NEW LAWS FOR CIA OPPOSED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP89T00142R000700920004-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 8, 2011
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: November 21, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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WVASHINC~I'ON POST, 21 November 87
1 LOTH YEAK No. 351
New Laws
For CIA
No Need for Senate
To Confirm Inspector,
Webster Tells Panel
By Bob Woodward
and Walter Pincus
11 po~P d& Bruns
CIA Director William H. Webster
said yesterday Ina closed hearing of
the Senate Select Committee. on In-
telligence that. the, Reagan ; admin-
istration opposes new legislation.
the Central fnt lligence;Agency in
the wake q lie Ir n-c n a eBalr1
according tIh two informed, sources.
-'Webster told the committee the
he `seta no need for teE
would require :Senate'.
of appointees to'the P
spector nerat,-'T
s--=-- T=
thetid,
rleaSed
e
nesday. ,_
tra report said 1Ae .I
legations of misdeeds by Agency
"a0rstO' lad
the
ity"4
`iogcea4a7
-&A Webster told the committee
that a legislation is unnecessary
because"his internal review would
result in needed personnel and pol-
icy , changes. He promise to
strengthen the inspector 'jed rat's
ante,+?but said he first wanted to
g a report on CIA's role in
miner, -whose report i -
to be completed in four or
Dur* s
W 6
a,+4lUanr
*01110 68 SaBott.
farad io~aa ~rould mandate,
without. exception,,
congressional ititelligll himlt-
tees at least within 48 hours after
initiatipn The Iran-contra report
also endorsed this approach.
President Reagan said in a letter
Aug. 7 that. he would notify Con-
gress of covert activities within 48
hours In all but the most exception-
al circiunstances." Key members of
the Senate ,and House intelligence
committees- have criticized the
president's ,position
The question of notification was a
central issue `in `the Iran-contra af-
fair because. the Iran;: arms sales
were carried outs part of a covert
action finding that was not reported
to Congress for at least 10 months
last year.
Yesterday's closed bearing dealt'
exclusively with legislative matters
that are unclassified, the kind of
testimony usually made in a public
session, the sources said. One sen-
ator on the committee said yester-
day that "too much goes on covertly
and in closed hearings. It shouldn't.
No one had thought about it."
A CIA spokesman declined com-
Enent, saying the committee had to
release any information. A commit-
tee spokesman, David Holliday, said
the CIA could release Webster's
prepared remarks if it wanted to.
The congressional Iran-contra
report recommended that new laws
be passed requiring that both the
inspector general and the CIA gen-
eral counsel be confirmed by the
Senate. Senate confirmation would
give the two key officials more in-
dependence and more control over
their investigations. '
The Iran-contra congressional
committees found that CIA field
operatives repeatedly lied to the
CIA inspector general during his
various inquiries into allegations
that the agency secretly assisted
the Nicaraguan contras. A number
of sources said that the inspector
general is considered a pawn of sen-
ior CIA management and held in
low esteem.
Webster told the committee yes-
terday that when he took over as
FBI director in 1977 he was able to
handle problems of misconduct in-
ternally and believed he could do
the same at the CIA. He became
CIA director on May 26, succeeding
the late William J. Casey.
In recent years, the CIA inspec-
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.,,A8 SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1987 ? ? ? R ;
CIA's Webster Opposes
New Check on Agency
tor general position has not had the
status it did 25 years ago, according
to agency veterans. There have
been four inspectors general since
1981, when Casey became director
and Reagan took office.
Congressional investigators cited
two examples where the inspector
general's office failed to uncover
key facts. In 1986, allegations sur-
faced that CIA officers based at a
contra camp in Honduras arranged
a resupply of arms to the contras
using CIA helicopters, an activity
prohibited by U.S. law.
In early 1987, these officers lied
to committee investigators when
questioned about their operations,
according to congressional sources.
In April, however, at about the
same time that the congressional
investigators were able to prove the
helicopter flights had taken place,
the CIA's inspector general in-
formed the committees that one of
the individuals involved had come
forward and confessed, the sources
said.
The inspector general, however,
did his inquiry and his report was
made available to the committees.
