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REGGIE CALLED

JFK EMISSARY

Sounding Arabs on Pales-
tine Letters, Is Claim

BEIRUT (AP) — Arab newspapers insisted last week that city Judge Edmund M. Reggis of Crowley, La., was sounding out Arab reactions to overtures of the Kennedy administration cn Palestine.

Reporting on Reggie's current visit to Lebanon, the daily Al Jarida said June 13 that Reggie is collecting the reactions of Arab leaders to the American President's recent letters to Middle Eastern chiefs of state.

Reggie has had interviews with

Lebanese President Fuad Chehab, Finance Minister Pierre Gemayel, chief of the Phalange party, and Msgr. Paul Mcouchi, patriarch of the Maronite church here.

The Louisiana judge himself has told reporters he is here only "to make contacts and exchange ideas" with others in the legal

profession.

But the Lebanese press, noting he was a backer of Kennedy in the 1960 campaign in Louisiana describes him as a presidential emissary.

They link his visit to widespread reports that Kennedy has contacted Arab leaders in an effort to smooth out the Arab - Israeli feud over Palestine and its refugees.

He told Al Jarida in an interview. however, that "my basic wish for Lebanon is that this country's communities should all unite and co-operate for the sake of one cause—the cause of Lebanon."

Judge Reggie, whose mother and father both came from Lebanon, also is visiting Amman, Jidda, Damascus and Cairo in con-

(cultural with the state department cultural exchange program.   .,