2 DEMOCRATS HINT AT NEW NSC SCRUTINY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404630020-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 25, 2010
• Sequence Number: 20
• Publication Date: November 10, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2010/08/25: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404630020-4
BALTIMORE SUN
10 November 1986
2 Democrats
hint at new
NSC scrutiny
Reports of arms
shipped to Iran
prompt criticism
By Mark Matthews
Washington Bureau of The Sun
WASHINGTON - New laws may
be needed to bring the National Se-
curity Council under closer congres-
sional scrutiny as a result of reports
that the NSC approved secret arms
shipments to Iran that helped win
the release of U.S. hostages in Leba-
non, two key Democratic lawmakers
said yesterday.
Their comments came amid
growing criticism that the reported
arms shipments could encourage
terrorists to seize more American
hostages.
Meanwhile, Senate Foreign Rela-
tions Committee Chairman Richard
Lugar. R-Ind., said he did not believe
Secretary of State George P. Shultz
would resign over the arms ship-
ments.
But he indicated that Mr. Shultz.
who reportedly opposed the opera-
tion, was not well informed about it.'
Mr. Shultz conferred at his home
yesterday with key State Depart-
ment officials concerning potential
administration moves to discourage
Syrian involvement in terrorism.
Mr. Shultz's meeting on Syria
came a day before a meeting in Lon-
don in which the British will seek to
get an agreement from Common
Market partners on a set of mea-
sures against Syria.
U.S. officials, meanwhile, ac-
knowledged that any American in-
volvement in arms shipments to
Iran marked a fundamental policy
reversal by the Reagan administra-
tion. Officials said President
Reagan's decision to provide spare
parts and arms to Iran came about
largely because of his deeply felt de-
sire to free the American hostages.
The shipments. reportedly car-
ried out with Israeli help, have been
cited as easing the way most recent-
ly for the release of David Jacobsen,
the director of American University
Hospital in Beirut who was abducted
in May 1985.
The contacts with Iran, which
had the dual aim of onT chaan-
ne s to moderate elements and Help-
ing free U.S. hostages in Lebanon,
were reportedly con u
tional Security Council officials with-
out t e direct involvement of the de-
partments of State and Defense or
the Central Intelligence Agency.
One reason for confining the op-
eration to the NSC apparently was to
prevent disclosureCiA officials ran
be summoned by-House and Senate
oycrslght Committees to report on in-
telligence operations.
Senate Minority Leader Robert C.
Byrd, D-W.Va., said in a television
interview: "I think they're attempt-
ing to circumvent the Congress....
And I think we ought to take a look
at the laws. Perhaps the laws ought
to be changed. Perhaps the national
security adviser should be one of
those officers who have to have con-
firmation by the Senate."
The national security adviser,
who reports to the president, is not
now subject to Senate confirmation.
Such a process would bring Senate
committee scrutiny of his back-
ground and views before he as-
sumed office.
Mr. Byrd also said he understood
that Mr. Shultz and Defense Secre-
tary Caspar W. Weinberger were
"kept out of the loop" during the re-
ported 18 months of secret diploma-
cy to gain Iranian aid to win the re-
lease of the hostages.
"It is my understanding that Mr.
Weinberger hit the ceiling," Mr. Byrd
said. "Mr. Shultz's nose i& out of
joint. And I can understal ." i
But an administratiot offic
said it was erroneous to asl#fine that
Mr. Shultz had 'waged a vigorous
campaign against" supplying arms
to Iran. "Nobody dug in their heels.
including Shultz or Weinberger,"-the
official said.
Representative Richard Gep-
hardt, D-Mo., who chairs the House
Democratic Caucus, said that in
both the reported Iranian contactp
and the previously disclosed covert
aid to Nicaraguan rebels, "we've got
two instances here where the Secu-
rity Council is really trying to operate
American foreign policy."
Appearing with Mr. Byrd on
NBC's "Meet the Press," he said. "I
think the Congress shares a respon-
sibility for foreign policy with the
White House.... And if we don't
even know what they're doing and
we can't even find out today, then I
think we have to look at the laws
and see if we don't need changes."
P Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., who will
chair the Armed Services Committee
when Democrats assume control of
the Senate in January, said on "This
Week with David Brinkley": "We
have some profound legal inquiries
as to whether any laws have been
violated. And we really have another
question, and that is the decision-
making process in this administra-
tion. In an effort to cut Congress out,
have cut out the CIA, the
Joint a s, the btate e ment
and Defense Department - and
if so, who's making the ecisionsT
The White House continued its
official silence on the matter yester-
day. In a pretaped television inter-
view conducted by John McLaughlin
and aired yesterday, White House
Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan said:
"As quickly as we can, we'll tell
you the whole thing. I'll assure you
we're not breaking any laws. we're
not doing anything illegal or immor-
al, and I think when we can tell the
story the American public will ap-
preciate the efforts of this president
to get American hostages released."
Such a report would come, he
said, when all the hostages are out.
He said he did not believe reports
that both Mr. Shultz and Mr. Wein-
berger were angry about the opera-
tion.
Mr. Lugar, who will be the rank-
ing Republican on the Senate For-
eign Relations Committee in the new
Congress, said that Vice Adm. John
M. Poindexter. Mr. Reagan's nation-
al security adviser, had told him that
allies and some Mideast countries
had been informed about the U.S.
actions.
"There has been a concerted at-
tempt made to make certain that our
diplomacy in the Middle East. as
well as with our allies, was advanced
by all this," Mr. Lugar said.
But a spokesman for the senator
said later, "Lugar still says he's got a
number of questions."
The spokesman, Mark Helmke,
said Admiral Poindexter told the
senator that the United States has
been trying to work with and talk to
certain factions in Iran and that any
efforts to win the release of hostages
"were tangential" to this aim.
Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
,Q . ., a mem r of __ a ect m
r it
called for the resignation of Admiral
Poindexter. reportedly the architect
of the Iran deal.
Mr. Moynihan said he had heard
reports that Mr. Shultz might quit
because of the deal.
The New York Times News Service
contributed to this article.
Approved For Release 2010/08/25: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404630020-4