Arnold I. Burns, a top Justice Department official under President Ronald Reagan who resigned in protest of what he and others viewed as improper acts by Attorney General Edwin Meese III, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 83.

The cause was cardiac arrest and complications of Parkinson’s disease, said his son, Douglas.

Mr. Burns, a New York lawyer who had no experience as a prosecutor, enjoyed a rapid rise in government in the 1980s. He was named associate attorney general in late 1985 after Mr. Meese’s first choice was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and was then promoted to the second-ranking spot, deputy attorney general, in July 1986.

Yet as Mr. Burns rose, Mr. Meese, whom he had known through charity and corporate relationships, was coming under scrutiny over his handling of the Iran-contra arms-for-hostages scandal, a proposal for a $1 billion Iraqi oil pipeline supported by a friend, and benefits that he and his family received from people seeking government contracts.

By early 1987, a special prosecutor had been appointed to investigate Mr. Meese and morale at the Justice Department had plummeted, Mr. Burns later told Congress. Its work, he said, had become “impeded by a deep malaise that was setting in by virtue of Mr. Meese’s problems and the public outcry for his resignation.”