"He determined that it was a case
of boys-will-be-boys," one congres-
sional source said, characterizing
the report as finding that delivering
arms to the contras "was only vio-
lating regulations ... can't be
proven as a violation of laws be-
cause there was no criminal intent,
and besides, we want energetic
people that take initiatives."
The second example came after a
cargo plane carrying arms to the
contras was shot down over Nica-
ragua on Oct. 5, 1986. The CIA's
WILLIAM H. WEBSTER
... sees no need for CIA legislation,
inspector general opened an inquiry
after the agency was linked to the
flight by material at the site and,
comments by Eugene Hasenfus,
only surviving crew member.
CIA officials, including Thomas
Castillo, the agency's station chief
in Costa Rica, lied to the inspector
general about his role when ques-
tioned as part of the investigation.
He also told a false story to the Sen-
ate intelligence committee.
Castillo changed his story-ad-
mitting that he aided the resupply
network-after theme staff of the
Tower review board confronted
him with records maintained by for-
mer National Security Council aide
Marine Lt. Col Oliver L. North. The
documents identified ..Castillo as
part of the team that assisted the
Hasenfus plane.
The CIA inspector general then
had to reopen his inquiry into agen-
cy Central American covert oper-
ations. The CIA's acting director,
Robert M. Gates, took the unusual
step of saying that those who had
lied earlier could come forward to
tell the truth.
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WASHINGTON POST .
24 November 1987
Iran Panels
Mhimiwd
FBI1 CIA Role
Ldp Officials Weren't
Questioned in Detail
By Walter Pincus
Naaao Post sae wdtff
Despite new evidence presented
in their final report of questionable
CIA and FBI involvement in . the
;Iran-contra affair, the congressional
panels investigating the. scandal de-
cided not to make a major issue of
the activities and declined to sub-
ject senior officials of either agency
to detailed questioning. ,
Committee leaders had tentative-
ly planned to call as public wit-
nesses Central Intelligence Agency:
Director William H. Webster, who
headed the Federal Bureau of In-
vestigation during the Iran-contra
affair, and Deputy. CIA Director
Robert M. Gates, No. 2 man during
most of 1986 under the late Direc-
tor William J. Casey. But neither
appeared.
Webster was never even deposed
by the committees, according to
committee sources, although he and
his agents played a key role last
year in the initial investigation of
the secret Ina arms sales and were
linked to former White House aide
Lt. Col. Oliver L. North in other
earlier activities involving U.S mil-
itary support for the Nicaraguan
contras at a time when such support
was barred by Congress.
Gates was deposed for only two
hours by the committee staff and-
"trumpeted his lack of knowledge
of the Iran-contra affair, according
to one committee investigator who
was present. Gates had earlier ap-
peared before the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence during.
its preliminary inquiry last Decem-
ber into the 1canidah a testified
before the TT er zq0prbou ear-
Onei~o+ue iI p m~e:for spe-
,tment for the two agencies
bosses came from Senate
louse intelligence committee
ra-particularly Senate
WILLIAM H. WEBSTER ROBERT M. GATES
... was never deposed ... "trumpeted his lack of knowledge"
inquiry to be limited their own pan-
els, according to sources who asked
ngttp be identified.
openly argued against call-
ing.. in public and later raised
questions about the approach taken
by ,committee lawyers in Gates'
closed-door deposition, according to
committee sources. Boren sup-
ported Gates in his unsuccessful
effort to. be CIA director and has
saidJbe expects Gates to remain as
No. 2 under Webster.
Boren has said that Gates had
already been -questioned at length
about his role in the Iran-contra
affair.
"There also was not time to go
into what some members felt were
peripheral issues" inovolving FBI
and CIA performance, one top in-
vestigator said.
However, a special chapter in the
committees' report discusses al-
leged National Security Council
staff interventions in criminal pros-
ecutions, including several incidents
involving North and FBI officials,
but never mentions Webster.
The report also has a chapter
describing privately funded covert
operations, including one in 1985
and 1986 to ransom U.S. hostages
using personnel from the Drug En-
forcement Administration, under
North's direction, financed in part
by'money from, Texas.billionaire H.
