THE IRAN-CONTRA HEARINGS : Excerpts: No Knowledge. . . . (Arms Deal) All New to Me

\o7 WASHINGTON\f7 —  Following are excerpts from testimony Tuesday by Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III before the congressional committees investigating the Iran-contra affair. The first selection is from Meese’s opening statement:

Outline of the Story

Some eight months ago, the President asked me, as his principal legal adviser, to develop a factual overview of the events relating to the Iranian initiative. During that hectic weekend in November, 1986, we were able to piece together a basic outline of what is now known as the Iran-contra story, which has been essentially validated during the extensive investigations which have occurred since.

(Meese said he first heard of the plan to sell arms to Iran to win freedom for American hostages at a Jan. 7, 1986, meeting in the Oval Office attended by President Reagan, National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter, CIA Director William J. Casey, Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger.)

Adm. Poindexter and Director Casey favored the initiative. Secretary Shultz and Secretary Weinberger opposed it. My own counsel was that, while a very close question, the benefits seemed to slightly outweigh the risks, especially since I had the impression at that time that a time frame of 30 to 60 days was contemplated and that the risks were, therefore, short-term.

Changes in Testimony

(Meese was asked by the House committee’s chief counsel, John W. Nields Jr., about a meeting he attended last Nov. 20 at which he, Poindexter, Casey, Lt. Col. Oliver L. North and others discussed pending congressional testimony by Casey and Poindexter on arms shipments to Iran. Changes were made in the prepared testimony to conceal from Congress the fact that U.S. officials knew about a 1985 shipment of Hawk missiles to Iran at the time it occurred instead of months later.)

Q: Just so the record is clear . . . that document (showing the changes) contains your own handwritten interlineations, I take it.

A: Yes . . . that’s my handwriting, but someone else was the one--suggested that correction. . . .

Q: I think there’s testimony on the record that the similar interlineations (elsewhere on the document) are those of Col. North. . . . And who was it at that meeting that proposed this insert with this interlineation, namely that no one in the U.S. government found out that our airline had hauled Hawk missiles into Iran until mid-January (1986)?

A: I don’t know for sure; I can’t remember who. I think most of the suggestions, however, were coming from Lt. Col. North.

Q: Did anyone dissent from this, anyone at that meeting, dissent from this statement (in the document)?

A: I don’t remember anyone dissenting, and I doubt if I would have written in it unless there was general agreement that that’s what should have been put in there . . . .

Q: . . . I take it from your testimony that you were not aware at the time that this statement was contrary to fact?

A: I had no knowledge whatsoever about the truth or falsity of any of the material there. This was all new to me.

‘Severe Concerns’

(Meese said he was told that night by an aide, Justice Department legal counsel Charles J. Cooper, that State Department officials had “some severe concerns” about the proposed testimony because Shultz had been told of the Hawk shipment in November, 1985, by former National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane.)

Q: And what did Mr. Cooper suggest that you do?

A: Well, he was concerned about this and said we couldn’t let Director Casey go and testify the next day with erroneous information. And I said I absolutely agreed and asked him to get in touch with the CIA general counsel. . . .

(Meese said he then decided it was necessary to begin an inquiry because “we had so many people involved in this and each had a little piece of the information that there was obvious confusion and that we’d better get a coherent account of what, in fact, had occurred.”)

Q: Did it at least cross your mind during your conversation with Mr. Cooper that you might be dealing with something more than just confusion?

A: No sir, it did not . . . .

(The next day, Nov. 21, Meese said he went to tell the President that “there seemed to be a lot of confusion” among the people who were participating in or who had some knowledge of the Iranian initiative.)

I can’t recall whether he told me, in that conversation, that George Shultz had talked to him the previous evening about the same thing or not, but I did gather that he was already aware that there was such confusion. . . . I said to the President that if he wanted me to do it (gather facts), I would do it. Or he could get someone else. But someone really had to get on top of the facts, so that we did know exactly what had happened. The President, in the course of the conversation, asked me to do that.

(Meese said he recruited Cooper, Assistant Atty. Gen. William Bradford Reynolds and another Justice aide, John M. Richardson Jr., to help with the inquiry.)

Q: Did you select anyone from the criminal division?

A: No, I did not.

Q: Was there a reason for that?

A: Well, there was no reason to select anyone from the criminal division inasmuch as there was no criminal aspect to this.

(Meese said that he called Poindexter at 3 p.m., asking him to pull relevant documents together so that they could be reviewed the next day.)

Q: Now I need to ask you this question because the committee, as you know, has heard evidence that that afternoon a number of the relevant documents were destroyed, both by Adm. Poindexter and by Col. North. Was there a reason for not doing the document review Friday afternoon (Nov. 21)?

