Reagan Aides Arguing Over Tenor of Speech

WASHINGTON — With the public segment of Congress’ Iran- contra investigation completed, President Reagan’s aides are arguing about whether he should use next week’s expected speech to criticize Congress for a politically motivated inquiry or to take a more conciliatory stance.

Either way, according to White House officials and others, the address is likely to give short shrift to the Iran-contra affair itself and to focus instead on the President’s goals for the remaining 17 months of his term. The aim, they say, will be to shift public attention away from what has become the most damaging period in the Reagan presidency.

‘Different Ideas’

The speech has not been announced and the date has not been determined. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater conceded that “a lot of people have different ideas about what should be in it.”

Conservatives are pressing for Reagan to “take on Congress and the hearing process,” according to sources inside and outside the White House. “Right now that view holds sway,” said a Republican source with ties to the senior White House staff.

But Reagan could be motivated to take a more accommodating stance, this source said, if the White House and Congress should settle their long and bitter quarrel over the size and shape of the controversial fiscal 1988 budget.

For weeks the President has been pointing to the speech whenever he has been asked about contradictions and other potentially embarrassing details that have come up during the televised hearings.

“It’s important, to say the least,” said a senior White House official.

But according to White House officials and others, Reagan is likely to use the address to try to rally the nation around his goals for the remainder of his term, such as congressional approval of additional funding for Nicaragua’s rebels.

He also probably will deliver his view of progress toward an arms control agreement with the Soviet Union and appeal for Senate confirmation of Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court.

As for the Iran-contra affair itself, these sources said, the President is likely to emphasize that any legitimate problems brought to light are being corrected.

Among the possible disclosures is a new approach to consultations with Congress over covert actions. Many members of Congress have complained that the Administration took two major, ill-advised foreign policy actions--the sale of arms to Iran and the diversion of some of the profits to the contras--without consulting them.

In response, senior congressional leaders have been negotiating for several weeks with White House Chief of Staff Howard H. Baker Jr. and National Security Adviser Frank C. Carlucci over such a step.

A former White House staff member said Reagan could turn public attention away from the Iran-contra affair by announcing that he is pardoning the central figures, former National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter and his one-time subordinate, Lt. Col. Oliver L. North.

The former staff member argued that while such a step would bring a firestorm of protest, the criticism would quickly burn out. But he admitted that such a course is unlikely because it would entail great political risk.

The timing and setting of the address remain uncertain. The possibilities include a prime-time televised speech from the Oval Office on Aug. 11 or 12 and a speech delivered to an audience during Reagan’s trip west on Aug. 13 at the start of his annual summer vacation in California.

One senior aide suggested that the timing could depend on the course of Reagan’s recovery from skin-cancer surgery last Friday. The President’s face appeared somewhat puffy Monday; the upper part of his nose was yellow and parts of his cheeks were red as a result of the surgery on the tip of his nose to remove cancerous tissue.

“He’s going to want to get his nose back in shape,” the aide said.

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that among his colleagues, there is “disagreement about how hard a line” the President should take.

The conservatives, he said, want the President to “take on Congress.” They are urging that he “say that while some members wanted to get at the facts, a number were out to get the President.”

But a longtime Reagan adviser said the President should avoid discussing specific details of the scandal.

“When he gives a speech on this subject,” another adviser said, “everything he says gets added to the log of comparisons with what he has said in the past.”