Ross Perot.. Webster was awake of
the operation; according to commit-
tee sources. The Iran-contra'repgiet
said these efforts may have violated
U.S. laws.
Evidence available to the com-
mittees showed that Webster also
was aware of an operation in mid-
1985 involving both the FBI and
CIA that used $100,000 from Perot
in another unsuccessful plan to pay
ransom for a U.S. hostage.
Webster's only meeting with
Iran-contra committee staff oc-
curred in an interview arranged
primarily to get assurances that the
FBI would continue to supply infor-
mation even * though Webster was
moving to the CIA.
Webster appeared twice before
the Senate intelligence committee
in connection with his nomination as
CIA director, promising to disclose
all the FBI contacts with North.
However, additional information on
North's contacts with the . bureau
continued to appear well after Web-
ster was confirmed by the Senate
and took his new job.
The majority report disclosed
that CIA officials were far more
knowledgeable about the Iran arms
sales than previously revealed.
Newly disclosed documents de-
scribed in the report show that
some CIA operatives heard as early
as spring 1986 that a diversion of
profits to the contras was being
openly discussed by North and Iran-
ian middleman Manucher Ghorba'ni-
far.
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who wanted any detailed
David L. Boren (D-
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Iran Panels
inimized
QA, FBI Role
These' findings raise questions
about the assurances Gates gave
during his congressional appear-
ances. that he had no hints of a di-
version until CIA. official Charles
Allen came to him in October 1986.
At that time, Gates said later in tes-
timony before the Tower board and
Senate intelligence panel, the infor-
mation Allen had was only specu-
lative and "shaky stuff."
Gates also told the. Tower review
board that. "when he first heard Al-
len's suspicions that a diversion of
funds had taken place, his 'first re-
action was to tell Mr. Allen that I
didn't want to hear any more about
it,' " according to the Iran-contra
report.
The Iran-contra report reveals
that Allen, the CIA's top intelli-
gence officer for counterterrorism,
interviewed Ghorbanifar in January
1986 and recorded in his notes that
the arms sales "could be used for
'Ollie's boys in Central America.' "
Allen also noted that the arms
sales "can fund contras," the report
said. In his deposition to. the com-
mittees, Allen said he did not in-
clude that information iu'his memo.
to Casey and others because he "did
not 'consider it important or even
relevant to my particular mission,' "
the report said.
George Cave, a CIA retiree who
was brought back under contract to
work on the Iran arms sales oper-
ation, reported to Casey and others
in early March that Ghorbanifar had
brought up the contra' diversion
idea at a meeting in Paris at which
North was also present.
Ghorbanifar "also proposed that
we use profits from these deals and
others to fund [other operations].
We could do the same with Nicara-
gua," the Cave memo to Casey said,
according to the committees' re-
port.
The Allen notes and Cave memo
were not brought up during the
staff deposition of Gates, according
to sources.,
Allen and Cave, according to the
Iran-contra committee investiga-
tors, said they, forgot about Ghor-
banifar's earlier statements on di-
versions.
In an unusual addendum to the
report, the two top members of the
Senate intelligence committee,
Boren and Vice Chairman William
S. Cohen (R-Maine), alleged that
agency personnel involved in Cen-
tral America violated CIA "policy
and restrictions imposed by law."
They also criticized CIA officials
for failing to give adequate "direc-
tion and supervision," and accused
others for withholding information
from Congress after the Iran-contra
affair became public.
At the same time, Boren and
Cohen argued successfully inside
the Senate committee that the Iran.
contra report should not focus on
CIA personnel or activities.
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Director Webster Says He Plans
To Keep Gates as Deputy at CIA
Other Staff Decisions Await Review of Agency's Iran-Contra Report
By Bob Woodward
and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
CIA Director William H. Webster
said yesterday he intends to retain
Robert M. Gates as deputy director
of the agency, though he will wait
two to three weeks to make any
other personnel decisions, taking
time to review an internal report on
the agency's involvement in the
Iran-contra scandal.
