White House Diaries

Thursday, June 20, 1985

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Awakened by a 6 A.M. phone call. In San Salvador guerillas opened fire on an outdoor cafe killing 15 & wounding 13. Of the 15, 2 were Am. business men & 4 off duty Marines from our embassy guard. They were in civilian clothes & unarmed. We called a Security planning session to take up this & our hostages in Beirut. We finally settled on availing ourselves of the generous proposal by Algeria to ask that the hostages be turned over to them—a face saver for Nabbih Berri. Algeria wants us to find out what Israel would do with the 766 Shiites if there were no hostages left in Lebanon. We would then give the answer to that question to the Algerians who would use it in dealing with Nabbih. In the meantime the Israelis are not being helpful. They have gone public with the statement that they would release their prisoners if we asked them to. Well we cant do that because then we would be rewarding the terrorists & encouraging more terrorism.

A brief happy interlude on the S. Lawn with 141 national winners as high school scholars from every state, Puerto Rico etc. They were wonderful young people—many of their parents were with them also teachers.

Another happy time in the Rose Garden—presenting the Medal of freedom to Mother Teresa.

Admin. time included photos with Alexandra Hay Pres. of the international committee of the Red Cross. Another with Burton Barr—a legislator from Ariz.—we’re trying to get him to run for Gov. Ray Charles came in with representatives of Nat. Org. on disability. I presented a Commendation Certificate to Willard Scott (T.V. Weatherman) who goes out of his way to encourage pvt. sector volunteerism. Then some farewell photos—agents etc. Home & Mother.