IRAN-CONTRA REPORT WON'T TELL WHOLE STORY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP89T00142R000700920001-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 8, 2011
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 5, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Iran-Contra Iteport
Won't Tell Whole Story
Probers Recount Flaws in Their Investigation
By Walter Pincus
and Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writers
The congressional Iran-contra
committees, which launched their
inquiry 11 months ago promising to
get to the bottom of the scandal,
are scheduled to vote today on a
final report of their investigation
that some members and top staff
attorneys say records their failure
to uncover the complete story.
The critics in . the committees
said mistakes by the House and
Senate panels-primarily the self-
imposed deadlines that encouraged
delaying tactics by the White House
and assisted lawyers representing
such key witnesses as Marine Lt.
Col. Oliver L. North-helped to
hem in the probe and discourage
investigators from following some
important leads bearing on the Rea-
gan administration's worst crisis.
In hindsight, they said in recent
interviews, the problems included
their own rush to open nationally
televised public hearings, the initial
choice of witnesses who quickly
outmaneuvered the committees'
interrogators, foot-dragging by ex-
ecutive branch agencies in provid-
ing key documents and failure to
question a number of witnesses.
They also faulted the desire of
many panel members to quickly end
the inquiry in the wake of North's
performance and Rear Adm. John
M. Poindexter's assertion that
President Reagan had not known of
the diversion of funds from the Iran
arms sales to the Nicaraguan con-
tras.
"We blew it," a top committee
counsel said recently, "At then point,
it's up to independent counsel
Lawrence E.J Walsh to find out
what really happened."
Most members acknowledge that
the committees did not get the
complete story, but they also agree
with Senate committee Chairman
Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) who
said recently, "We went as far as
any committee could ... as human-
ly possible considering the time re-
straints ... shredded papers and
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than 20 members and committee
investigators over the past several
weeks point to additional factors
that inhibited the inquiry, including:
? Unresolved disagreements over
how to run it. For example, the
Senate panel turned down a Sep-
tember proposal by House Demo-
crats, including Chairman Lee H.
Hamilton (D-Ind.), to send written
questions to Reagan about his
knowledge and role in the affair.
Instead, according to Inouye, the
White House was told "if the pres-
ident had a desire to appear, we
would accommodate him." Reagan
never expressed such a desire, and
members said last week they do not
expect one.
^ The committees, by not subpoe-
naing government documents, left
the White House and other agencies
free to turn over documents at their
own pace, without fear of legal ac-
tion. One experienced staff inves-
tigator said the committees "started
off all wrong because they set a
timetable, when the hearings would
start in public and when the whole
investigation was over. This was an
in provt r e ma rta ..~saytsu
t oug the ute ouse pro-
vided thousands of documents in
response to panel request, key
records often arrived late in the
process. Investigators now any they
often found themselves buried un-
der irrelevant material, with impor-
tant papers arriving just before or
after the appearance of pertinent
witnesses.
^ The deal negotiated to gain the
public testimony of fired National
Security Council staff aide North
Proved harmful, particularly the
lack of time allowed to study almost
2,000 pages of his cryptic daily
notes before his appearance. Just as
damaging to the overall inquiry was
the refusal by North's lawyer,
The New York Times
The Washington Times
?he Wall Street Journal
The Christian Science Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today
The Chicago Tribune
Date -6 Pro _! BT.
Brendan V. Sullivan Jr., to permit
his client to be reinterviewed to get
the meaning of notebook entries not
covered in his public testimony, the
committees' internal critics said.
? Misjudgments were made about
some key witnesses. The two pan.
els opened the hearings with retired
Air Force major general Richard V.
Secord, who had been questioned
for a single day and not under oath.
Committee lawyers mistakenly
thought the public would not credit
Secord's story. They also were told
by the independent counsel's staff
that North's deputy, Marine Lt.
Col. Robert L. Earl, would be a key
witness because he had been grant-
ed immunity by the special counsel.
Instead, Earl was never even heard
in public after he testified in closed
sessions that he could not even re-
call the meaning of his own notes
written just months earlier.
^ A supposedly key witness devel-
oped by the House, former National
Security Council aide James Rad-
zinski, was held back from a sched-
uled public appearance when Senate
lawyers questioned the reliability of
his statements. He was to testify
that he had seen other White House
documents referring to a diversion
of Iranian arms sales funds to aid
the contras fighting the govern.
ment of Nicaragua.
^ The inability to break through
what investigators consider the
cover-up of key parts of the story
stemmed in part from their agree-
ment to allow White House or agen-
cy lawyers to sit in on all interviews
and have copies of depositions. This
meant that the investigators lost
the element of surprise from one
witness to the next, since the ad-
ministration lawyers who sat in on
the panels' interviews could warn
upcoming witnesses of what had
already transpired.
