Reagan Arrives in Venice for Economic Talks

By JAMES GERSTENZANG and JACK NELSON

June 4, 1987 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writers

VENICE, Italy — President Reagan arrived in Venice on Wednesday night for an upcoming economic summit conference, and his national security adviser said the President will press the allies here “for greater coordination, cooperation and support in the Persian Gulf.”

As Reagan crossed the Atlantic, the subject of the tense waterway through which much of Western Europe’s oil must pass loomed ever larger as a key topic expected during the meeting of the major industrial democracies, which begins Monday.

Overall, Reagan framed the meeting in East-West terms, stating at a departure ceremony at the White House: “Our discussion in Venice will help strengthen Western solidarity, which is indispensable to progress on issues of contention between East and West.”

He also called for revised agricultural policies, stabilized international currency markets and an end to trade imbalances.

For the President, the conference offers an opportunity to test his leadership role in an international setting after seven months of the Iran- contra affair and the erosion that public opinion polls indicate it has brought in his political popularity at home. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Reagan will receive a daily summary of the Iran hearings being conducted by Congress.

Reagan, accompanied by his wife, Nancy, was greeted by Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani, the 79-year-old leader of a caretaker Italian government pending elections June 14. Neither made any public remarks.

The presidential airplane rolled to a halt at Marco Polo Airport at 11:20 p.m. local time, and Reagan stepped out onto a freshly vacuumed red carpet as police in motorboats patrolled a canal barely 100 feet away.

Aboard Air Force One during the transatlantic flight, Frank C. Carlucci, the President’s national security adviser, said Iran’s acquisition of Silkworm missiles from China may force the United States to boost its military capability in the Persian Gulf. Officials said the weapons, which could threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, are not yet operational.

Carlucci said the United States has raised the issue with China, but he refused to elaborate.

Although stating that Reagan will press the allies for support in the Persian Gulf, he added: “The allies are wondering why this has suddenly become in the Congress and in the press such a big political issue. They don’t see it in quite those terms.

“They share our view on the importance of the Persian Gulf, and I think that they would agree that all appropriate actions must be taken to keep it open,” he continued. “Based on the reading I get, they certainly don’t think hostilities are imminent, nor do we.”

But officials held out little hope that the allies would produce much in the way of concrete support.

Still, it was hoped that Japan, prohibited by its postwar constitution from taking part in extensive military operations far from its borders, and West Germany will lend vocal support for the United States’ gulf role, and that more tangible support will be eventually forthcoming from Britain and France, which maintain ships in the region.

The 76-year-old Reagan arrived in Venice well ahead of the other summit participants--Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada, President Francois Mitterrand of France, Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone of Japan, Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany, and Fanfani--to allow him to adjust to the effects of the six-hour time difference between Washington and Italy.

Plans for Reagan to conduct a state visit here before the summit were scrubbed as a result of the Italian election, which takes place two days after the President’s departure.

At the summit, Reagan said in Washington, “Each leader at that table will be asking the same questions:

“How can we help make the next 40 years as prosperous as the last 40? How can we help our people live in a world of even greater opportunities in the next decade and the next century?”

The reference to the post-World War II period is a theme that Reagan had planned to stress during a series of public appearances in Italy that have since been canceled to prevent any implication of interference in Italy’s political process. Officials originally portrayed the beginning of the trip as a period in which he would use the 40th anniversary of the announcement of the Marshall Plan on June 5 to draw attention to the progress made in Western Europe.

The Marshall Plan, devised by the late Secretary of State George C. Marshall, pumped $13 billion into the rebuilding of ravaged Western Europe after the war.

“Our countries should move forward to end unsustainable trade imbalances, reform agricultural policies and restore stability to the international currency markets,” Reagan said before leaving the White House.

But, he added, “the major economic powers of the world must also work to eliminate inequities in the international trade environment to keep markets open and to keep commerce flowing. Economic growth and free markets are everybody’s business.”

The President has no events on his public schedule today. On Friday, he will make a 20-minute speech on a U.S. Information Agency broadcast to Western Europe.

On Saturday, he is flying to Rome for an audience with Pope John Paul II and lunch with Italian President Francesco Cossiga.

Until the start of the summit Monday, Reagan is staying at the Villa Condulmer, named after Marco Condulmer, a 13th-Century Venetian merchant.