Asked yesterday in an interview
at The Washington Post whether
Gates will keep his post, Webster
said, "I certainly hope so. Nothing
has been presented, to me at the
present time that would make me
think other than that."
Gates, a career CIA official, was
named to the No. 2 CIA post in ear-
ly 1986 by William J. Casey. Pres-
ident Reagan nominated Gates to
succeed Casey as director last Feb-
ruary. ~ But Gates withdrew his
name after questions were raised
during Senate confirmation hear-
ings about his activities during the
Iran-contra affair.
Webster spoke highly of Gates
and said, "I think Bob and I see eye
to eyet on the major things." The
directorsaid any actions he, might
take regarding the other: half dozen
CIAsaflWals involved in the Iran-
conttaadfsir should "be fair and not
be. precipitous."
The congressional Iran-contra
report released last week disclosed
new details about the involvement
of agency personnel in secret mil-
itary aid to the Nicaraguan contras
at a time when it was barred by law.
The congressional report also
disclosed that Gates and a handful
of CIA officials received information
about the possibility of diversion of
funds from the Iran arras sales to
the contras months before, it ,was
made public.
WILLIAM IL WEBSTER
... sees "eye to eye" with Gates
Key members of the House and
Senate t , btellftence cos'
have prs sad Webster to deal with
the agency personnel who 'not only
were involved in .the Iran-contra
affair but lied to the agency's in-
spector general about their actions
and presented misleading and
sometimes conflicting testimony
about their actions to Congress.
Webster said that, in his six
months as head of the Central In-
telligence. Agency he has intention-
ally moved slowly in dealing with
the aftermath of the Iran-contra
affair. _
"Those inside the agency and
those outside should know that
whatever I do was not.done precip-
itously," he said.-"I may be wrong,
and people may disagree with the
conclusions I reach -They will not
ROBERT M. GATES
.'.. actions during scandal questioned
Webster indicated that he will
make a formal report to Congress
on his actions, but it was not clear
what report, if any, would be made
public. The report Weber will rely
on is being drafted b Russell
Bruemmer, a WashiagWattorney
who was a special assistant to Web-
ster when the CIA director ran the
Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Of the Iran-contra affair, Web-
sber said, "A lot of things have come
out of this investigation that are
bie-." He said solutions to the
problems have largely been put in
place through exec tke order, add-
ing that he does not see a need for
new legislation.
be able to say he rushed in without
knowing, that he just "owed to,out-
side pressures, whether the press
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The oongrasionsl Iran-contra
ropmt recoamerided that Senate
cor rmation be required- for the
post of CIA inspector general.
Though Webster said "there were
clearly some problems in the over-
all inspection efforts" during the
Iran-contra affair when some CIA
officials "did not tog the truth," he
said be will et once the status and
caliber of people in the office to en-
sure thorough internal policing.
"Lying is inexcusable," he said.
He said he opposes legislation
introduced in the Senate and House
that would mandate, without excep-
tion, 48-hour notification to Con-
gress of the start of the most sen-
sitive covert actions.
The CIA now does this, he said,
but added that he could foresee a
covert action involving danger to
lines that would require withholding .
notification to the intelligence com-
mittees for a matter of days.
"I am still unpersuaded that
Casey wanted an off-the-shelf,
stand-alone method of ignoring all
the laws and procedures," Webster
said, referring to the congressional
testimony of Marine Lt. Col. Oliver'
L. North that Casey envisioned
such an "off-the-books" covert-ac-
tion capability outside the CIA.
Referring to reports that Casey
undertook such unauthorized oper-
ations with Saudi Arabia, Webster
said, "I don't know the answer to
that. That's still a puzzle."
The Iran-contra report raised the
possibility that Gates had been told
as early as August 1986 of the pos-
sible diversion of Iranian arms sales
profits to aid the contras. Richard
Kerr, who had succeeded Gates as
deputy for intelligence, told the
congressional committees that he
forwarded speculation about a di-
version from another CIA official to
Gates at the end of August.
But, according to the congres-
sional report, "Gates told the CIA
inspector general that he could not
recall" being apprised of these spec-
ulations.
