2 Congress Panels to Probe U.S. Contacts With Contras

The Senate and House Intelligence committees both plan to investigate whether the White House violated a ban on aid to rebels fighting Nicaragua’s leftist regime by secretly maintaining a broad range of contacts with them last year, the panels’ chairmen said Thursday.

Sens. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman and vice chairman of the Senate committee, and Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), chairman of the House panel, all said they were not fully convinced by Administration denials of wrongdoing and intend to pursue separate inquiries into the issue.

Durenberger said he wants to set clear guidelines to bar the CIA from resuming covert military operations against Nicaragua after Oct. 1, when the current prohibition against such activity lapses.

Robert C. McFarlane, President Reagan’s national security adviser, met with Durenberger and Leahy on Thursday. The two senators said McFarlane told them that no member of his staff had provided or solicited aid for the rebels, known as contras.

Officials have acknowledged that a McFarlane aide, Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, was assigned to maintain contact with the contras after Congress prohibited the CIA from aiding the rebels in 1984.

They said State Department officials also discussed political strategy with the contras and that public relations consultants under contract to the government provided them with advice on improving their image in the United States.

Reagan also met openly with the contras’ leaders and endorsed private efforts to raise “humanitarian” aid for the rebels.

“This Administration made it clear that we supported covert aid to the contras, and when that proved impossible we made it clear that we supported overt aid to the contras,” a State Department official said. “It is strange to expect us to break off all contact with them just because Congress refused to provide material aid.”

But McFarlane strongly denied that North or anyone else in the Administration had either helped the contras raise money from private sources or given them tactical military advice, the senators said.

“No NSC (National Security Council) staff member either personally assisted the (Nicaraguan) resistance or solicited outside assistance on their behalf,” the senators quoted McFarlane as saying. “At no time did anyone act as a go-between or focal point for such aid.”

McFarlane said North’s mission “was to keep (the contras’) morale up until perhaps we can change the position of the Congress on this issue,” Durenberger said.

“Is that actually what happened? I can’t say I’m 100% positive,” the moderate Republican said. “It’s not a closed matter.”

Hamilton said he believes that North may have violated the law by traveling to Central America to meet with contra leaders several times.

“If Col. North was spending money to meet them, that is an expenditure of funds,” Hamilton said through a spokesman.

Another member of the House panel, California Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Colton), said he believes North violated the Neutrality Act, which prohibits private citizens from entering foreign wars, as well as the congressional ban on U.S. aid to the contras.

Prohibition Will Lapse

Durenberger said he was most concerned about the issue of North’s activities because it revealed a “gray area” in which Congress has laid down no clear limits on what the Administration may do in Nicaragua.

Congress, rejecting a request from Reagan for direct military aid, has approved $27 million in non-weapons aid for the rebels to be administered by the State Department. But when that funding becomes available at the beginning of the new fiscal year, on Oct. 1, the previous prohibition against covert U.S. assistance to the contras will lapse.

“The issue will be . . . what is the role of the NSC, the CIA, a lot of other people . . . that want to sneak a little military money in there,” Durenberger said.

“Does this Administration perceive that there’s a little loophole here that they can use to continue a covert action?” he asked. “We’re not yet satisfied that we know the ground rules under which the CIA will live.”

Both senators agreed that any covert CIA military operations or other aid to the rebels would violate Congress’ intent, even if they are no longer specifically prohibited by law.

Some Administration officials have suggested that the congressional ban on aid to the contras by U.S. intelligence agencies did not clearly apply to the NSC or the State Department.

But Durenberger and Leahy said McFarlane told them that Reagan had specifically directed the White House staff to comply with the prohibition.