Reagan Liked Idea, Not Result of Contra Case

President Reagan said he approves of the motives of officials who orchestrated the Iran- contra arms deal but regrets how the scheme turned out.

“I can understand why they did what they did and what their motives were, and certainly they weren’t bad motives,” Reagan said in an interview with Time magazine. “And I’m just sorry that it turned out that way.”

The 40-minute interview was conducted in the White House just before Reagan addressed the nation Wednesday night on the Iran-contra affair.

“Probably the biggest lesson we can draw” from the congressional hearings on the affair, he said, “is that the executive and legislative branches of government need to regain trust in each other.”

The President said the mistrust had resulted in “lies, leaks, divisions and mistakes.”

But he was somewhat skeptical of the value of the hearings and spoke of a longstanding “friction” between the two branches of government that he said Congress has used to try “to erode the powers of the presidency.”

Reagan’s comments appeared in the Aug. 24 issue of Time. The President discussed other issues, and remarks that did not appear in the magazine were included in a transcript of the interview provided to the New York Times and reported in today’s editions of the newspaper.

Reagan admitted he knew even before he was first elected President that his economic policies would not produce a balanced budget, the newspaper said.

Reagan campaigned in 1980 on a platform of increased defense spending that he said could be financed by increased revenues from an economy spurred by lower taxes.

But a group of economists told Reagan before the election that the economy had deteriorated so much “that no, there was no way that we were going to, in a few years, be able to balance the budget.”

“But we put the plan into effect anyway, aimed at whenever it can happen,” Reagan said.