The report . also cited Gates'
1986 testimony about the wdting-
ness of agency officials to avoid
learning about the funding of the
Nicaraguan contras. He said that
during the period Congress had
banned direct U.S. ~aidtop theNi-
caraguan contras, "agency people
from the director on down, ac-
tively = ahmned information. We
didn't want to know how the con-
tras were being funded .... We
actively discouraged people from
telling us things. We did not pursue
lines of questioning."
The Iran-contra majority report
said that "this turned upside down
the CIA's mission to collect all in-
telligence relevant to national se-
curity."
Yesterday Webster said that
Gates had been worried "in terms of
dealing .with the private [donors to
the contras] ... that too much in-
volvement with them in order to
find out any information about them
might put [the CIA] too close and
across legal ground."
"That's what I believe he meant,"
Webster said, interpreting Gates'
testimony. "Knowing Bob Gates, I
have a lot of confidence that he does
not belong to a school of 'See No
Evil.' "
A number of well-placed sources
said recently that Webster has
come to rely heavily on Gates, who
runs day-to-day operations.
Sen. David L. Boren (D-Okla.),
chairman of the Senate Select Com-
mittee on Intelligence, said in an
interview this month, "Gates is as
influential a No. 2 as there is in any
agency in town."
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Reagan Bars Question of Iran Pardons
Aides Seek to Dispel Rumors of Plan to Excuse Scandal's Key Figures
By George Lardner Jr.
and Lou Cannon
Washington Post Staff Writers
President Reagan refused yes-
terday to discuss the possibility of
presidential pardons for those fac-
ing indictment in the Iran-contra
affair, but aides and friends flatly
discounted rumors that such a step
might be imminent.
Asked about the prospect of par-
dons during a photo session in the
Rose Garden, Reagan said, 'That's
a question no one can answer."'-~
To reporters who replied that
surely he could answer it, Reagan
insisted, "No, I can't."
The president was in the Rose
Garden for the annual presentation
of the White. house Thanksgiving
turkey. "I'll pardon him," Reagan
said when asked about the turkey's
fate. .
Reagan made plain yesterday
that he did not think much of the
congressional report that accused
him of "failing to take care that the
law reigned supreme."
"Maybe they labored and brought
forth a mouse," Reagan said.
White House spokesman Marlin
Fitzwater, meanwhile, rejected the
idea of Thanksgiving pardons for
former National Security Council
aide Oliver L. North, former nation-
al security adviser John M. Poin-
dexter and, possibly, former nation-
al security adviser Robert C.
McFarlane as "a media phenome-
non."
The New York Times committed
the notion to print yesterday morn-
ing in a report saying that "there is
a hot, widely discussed, wholly un-
confirmed rumor that President
Reagan will issue the pardons on
Thursday, citing the Thanksgiving
Day holiday as a time for forgive-
ness and healing."
LAWRENCE E. WALSH
... indictments In January or later
"We don't discuss pardons, pe-
riod," Fitzwater said. He said any
comment "just lends credence to
idle speculation and ill-founded ru-
mors."
The only unknown seems to be
what Reagan might do next year,
once the November elections are
over and he is preparing to leave
office.
Friends of the president
say he has kept his own counsel
about this, neither,bringing up the
subject of pardons nor being asked
about it. '
"This is a subject I have not and
will not discuss at this time," Rea-
gan said at a Cabinet Room meeting
with' business leaders following.
his Rose Garden appearance.
Asked when he would talk about
it, he said, "Sometime in the fu-
ture."
For the moment, Reagan is said
to be mindful of how harmful par-
dons could be to the domestic and
foreign policy goals he still wishes
to attain.
Reagan will leave the capital this
morning for his ranch in California,
spend the holiday there and return
on Sunday. "I don't expect any sig-
nificant- news on this trip, and I
would send out skeleton crews to
cover it," Fitzwater said.
Independent counsel Lawrence
E. Walsh is still busy conducting his
criminal investigation of the Iran-
contra affair, and indictments are
not expected until January at the
earliest.
