The Times Poll : Iran Pilot ‘More at Fault,’ 6 of 7 Americans Believe

By a margin of 6 to 1, Americans believe that the pilot of the Iranian jetliner was “more at fault” than the skipper of the U.S. warship that shot it down, the Los Angeles Times Poll found.

Most Americans also do not want the U.S. government to pay any reparations to families of the 290 victims, the survey showed.

The public’s strong feeling on the issue seemed to assure that Vice President George Bush struck a receptive chord with voters when he addressed the U.N. Security Council on Thursday to defend the U.S. downing of the Iranian passenger jet on July 3.

The survey, conducted to measure public opinion just before the Democratic National Convention next week in Atlanta, consisted of 2,277 telephone interviews with American adults July 5-10. Included were 1,763 registered voters. The margin of error is 3 percentage points in either direction.

When people were asked who they thought was “more at fault in this incident--the skipper of the American warship or the pilot of the Iranian airplane,” the answers were: pilot, 49%; skipper, 8%; unavoidable accident, 5%; no opinion, 38%.

Bush’s supporters particularly blamed the Iranian pilot, by a margin of 12 to 1. Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis were somewhat more divided, but also faulted the pilot by 4 to 1. So, by 11 to 1, did the “Reagan Democrats”--those Democrats who voted for Republican Ronald Reagan in both the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections but now are supporting Dukakis by a margin of 11 percentage points, according to the survey.

People also were asked how they thought the U.S. government should react to the incident, and their responses indicated that Reagan may have chosen the most unpopular course. The President has decided to offer money--he calls it “compensation,” not “reparations”--to the victims’ families.

The biggest group of people, 35%, said the United States should neither apologize nor pay reparations. Another 21% favored an apology with no reparations. A total of 19% said there should be both an apology and reparations, while the smallest number, 8%, supported the President’s basic idea--no apology, but reparations. A total of 17% had no opinion.