Reagan to Go Back to White House Saturday

WASHINGTON — President Reagan will return to the White House on Saturday from Bethesda Naval Hospital to continue his recuperation from cancer surgery, his spokesman announced today.

Reagan’s doctors gave him the green light to leave the hospital after he makes his weekly radio address from his suite at the military medical center outside Washington, said White House spokesman Larry Speakes.

It will be exactly one week after the President had part of his colon removed because of a cancerous tumor discovered during an examination the day before.

“We’ll make a big to-do of it,” Speakes said of Reagan’s return to the White House.

Normal Recovery

Reagan’s doctors had said from the start that he would spend 7 to 10 days in the hospital if he had a normal recovery from the major abdominal surgery.

Speakes said Reagan will resume his duties almost immediately, welcoming Chinese President Li Xiannian to the White House for a state visit on Tuesday and lobbying members of Congress by telephone in an attempt to break a deadlock on the budget.

The spokesman said the President will return to the Oval Office, where he normally conducts his official business, “in short order,” although he will begin by working out of the residential quarters of the executive mansion.

Talks With Staff

Earlier, Speakes said Reagan “has been holding forth with the doctors and nurses in his suite in an animated discussion of current issues.”

The morning White House medical update said Reagan had a breakfast of fresh papaya, poached eggs, buttered whole wheat toast with honey, coffee and skim milk.

The 74-year-old President, Speakes quoted his physicians as saying, “is fast returning to championship form.”