Attorney General Edwin Meese
III appeared before' Walsh's Iran-
contra grand jury yesterday for the
fourth time this month. It was not
known whether he would have to
return again.
Meese, who has said he was ap-
pearing as a witness, not a target,
was sharply criticized in the final
report of the congressional Iran-
contra committees last week, es-.
pecially because of what the com-
mittees described as a slipshod fact-
finding inquiry that Meese con-
ducted at the White House Nov.
21-25 while North and others de-
stroyed crucial documents.
Reagan has been quoted as hav-
ing opposed pardons when the ques-
tion came up last December, on the
grounds that it would signify that he
believed crimes had been com-
mitted.
Even if indictments are forthcom-
ing, sources point out, it is far from
clear that Walsh will be able to
steer them past the stiff pretrial
skirmishing that lies ahead.
Staff writer David Hoffman
contributed to this report.
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 Approved For
20 November 1987
WALL STREET JOURNAL
North Mulled
Bounty Offer,
Report Shows
Bonus Scheme for Capture
Of Sandinista Officers
Was Never Carried Out
By DAVID ROGERS
And EDWARD T. POUND
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
WASHINGTON-The House-Senate re-
port on the Iran-Contra affair discloses
that Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North consid-
ered using profits from arms sales to Iran
to pay a bounty on Sandinista or Cuban
-officers captured in Nicaragua.
The report offers no evidence that Col.
North ever carried out his bounty idea, but
notebooks kept by the former White House
aide show he considered the payments last
year even after the Central Intelligence
Agency had resumed U.S. military aid to
the insurgents.
Separately, citing classified material
provided by the Israeli government, the
report says that an Israeli middleman
claims to have made as much as $700,000
in payments to Iranian contacts. The re-
port also says that on different occasions
middlemen set aside as much as $7 million
for such payments.
The Israeli data and Col. North's note-
books are two of the richest veins of new
material congressional investigators
tapped in writing the massive report re-
leased this week. They also reviewed pre-
viously undisclosed memos and tape rec-
ordings by the Central Intelligence
Agency, and the 690-page text of their re-
port is laden with footnotes providing fur-
ther detail of the often free-wheeling arms
network run from the White House.
"Bounty for Sandinista or Cuban offi-
cers" reads an October 1986 notation in
Col. North's notebooks. It indicates $5,000
would be paid to any Contra commander
or soldier who captured an enemy officer.
And, the notebook says the Contra army
command would receive $200,000 "for each
5" enemy officers captured.
Secord's Involvement
An April 1984 notation by Col. North In-
dicates that his close ally, retired Air
Force Maj. Gen. Richard Secord, may
have been involved in an wilier covert op-
eration separate from tl* Iran-contra af-
fair.
A veteran of special operations, Gen.
Secord had left the government a year ear-
lier. But in reference to an apparent covert
arms transfer in 1984, long-before the first
shipment of U.S. arms to Iran, Col. North's
notes read, "Can't produce $; similar to
Secord arrangement; 65 lift vans;
$750K.
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under notes made by the colonel in 1986,
and CIA records, indicate that it was only
the Iranians' failure to come up with more
money that prevented the U.S. from selling
Tehran even more arms than were
shipped. One proposed sale that never
came to fruition involved two U.S. radar
units that Iran purchased during the
shah's regime but were being held at a
Pennsylvania warehouse pending negotia-
tions between the U.S. and Iran.
Failed Radar Sale
The State Department supposedly had
control of the equipment. But the deputy
chief of the CIA's Near East division said
that the agency worked through the De-
fense Department to obtain permission for
the purchase without the State Department
knowing that the equipment was intended
for Iran. The idea was to resell the radar
units to Iran at a profit.
"DOD's price for the radar units, accu-
rately noted in North's notes, was approxi-
mately $6.3 million," reads the congres-
sional report. "However, since Iranian
funding for the radars failed to material-
ize, the Enterprise (run by Col. North and
Gen. Secord) missed an opportunity for a
second $18 million profit."
The report shows that top CIA officers
were receiving reports that made it clear
large profits were being generated by the
U.S. arms sales. It also says a senior CIA
official's office became "the command
post for coordinating" a secret 1985 ship-
ment of Hawk anti-aircraft missiles from
Israel to Iran.