? The House and Senate commit.
tees did not explore the failure of
Congress itself to aggressively pur-
sue oversight of covert activities,
especially after the cutoff of funds
to the contras in 1984.
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a Inv_esti ation of CIA participation
in the Iran-contra a fair was Iiimite
by_intellig_ence commmittee_me m ers
on the House-senate ane7, _partic-
ullaar_lySe_nate select me igence-
o~ mm tee tF airman aviBoren c a.. 1n orma iontfiat
developed a e in e roves lga ion
was not pursued with witnesses
who had already testfied.
The investigation hac nncov red
new evidence that the CIA knew all
along of the secret air resupply of
t e contras con uc e y or an
Secord, ]and Dr uce t Rhmnny
and information showing that the
C assist every ig a agen-
cy supplied flight information and
mechanics for aircraft repairs and
did internal intelligence reports on
the missions, according to one com-
mittee investigator.
"The whole mission of the agency
was perverted," one committee in-
vestigator said, adding that the re-
port should show that Casey and his
deputy, Robert M. Gates, were less
than candid in their testimony last
year before the House and Senate
intelligence committees.
One of the severest critics of the
Iran-contra investigation is Boren,
who, during the North testimony,
publicly criticized the staff's ques-
tioning. On a scale of 0 to 10, he
said he would give the committee a
5 because there are many unan-
swered questions.
"Where did it start?" Boren asked
in an interview. "Did Iran want
weapons? Did people want to make
money? Did it start with the Is-
raelis? Was it Casey? Was it to get
money for the contras?
"Was it North who drew in
Casey, or Casey who drew in
North? What was the arms dealers'
role?"
Boren added, "We didn't get final
answers to a lot of the questions."
However, it was Boren who
talked the committees out of calling
Gates to testify in public. And dur-
ing a key closed-door questioning of
Gates by staff lawyers last July 31,
Boren intervened and publicly up-
braided the lawyer asking questions
which "all but effectively ended the
usefulness of the session," accord.
ing to one of those present.
A Senate aide said later that
Boren's outburst occurred because
he believed he had not been in-
formed of the session, and that he
later apologized to the staff when
he realized his office had been no-
tified.
The committees' 600-page re-
port, to be released Nov. 16, in-
cludes a summary with conclusions
and recommendations and chapters
that trace the committees' version
of what occurred. It has been ex-
tensively rewritten amid disagree.
ments between Democrats and Re-
publicans and House and Senate
members.
According to sources, the report
will contain no dramatic new infor-
mation about the covert operations
that became public a year ago and
gripped the White House and the
nation for the next nine months.
The section dealing with the CIA
will
avoid some key issues Said a
committee rusoommit~ e, "It does not face
the real issue of where Con ress
was eceiv a w ere t ev were
deceived willingly,"
Sen. William S. Cohen (R-Maine),
a panel member and of the Senate intelliegence mmit
tee, agreed. "What Congress has
not done is admitted its own re-
sponsibility. We have been anxious
to fix blame but not accept it ... .
We refused to accept the conse-
quences of terminating aid to the
contras [in 1984]."
Cohen gave "low marks" to Con-
gress for what he said was its own
failure, as well as the failure of in-
telligence oversight committees, to
see the real purpose of the contra
operation and more fully explore
how the contras were obtaining
money.
But Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-
N.H.), vice chairman of the Senate
panel, said the twin goals of finding
out what the president knew of the
diversion and what happened to the
money "were accomplished," and
the contradictions that emerged
among witnesses "are not essential
to the story."
Committee member Sen. George
J. Mitchell (D-Maine), however,
said the committees did not get the
full story. He said one reason was
that "not all the witnesses were
truthful." Mitchell, however, be-
lieves the inquiry is only at "midpas-
sage .... It won't be a dead issue
after [independent counsel] Walsh
takes action."
Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-II1.) said
the inquiry never determined how
the Reagan administration initially
got involved, but that "on balance,"
the hearings were "useful, impor-
tant ... [and] remarkably compre-
hensive."
Nonetheless, he said he saw the
hearings as having been political.
"Underlaying this is a political
struggle. Ronald Reagan was un-
assailable until" the Iran-contra af-
fair.
Though the hearings shaved the
president was intimately involved in
every step of the secret arms sales
to Iran and also advocated and kept
aware of the Private support for the
contras, many members of the com-
mittees said in interviews they op-
Posed as useless a move by a ma-
jority of the House panel's Demo-
crats to pose written questions to
the president.
