Envoy Sees Arms Scandal Harm

LISBON — Vernon A. Walters, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said today the Iran arms scandal had damaged the standing of the United States abroad and made his job more difficult.

But Walters, in talking to reporters during a stop in a European tour, defended the Reagan Administration’s role in covert arms sales to Iran by saying, “Errors, not crimes, were committed and the U.S. media seem to be flogging a dead horse in trying to keep the affair alive.”