'The official, Duane "Dewey" Clarridge,
then head of the CIA's European opera-
tions and now chief of its Counterterrorism
Center, denied under oath that he knew the
shipment contained missiles. But the com-
mittees said they were "troubled" by the
fact that two cables disclosing the contents
of the shipment were "inexplicably miss-
ing from an otherwise intact set of 78 ca-
bles sent by CIA officials during the opera-
tion."
The new disclosures come as the Senate
begins hearings on proposed legislation to
tighten control of covert operations. But in
testimony prepared for a closed-door hear-
ing of the Senate Intelligence Committee
today, CIA Director William Webster will
ask Congress to delay passing any new
laws until he has time to make changes of
his own at the agency.
Mr. Webster's special counsel investi-
gating the agency's recent performance,
Russell Bruemmer, is expected to make
his recommendations within a few weeks.
Mr. Webster then is expected to announce
some shifts in top CIA personnel. Clair
George, the CIA's top covert operations of-
ficer, has told friends he'll retire at year
end. Mr. Webster is said to be considering
several possible successors including Ted
Price, the head of the CIA personnel of-
fice; Theodore Gries, a former officer in
Asia and now the CIA's liaison to Con-
gress; counterintelligence chief Gus Hath-
away; and veteran operations officer
Charles Cogan.
Since the Iran-Contra scandal erupted a
year ago, congressional and criminal in-
vestigators have suspected that some of
the money generated by the Iranian arms
sales ended up in the pockets of Iranian of-
ficials. A financial chronology provided to
the committees by the Israeli government
appears to confirm that substantial sums
were paid to several Iranians involved in
some arms transactions.
According to the congressional report,
Tel Aviv disclosed that Iranian arms mer-
chant Manucher Ghorbanifar had an Is-
raeli middleman set aside $5 million for
"payments to certain Iranians." The re-
port says that the money came from a
$24.7 million payment that Mr. Ghorbani-
far received from Iran in 1985 for the 80
U.S.-made Hawk missiles. The arms deal
fell through and, the report said, most of
the $5 million was returned to Mr. Ghor-
banifar by the Israeli intermediary. The
intermediary, who wasn't identified, told
Israeli authorities, however, that around
the same time he made $700,000 in pay-
ments to various Iranians.
Hakim's Account
The congressional report also provides
details on a separate $2 million account
that was set up in Switzerland and in-
tended to benefit high-ranking Iranians. It
was controlled by by Iranian-American
businessman Albert Hakim, a key middle-
man used by the White House in the Iran-
Contra operation. The $2 million was to be
paid to Iranians associated with a relative
of Iranian Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani,
according to Mr. Hakim's testimony before
the committees.
Those payments weren't made, how-
ever. After the Iran-Contra scandal
erupted, Swiss accounts controlled by Mr.
Hakim were frozen by the Swiss govern-
ment at the request of the U.S. As recently
as last May, Mr. Hakim, in a private de-
position given to the committees, main-
tained that monetary "obligations" were
still due to Iranian contacts involved in the
initiative.
Federal lavr-enforcement officials said
that independent counsel Lawrence Walsh
has been looking into whether Mr. Rafsan-
jani or members of his family received
any money from arms transactions. But
the issue isn't a major element of his In-
vestigation of the Iran-Contra operation.
The congressional report provides little
new information on Israel's role in the
Iran-Contra affair. Some members of the
panels have complained that the investiga-
tion of Israel's role wasn't aggressive
enough. The committees didn't interview
Israeli officials or middlemen involved in
the Iran-Contra affair. Instead, they relied
on chronologies provided by the U.S.
ally.
Col. North's extensive notes are an in-
valuable record of the affair, but the com-
mittees remain uncertain about how much
weight to give his account of events. The
Marine officer told the committees In a
closed-door session last summer that Pan-
amanian Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega of-
fered to conduct sabotage operations
against Nicaragua, using funds from the
Iran arms sales. But investigators are di-
vided about how seriously to treat the pro-
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