A: The only reason that I can remember is by the time I called them it was 3 o’clock and I would figure that they would need at least a little time to get those documents together. . . . Incidentally, I believe, counsel, that you also received testimony that most of the documents or much of the documents had already been shredded before that time. . . .

Told of Memorandum

(Meese said he was informed at lunch on Nov. 22 that Reynolds and Richardson had found an April, 1986, memorandum in North’s files that detailed a plan to use proceeds from the Iranian arms sales to finance Nicaraguan rebels. He then met that evening with Casey, who disclosed that a businessman involved in the Iranian sales had threatened to reveal details about proceeds going to “other projects” if private arms merchants did not receive payments due them.)

Q: . . . You had just read a memorandum from Col. North’s files that contemplated money from the Iranian arms sales going to the contras. Did you mention that to Mr. Casey?

A: No, I didn’t, and for very good reason. I felt that, while this was some preliminary information that we had gotten, I didn’t know where it would go or what it involved until we talked to Col. North. . . .

Q: Did you, without disclosing it to him, did you ask him about it?

A: No, I did not ask him about it because that would have disclosed the knowledge that I had. . . .

Q: . . . Did you ask Director Casey when he told you that there was this threatened disclosure of the funds being used for other purposes--did you ask him is that true? Were funds used for any other purposes, to your knowledge?

A: Yes, well--I didn’t know that I asked him that. It was a minor part of what the real thing was, the disclosure making this whole thing public and in effect blowing the Iranian initiative. . . .

Q: . . . But I take it at least one of the things that must have been on your mind was the diversion information that you had learned at lunch that day, and my question is, I gather you were attempting to do a full fact-finding investigation, and why didn’t you ask, why didn’t you take the opportunity to ask Director Casey what he knew about any use of arms sales proceeds for other purposes?

A: Well, as a matter of fact, he told me that he had talked to Adm. Poindexter about this. I believe it was at that time that he told me this, and that Adm. Poindexter had told him that nothing had been done and that there was nothing to this. . . . In any event, the two seemed to be, did not seem to be directly related particularly as he told me that this was something that was just a threat. . . .

Q: When you spoke to Col. North in the afternoon to schedule his interview the following day, did you mention to him the new subject on which you had wished to question him?

A: Absolutely not. . . .

Q: Mr. McFarlane has told the committee that he met with Col. North on Sunday morning (Nov. 23) prior to his interview with you, and that Col. North was unhappy because he felt that there was a record of the diversion (of arms sales proceeds to the contras). . . . Can you think of any way that he might have learned of the discovery of the record of the diversion?

A: No, I know no way that he could have, and I doubt--I would personally be very surprised if he had learned about it because when we presented him with the memo that afternoon--Sunday afternoon--he certainly seemed surprised.

Q: . . . Would you describe how he exhibited this surprise?

A: . . . I think it was as combination of words and facial expression, primarily facial expression and body language, if you will.

Q: . . . Did you ask him who knew that funds had been diverted to the Nicaraguan resistance?

A: Yes, I asked him . . . “Was this ever discussed with the President?” and he said not as far as he knew. . . . And I said: “Was it discussed with Poindexter?” and he said he was the point of contact with the President . . . and that’s why he--North--would not have discussed it with the President. . . . He said then that he had told McFarlane in April or May of 1986 . . . there are only three who could know in the United States . . . government, and that was McFarlane, Poindexter and North. . . .

Q: Did he tell you that Director Casey knew?

A: Absolutely not.

Q: . . . Didn’t you ask Col. North about the flow of funds reflected in the diversion document, during your interview?

A: No, we let him tell it exactly as he was telling it. He had the document, and we showed him the document. . . .

(Nields asked about a North comment recorded by a note taker during the interview: “If this doesn’t come out, only other is November Hawks deal.”)

Q: Now, did Col. North suggest to you during the interview that you keep the diversion information from coming out?

A: I don’t know. I’ve, I, I don’t recall that he did. . . .

Q: Did you make a response to it?

A: I’m sure I didn’t.

Q: Now, during this interview, if I understand your testimony, Col. North told you in effect that Casey did not know of the diversion?

A: That’s correct. . . .

Q: Now, according to Col. North’s testimony before this committee, that was false.

He told you that the money was funneled into three contra (bank) accounts in Switzerland?

A: Yes.

Q: According to information that the committee has, that was also false. He told you that (Israeli) Defense Minister (Yitzhak) Rabin had told him that oil-drilling equipment (instead of Hawk missiles) was to be shipped in November of 1985. According to his testimony here before this committee, that was also false. Now, my question to you is, following his interview, did you believe the representations that he had made? . . .

A: I accepted them as true and had no reason to believe otherwise. He had been very forthcoming in response to what we had asked him and had laid out the whole scheme that was basically consistent with the memorandum we had. . . .