BUCHANAN ASSAILS MEDIA FOR 'LIBERAL LEFT' AGENDA

White House communications director Patrick J. Buchanan charged yesterday in a Lafayette Park rally that the news media and some members of Congress are not interested in the truth about the Iran arms deal or resolving the crisis but instead are pursuing a "liberal left" agenda bent on destroying President Reagan.

"We are saying to the liberal claque on Capitol Hill: You will not bring this president down," Buchanan told about 250 fellow conservatives at an "America's with Reagan" rally. "The left is not after the truth. The left is after Ronald Reagan."

The noontime rally, organized by the conservative Citizens for America, came as Congress readied formal approval of bipartisan committees to investigate the sale of arms to Iran and the diversion of some of the proceeds to military aid for rebels, also known as contras, fighting the Nicaragua government.

"The agenda of the American left is to exploit this episode, to demoralize the Reagan coalition, to discredit the Reagan presidency and to overturn the Reagan doctrine," Buchanan said. "This whole exercise is rapidly being converted into an extension of the Mondale campaign by other means."

Buchanan attacked the media for "sensational headlines and . . . scavenger hunts." He singled out The Washington Post as "the untethered attack dog of the American left and the bulletin board of the Democratic National Committee."

A senior White House official said Buchanan did not tell others in the White House what he planned to say. President Reagan was not given a copy of the speech in advance, the official said.

The official said Buchanan's remarks "out-Spiro Spiro" Agnew, and that presidential aides were "outraged." White House legislative liaison Will Ball was described as "off the wall" with anger at Buchanan's comments.

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.