Reagan Calls Capture Warning to Terrorists : They Can Run but Not Hide, He Declares

WASHINGTON —  President Reagan declared Friday that the United States’ capture high over the Mediterranean of the hijackers of the cruise ship Achille Lauro had sent terrorists everywhere a message that “you can run, but you can’t hide.”

Appearing somber in the wake of the country’s most successful counterattack against terrorism, Reagan said that the bold steps taken to apprehend the four Palestinian extremists were welcome news to “all civilized peoples.”

At the same time, he offered special thanks to the Italian and Tunisian governments who helped prevent the hijackers’ escape to freedom.

‘Justice Served’

“The pursuit of justice,” he told a news conference in the White House briefing room, “is well served by this cooperative effort to ensure that these terrorists are prosecuted and punished for their crimes.”

The delivery of the terrorists into Italian custody by U.S. Navy warplanes was the Reagan Administration’s first opportunity, after a string of bombings, kidnapings and hijackings, to match its stern anti-terrorist rhetoric with action.

The President refused to hint at what instructions the Navy pilots had when they intercepted an EgyptAir Boeing 737 carrying the terrorists to freedom--particularly on the question of what the United States was prepared to do if the jetliner had ignored the command to follow the fighters to Sicily.

“Were you prepared to shoot the plane down?” Reagan was asked. He replied: “That’s for them to go to bed every night wondering.”

But other Administration officials said that the President had authorized the Navy planes to fire warning shots across the nose of the Egyptian craft if necessary.

Concern Reflected

The Administration’s restrained reaction Friday to its stunning success reflected continuing concern over six American hostages still held in Lebanon and the possibility that the capture of the Achille Lauro pirates would trigger new episodes of anti-American terrorism.

The President made his first comments about the operation as lawyers at the Justice, State and Defense departments prepared to formally request that the terrorists, who held the Italian ship for 51 hours and murdered retired New York businessman Leon Klinghoffer, be extradited to the United States.

Shortly afterward, he called Klinghoffer’s daughters, Lisa Sue Arbittier, 34, and Ilsa Peta Klinghoffer, 28, to express his condolences on their father’s death. The White House said the President told the victim’s family that “he knew that while the operation last night aimed at bringing the hijackers to justice could not relieve their anguish, that they should be extremely proud of their father.”

As the United States pressed ahead with proceedings aimed at bringing the terrorists here for trial on charges of hostage-taking, officials made it clear that the Administration will be content if Italy carries through on its own vow of prosecution.

The extradition request, although being pursued seriously, was said to be aimed at assuring that prosecution will indeed go forward in Italy.

Earlier, Reagan had suggested that the terrorists should receive the death penalty for brutally murdering Klinghoffer, who was partly paralyzed. But on Friday, he said that his interest was solely “to see justice done.” Italy does not have the death penalty, and the U.S. statute on hostage-taking--under which the hijackers would be tried in the United States--provides for a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

And in the wake of sharp U.S. criticism of Egypt for its decision to give the hijackers free passage out of the country, Reagan expressed his thanks to the Cairo government for bringing the crisis to an end without additional loss of life.

Mubarak Questions Avoided

He also carefully avoided questions about whether he thought Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had deliberately lied when he repeatedly insisted that the hijackers had left his country hours before the Egyptian jetliner actually took off for Tunis, Tunisia, the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Reagan told reporters that he hopes that the episode would not cause long-term damage to U.S.-Egyptian relations or to Middle East peace efforts, in which Egypt has played a key role.

Asked whether Cairo’s effort to turn the hijackers over to the the PLO, in the face of adamant U.S. opposition, had angered him, the President replied: “We disagreed, but we have had too firm a relationship between our two countries, and there is too much at stake with regard to peace in the Middle East, for us to let a single incident of one kind or a disagreement of this kind color that relationship.”

Meanwhile, a State Department official, who declined to be identified, told The Times that the United States is convinced that the Egyptian government had not known about Klinghoffer’s murder when Mubarak agreed to grant the terrorists free passage in exchange for giving up the ship and freeing the 511 people aboard.

Reagan gave the final go-ahead for the intercept of the plane carrying the hijackers as he returned to Washington on Thursday from a trip to Chicago, where he delivered a speech on tax revision and later answered questions from high school students.

‘Most Frustrating’

At the time he met with the students, he had been briefed in detail on plans developed to intercept the flight after it entered international airspace. But in response to a question from a student, he said:

“This terrorism, and this thing that is going on in the world, is the most frustrating thing to deal with. You want to say ‘retaliate’ when this is done, ‘get even.’ But then, what do you say when you find out that you’re not quite sure that a retaliation would hit the people who were responsible for the terror and you might be killing innocent people? So you swallow your gorge and you don’t do it.”

National security adviser Robert C. McFarlane said Reagan stayed informed as contingency plans for the interception went forward, asking several times about the status of the planning.

It was still unclear Friday how U.S. intelligence had kept abreast of plans to fly the terrorists out of Egypt, but Administration officials, from Reagan on down, insisted that there had been no secret collaboration between Washington and Cairo.

Indeed, officials said, there had been no contact on the operation with any other government for fear that the word would get back to the Egyptians. “We did this,” Reagan said, “all by our little old selves.”

The President expressed special thanks to Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba on Friday for Tunisia’s refusal to comply with the Egyptian plane’s request to land at the capital of Tunis. A similar request was made to the airport at Athens before the plane complied with the Navy pilots’ demands.

In addition, Reagan said that Italy was crucial in carrying out the capture, and he praised Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, who he said “has been courageous in his insistence that those apprehended shall be subject to full due process of law.”