Who Will Believe Him?

President Reagan tried Wednesday night to get himself out of his Iranian quagmire. He only got in deeper.

His opening statement at his press conference, that he took full responsibility for the decision to sell arms to the Iranians, was a straightforward and indeed admirable acknowledgment that the buck stopped there.

But under questioning the President slipped and slid between truth and half-truth and falsehood, and at the end he left the impression, even stronger than he had done in his speech last Thursday, that on this issue he is a man not to be believed.

When candor was his only hope of restoring confidence for his reputation for square dealing, he split hairs. His expression of puzzlement, if not amazement, at the Americans’ condoning of arms shipments to Iran by Israel, a crucial element in the deal, defied belief and insulted his audience. His pretending that the only arms sold were a few “defensive” weapons sent directly from the United States contradicted the statements of his own chief of staff, among others.

Although he affected, as before, to cloak the operation under certain geopolitical imperatives, which to be sure are not without merit, it was clear, as you listened to him, that getting the hostages out was his priority. Just as clear, through the tangled explanations, was that he had authorized the trade of arms for hostages.

Never mind the effect on the reputation of the United States, never mind the effect on the allies, on the moderate Arab states, most of all on future American hostages; the hostages of the moment were the thing.

The President’s assertion of his right to do what he did was muddled, and highly dubious, but that is a question to be examined by Congress.

The greater question is the wisdom of what he did. He supplied his own answer by promising not to do it anymore. But who now will believe him?