White House Says Bush Did Object to Iran Sale : Asserts He Backed Policy, Moves to Reconcile His Statements With One Made by President

The White House, moving Friday to reconcile an apparent discrepancy between the statements of President Reagan and Vice President George Bush on a sensitive aspect of the Iran- contra affair, said Friday that the vice president did express reservations last year about the plan to sell arms to Iran, although he eventually supported the policy.

At his press conference Thursday, Reagan replied “no” when asked by a reporter whether the vice president objected to the Iran operation.

But Friday, the President’s spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater, retreated from that flat statement.

Fitzwater, in an interview, said that Reagan told him “the vice president had expressed reservations (at the time) but he supported the policy and decision.”

The President’s recollections on that point are significant because Bush’s position during the development of the Iran operation has become a sensitive issue in Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign.

In campaign appearances and interviews, Bush has distanced himself from the wisdom of the ill-fated plan, which triggered an international controversy that has shaken the Reagan presidency. But he has emphasized that he did support Reagan and his policy of seeking improved relations with Iran.

Fitzwater provided Reagan’s expanded recollection on the matter after the President and Bush conferred at a regularly scheduled meeting Friday morning. Fitzwater said that in the Reagan-Bush conversation the subject of the vice president’s advice last year on the Iran plan “came up briefly.”

No Conflict Seen

But Fitzwater asserted that he saw no conflict between Reagan’s original remark at the press conference and Bush’s statements on his position.

At a news conference in Lansing, Mich., a month ago, Bush appeared to be asserting a measure of independence from the White House while at the same time taking care not to open a clear gap with the President. He said:

“The key players around there know that I express certain reservations on certain aspects, but I also see some things in the media that I know not to be true in terms of my role.” He has also echoed Reagan’s admission that parts of the plan were a “mistake.”

The President Friday gave Bush a vote of confidence, when he was asked by a reporter at a photo session whether he was satisfied with the advice he received from the vice president.

“Always have been,” the President replied.

Later Friday, Bush, encountering reporters in a White House corridor, said of the President’s press conference remark: “What he said was exactly the truth.”

The uncertain political position in which the vice president finds himself as a result of the President’s news conference remark was highlighted by Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and Rep. Dick Cheney (R-Wyo.), vice chairman of the House committee investigating the Iran-contra affair.

“The vice president had not said in the past where he made his reservations known and the President indicated they had not been known to him,” Nunn said. “That did not mean he (Bush) had not made reservations known somewhere else.”

‘A Difficult Position’

“So I think Vice President Bush probably is going to have to speak to the subject again,” Nunn said in an interview on the “Today” show on NBC-TV.

Cheney, appearing on the same program, said that “the vice president is always in a very difficult position, in any circumstances, even without this controversy. If he challenges the President in policy meetings, disagrees with him, he’s viewed as being disloyal. I don’t think this is any different for Vice President Bush.”

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, a likely rival of Bush for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, said he was uncertain about the meaning of the President’s one-word response to the news conference question and that he believed Bush’s assertion that he had expressed reservations.

“I’m not sure that when the President was answering the question (that) he wasn’t saying: ‘No, . . . no more questions,’ ” the senator said in Nashua, N.H. “In any event, as far as I’m concerned, the vice president’s word is good enough for me.”