said today that he will stick close to home and keep his schedule clear to help lend a hand to the White House until President Reagan is fully recovered from cancer surgery.

Bush also said he has made no plans yet to visit Reagan at the hospital.

“I am not going to go until the doctors and the family think it’s the prudent thing to do. . . . I don’t know that my presence is required,” he said.

Reagan’s visitors this morning, as on Monday, included the First Lady and White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan.

‘Darn Good Job’

Bush said Regan is “doing a darn good job running the White House” while the President is hospitalized.

“That’s his job,” Bush said. “He is the chief of staff, and I think he’s doing an excellent job.”

During a brief picture-taking session in his office, Bush told reporters that Reagan is “doing fine” and said “a collective sigh of relief around the world” was heard when the outcome of his surgery was announced.

“Life goes on,” Bush said, a phrase he repeated twice more in the conversation. “And I think the news is so encouraging that it’s really going to slip back just as if the President were off on vacation somewhere.”

Vice President On Call

With Reagan facing perhaps another week’s stay in Bethesda Naval Hospital after the surgical removal of a cancerous intestinal growth, Bush was on call--ready to fill in and careful to not appear too eager for the limelight.

Today, he skipped a planned political fund-raising trip to Missouri and Ohio. He met with retired Adm. James Holloway, director of the new task force on terrorism ordered in the aftermath of the hostage crisis in Lebanon, and Japanese Trade Minister Keijiro Murata.

The vice president also kept a weekly appointment with Senate Republicans at their regular Tuesday policy luncheon.