No New Iran Arms Planned--Reagan : ‘Not Firing Anybody’ Despite Dissent by Aides Over Policy, President Insists

President Reagan, still on the defensive over the Administration’s secret arms shipments to Iran, said Monday that he has “absolutely no plans” to supply further weapons to Iran and that he is “not firing anybody,” despite continued dissension among his top policy-makers over the controversial arms pipeline.

“We have absolutely no plans to do any such thing,” Reagan told reporters who questioned him about future military supply shipments during a photo session with visiting Argentine President Raul Alfonsin at the White House.

Congressional outrage over Reagan’s covert courting of Iran has prompted the White House to make available national security adviser John M. Poindexter, one of the plan’s architects, for informal questioning by the House and Senate Intelligence committees.

Questioning on Friday

Members of the committees are expected to question Poindexter at the White House on Friday, an unusual event since the national security adviser normally is thought to be exempt from such congressional accounting because of the constitutional separation of powers between the branches of government.

CIA Director William J. Casey has agreed to formally brief both intelligence committees behind closed doors next Monday.

Reagan’s remarks came a day after Secretary of State George P. Shultz said on nationwide television that he opposes further shipments of arms to Iran but that he was unable to speak for the Administration. Shultz’s statement Sunday sparked a new wave of speculation that he might resign over the Iran arms controversy.

No Cause for Dismissal

White House spokesman Larry Speakes said he did not know whether Shultz had discussed with Reagan the possibility of resigning but that the President does not regard Shultz’s apparent efforts to distance himself from the Administration’s Iran policy as cause for his dismissal. “The President does want Secretary Shultz to stay on the job and has no reason to think otherwise,” Speakes told reporters.

State Department spokesman Charles Redman insisted that--despite Shultz’s admission that he does not feel comfortable making public statements about a policy he has disagreed with in private--the State Department remains “the focal point of foreign policy” and Shultz the chief spokesman for the Administration’s foreign policy.

Another Administration official said Shultz is “not a quitter,” adding that he would be surprised if someone with Shultz’s reputation as a good soldier resigned at such a critical time for Reagan.

Shultz Stand on Ransom

Shultz, responding to questions after making a speech on U.S.-Soviet relations at the University of Chicago, said Monday that the U.S. government will “stick to” a policy of refusing to pay ransom for hostages.

“We see, perhaps reinforced as a result of the topic of discussion that has taken place . . . that it is a mistake for a government to get into the business of trading something of genuine importance for hostages,” he said. “If you do that, all you do is encourage the taking of more hostages--you put more Americans at risk.

“That’s the theory,” he said. “I think it is a perfectly good theory and we intend to stick to it.”

Opinion polls show that the majority of the public does not approve of providing weapons to Iran and believes that the arms, supplied as the result of 18 months of secret negotiations, were traded for the release of American hostages in Lebanon.

Reagan has asserted that the arms were provided primarily to cultivate relations with moderate elements of the Iranian government and that release of hostages held by a pro-Iran terrorist group in Lebanon was a secondary objective. Three hostages were released after the operation began.

To Hold News Conference

Reagan has scheduled a televised news conference Wednesday, his first in more than three months, apparently in an effort to bolster his credibility and put to rest the questions that surround the secret arms shipments. Since the President went public last week, top White House officials have been trying to convince a skeptical press and Congress that the course Reagan followed in freeing the hostages did not compromise U.S. policy and principles against negotiating with terrorists.

White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan jokingly referred to the prodigious public relations effort mounted by top officials as “the shovel brigade” because it involved so much cleaning up. Told of Regan’s remark by a reporter, the President conceded, “I’ll be trying to do that Wednesday night when I meet with you.”

In declaring there will be no further arms shipments to Iran, Reagan carefully hedged his remarks to say that there are “no plans to do any such thing”--deliberate phrasing that would allow a change of plans if the situation warranted, according to an Administration official.

‘Glare of Publicity’

“You can’t predict into the indefinite future because no one knows how things might change in Iran in the future,” said the official, who asked not to be identified. He blamed the publicity surrounding the Iranian connection for bringing it to an end. “The glare of publicity has made it virtually impossible, if not impossible, to continue to develop the contacts with Iran,” he said.

The legal basis for Reagan’s unusual action, which bypassed Congress and top officials of his own foreign policy Establishment, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was set forth by a legal opinion delivered orally and not in writing to the President by Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III.

Meese has been involved in the Iran effort “from the outset,” a Justice Department source said. Meese, a member of the National Security Council, based his opinion on research done by the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which serves as the attorney general’s lawyer on such matters.

Speakes said the Iran operation was never discussed in a full, official meeting of the National Security Council, which is why the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other officials were left in the dark.

Times staff writers Sara Fritz and Ronald J. Ostrow contributed to this story.