Scandal Won’t Mar Legacy of Reagan, First Lady Says

Nancy Reagan, in rare public comments on the Iran- contra scandal, said today that “you hate to have people out there doing things you don’t know about.”

The First Lady was speaking with reporters on a flight from Italy to Stockholm, where she is spending two days studying efforts to fight drug abuse while her husband attends the summit of industrial democracies in Venice.

In response to questions aboard her Air Force flight, Mrs. Reagan said she did not believe the Iran-contra scandal would diminish her husband’s legacy.

“I don’t think so, (but) it certainly is too bad it happened,” she said. “You hate to have people out there doing things you don’t know about.”

Asked what the President thinks of the Iran-contra scandal, she said, “(He) and I both feel exactly the same, which I am not saying.”

In response to a reporter’s comment that much of the money related to the scandal appeared to involve Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, Mrs. Reagan said, “It certainly looks that way.”

The First Lady said she had not followed the Iran hearings.

“I have better things to do,” she said.

In Stockholm, Mrs. Reagan was cheered at an anti-drug concert when she took the stage, but she was booed as she left the hall by about 200 protesters angry over the President’s policies in Central America.

The First Lady, who will meet Queen Silvia and the widow of assassinated Prime Minister Olof Palme on her visit to the Swedish capital, spoke briefly at the charity concert given by Artists Against Narcotics.

It was the first trip to Sweden by Mrs. Reagan, who has taken her anti-drug crusade to seven other foreign countries and 61 U.S. cities, and the first by an American First Lady.

Foreign Ministry officials referred to the sojourn as a “visit” without any official stamp, noting, “Mrs. Reagan was not invited. She asked to come and we complied.”