Two-Thirds See Cover-up on Iran Deal, Poll Finds

A majority of Americans do not believe President Reagan’s denials about a key fact of the U.S. arms deal with Iran and say the growing controversy is as serious as the Watergate scandal, a CBS News-New York Times poll said Monday.

Fifty-three percent of the people questioned in the poll Sunday said they believed that Reagan knew that money from the arms sales was going to contras forces in Nicaragua, despite Reagan’s statements that he had not been informed.

Two-thirds of those questioned said the Administration is engaged in a cover-up of the scandal. The scandal has driven Reagan’s overall job rating down to the lowest point since 1983 and propelled the public’s negative judgment of his foreign policy work to the highest point of his presidency.

A total of 687 adults were interviewed by telephone nationwide on Sunday, after the revelations at the White House on Nov. 25 that arms sales to Iran had been the source for up to $30 million for the Nicaraguan rebels.

Meanwhile, the Harris Poll, released Monday, also showed that Americans’ confidence in the President fell sharply in the wake of the Iranian arms deal, even before the revelation that money from the deal was used to fund the contras.

The Harris Poll said the public’s job rating of Reagan declined in the first three weeks of November, although not as sharply as the confidence figure.