The Reagan administration said it will make ``no deals'' with Iran after Tehran offered to use its influence to free American hostages in Lebanon if the United States releases Iranian assets frozen in this country. ``I am not willing to make anything that sounds like a deal,'' White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Tuesday, the same day the proposal was aired by Hashemi Rafsanjani, speaker of the Iranian parliament, in a television interview. ``We have heard this kind of thing before, but as far as we are concerned you just can't link the two,'' Fitzwater said. ``No deals.'' Fitzwater said it is ``interesting that there should be this series of statements,'' but ``the clearest signal they could send is to release the hostages.'' In New York, Vernon Walters, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said: ``We have said that we will not make deals on this particular issue. We are very interested in getting them (the hostages) out. And if they want to talk, we will be prepared to talk, but that is a speculative question.'' Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., told reporters Tuesday, ``I don't think we can ignore anything that comes our way. But I think we should reject anything that smacks of ransom or blackmail and this sounds like both.'' State Department officials said Iranian officials had made proposals similar to Rafsanjani's previously and the Reagan administration had rejected them. The officials said they assume Rafsanjani was referring to military equipment which had been purchased by the Iranian government during the reign of the Shah of Iran but had not been delivered. President Carter withheld all such deliveries after the hostage crisis began. Carter also refused to return to Iran military equipment which Iranian authorities had sent back to the United States for repair. The officials said they had no dollar figure on the military equipment on which Iran has a claim.