Mitchell said "interrogatories
would not have made any sense
? . We could not accomplish by
written questions and answers what
can be better done directly, and no-
body could conceive
questions." his answering
Cohen said, "Unless the president
was subjected to cros"xamination,
it would be unproductive ... a
waste of time," a sentiment echoed
by other opponents of the move.
Inouye said it was "not appropriate
to subpoena the President or vice
Pr"deat" and his committee fur-
ther agreed it would not "request or
write the president to appear."
While most committee members
,pry the White House coopers.
tion, many staff workers said `a
"gentlemen's agreement," by Hduse
majority chief counsel John W.
Nields Jr. and Senate chief counsel
Arthur L. Liman not to subpoena
government documents sent the
wrong message to the administra-
tion:
The White House did not release
Poindexter's telephone logs and dai-
ly diaries to the committees-or to
Poindexter-until after his closed
depositions had taken place. Some
members did not see them until the
admiral was on the stand.
Mitchell, designated to be a lead
questioner of North, who preceded
the admiral as a public witness, said
he could have used the Poindexter
materials to prepare for questioning
North.
Although it arrived while he w
as
on the stand, the Poindexter mate-
rial, sources pointed out, eventually
enabled Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and
Rep. Peter W. Rodino Jr. (D-NJ.) to
highlight a key, Nov. 22, 1986,
?-p ter UK kere
the two were joined b North and
interrupted _byaR~ an ne caU
On that morning ustcce part-
ment officials had discovered the
"diversion" document among
North's office records and prepared
for the interview the next day that
would precipitate North's firing and
Poind
'- --
exter
a?L
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But the committees never asked SubsequenT-drafts became less
North about the luncheon because and less truthful, but the panels
they did not know of it when he was have not established who changed
before them. the drafts. Gates told the intelli-
A similar problem developed with gence committee last year he su-
meeting notes of former White pervised the original preparation of
House chief of staff Donald T. Casey's testimon Y.
Regan held by the White House.
The panels especially sought 15 The "gentlemen's approach" also
pages of Regan handwritten notes was reflected in a decision not to
of an important Nov. 10, 1986, take depositions from Peter J. Wal-
White House meeting when the lison, Reagan's White House coun-
president and his top national se- sel ' during the Iran-contra affair,
curity advisers discussed what to do who handled White House staff doc-
about disclosure of the secret Iran uments after the first stories of the
arms-for-hostages dealings. The arms sales were published, and
notes finally arrived the morning of Thomas C. Green, Secord's attor-
Regan's appearance, which sources ney, who also received substantial
said explained why they got only payments from Swiss bank accounts
limited attention. controlled by Secord, North and
Other Regan notes arrived well Albert A. Hakim. Green said this
after the public hearings had ended. week these were all legitimate legal
Inouye acknowledged the delay, but fees; committee staff members said
added that the notes "didn't make they have been told at least one
much difference ... even if they payment was a finders' fee in an
intentionally withheld them. On the arms sale.
whole," he said, "delivery was in a The committees' deadline prob-
timely fashion." lems were used by Brendan Sul-
When there were problems, he livan, North's lawyer, to get them
said, "I believed (White House chief to agree to limit their closed-door
of staff Howard H.] Baker-when he questioning of North and not call
called and said, 'We had just located him back after his public appear.
this.' " ance.
There also were delays in ttin Some key committee members
materials from the CIA and Federal opposed the deal, wanting instead
Bureau of Investigation, committee to press a contempt of Congress
sources said. _ -~ action to get North on the commit-
One chief investigator said the tees' terms. But the House and
panels' r uests for CIA documents Senate leaders, fearing a split,
were i rom maf eriT in "fide' agreed to most of Sullivan's terms.
ajg
agency s electronic in -ex. very- North's 21 notebooks were de-
one knows ? he said "that anything livered the day before his. closed-
se~sitive is not in the electronic door appearance, only a week be.
index." fore his dramatic public hearings
He similarly questioned the com- began. There was little time to stu-
pleteness of a list of meetings at- dy the notebooks and relate them to
tended by Casey supplied to the other materials.
panels from an agency computer.
ystP[ ery also surrounds Casey's
sworn testimony to House and Sen-
ate intelligence committees on Nov.
21,1 asey testified that a CIA
proprietary was involved in ship-
ping_ unknown _equipment to Iran in
November 1985, but failed to dis-
c1d's-e-that e House and agency
officials new cargo was Hawk
antiaircT' missi Pa.
Sources said committee investi-
gators have established dial tth-e
first version of Casey's testimony,
prepared in the CIA Nov. 18, de-
scribed the cargo accurately.
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