U.S. Links Iran Arms Aid to Hostage, Terror Issues

The Reagan Administration has told Iran that it could ease the seven-year embargo on U.S.-made weaponry if the remaining American hostages in Beirut are freed and the Tehran regime ends its support of international terrorism, Administration officials said Tuesday.

The officials said that offer was a key element in the secret negotiations that led to the release of U.S. hostage David P. Jacobsen on Sunday and could lead to the early release of at least two more Americans held in Beirut by the pro-Iranian Islamic Jihad organization.

U.S. officials have refused to divulge any details about the negotiations, fearing that such disclosures could jeopardize the lives of the remaining captives.

A senior Iranian official, however, said Tuesday that a U.S. delegation headed by Robert C. McFarlane, President Reagan’s former national security adviser, visited Tehran secretly in a bid to enlist the country’s help in freeing the hostages.

The official, Speaker of Parliament Hashemi Rafsanjani, also offered Iran’s help in seeking the release of the remaining American and French hostages, provided that the United States and France agree to settle financial claims and unblock the shipments of arms bought by Iran before the Islamic revolution.

At the same time, Rafsanjani--who is regarded as a relative moderate among leaders of Ayatollah Khoemeni’s revolutionary government--sought to protect his flank against attacks by more radical elements by declaring that while McFarlane brought a message from Reagan seeking improved relations, the U.S. envoy and his aides were put under house arrest in their hotel for five days and then expelled from Iran.

White House spokesman Larry Speakes, responding to reports that some U.S. arms shipments may already have gone to Iran, told reporters, “As long as Iran advocates the use of terrorism, the U.S. embargo will continue.”

But other U.S. officials, speaking on condition that they not be identified, noted that the reverse is also true: If Iran halts its aid to terrorism, the United States could stop blocking the export of American-made weapons to Tehran.

Rafsanjani said McFarlane went to Iran in September to discuss such a deal, arriving with four associates aboard a cargo plane full of weapons--and carrying a Bible autographed by President Reagan.

Admitted Other Contacts

McFarlane and Speakes refused to comment on that account on Tuesday. On Monday, responding to a report that he had visited Iran in October, McFarlane told the Washington Post only that he was not in Tehran “last month” and refused any other comment on the matter.

U.S. officials have previously acknowledged secret contacts with Iran in hopes of gaining the release of American hostages, but never before has it been known that easing the arms embargo was under active discussion in the negotiations. The United States imposed the ban on the sale of American-made military equipment to Iran after militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979, and took 66 hostages, eventually holding 52 of them for 14 months.

Now, however, Iran desperately needs U.S.-made spare parts for its air force and other armed services to carry on its five-year-old war withe neighboring Iraq. The United States supplied Iran’s arms needs under the regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown by the militant Islamic followers of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979.

“The Iranians have made it clear that they would like to see us reduce our efforts to cut off their supplies of (U.S.-made) weapons and spare parts,” one official said. “They have consistently said that the first step in any improvement of relations would be the release of arms.”

Effect on Hostages Uncertain

He said the most likely U.S. move, if any agreement is reached, would not be to resume supplying Iran directly with weapons but to stop blocking other countries from selling their U.S.-made spare parts to the Tehran regime.

It was uncertain whether the gradual disclosure of the secret U.S.-Iranian negotiations would jeopardize the chances of freeing the remaining American hostages in Iran.

“Any Iranian leader that has had contact with any American official will be on the defensive,” one U.S. aide said. “We assume that Rafsanjani spoke in an attempt to preempt any attack.”

Rafsanjani, often identified as a relative moderate within the Islamic regime and who is believed to be a possible successor to Khomeini, is involved in political turmoil that underscores the sensitivity of the negotiations. While maintaining that Iran must seek to improve relations with the United States to obtain arms necessary to sustain its war with Iraq, Rafsanjani must not appear to be weakening his country’s resolve in dealing with the Americans.

U.S. officials said Iranian officials such as Rafsanjani risk political attack from radical factions in Tehran if they attempt to move Khomeini’s regime away from its sponsorship of terrorism.

It was because of this precarious position, U.S. analysts believe, that Rafsanjani said Tuesday that McFarlane and his aides had been arrested and then expelled.

Talks Shrouded in Secrecy

Rafsanjani’s remarks Tuesday were interpreted as an effort to discredit reports published in the Arab world Monday that Iran had already worked out a secret deal with Washington that would trade American arms for Iran’s assistance in persuading Muslim extremists in Lebanon to release the hostages. The captives include at least five Americans, six French nationals and several other foreigners.

These U.S.-Iranian negotiations have been shrouded in secrecy, but speculation about the identities of the principal parties involved has focused on Syria and Iran. However, since Jacobsen’s release, there have been several indications and reports from the Arab world that the main party has been Iran, which has more influence over Islamic Jihad and other extremist Islamic groups than does Syria, the latter’s heavy-handed military presence in Lebanon notwithstanding.

Neither White House nor State Department spokesmen would comment on Rafsanjani’s contention that McFarlane had visited Tehran recently, which was reported by Iran’s official news agency and monitored in Cyprus. McFarlane could not be reached for comment, and a spokesman at his office at the private Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington declined to discuss the report.

(The Washington Post, quoting unnamed intelligence sources, reported that McFarlane went to Iran two months ago in the latest of a series of previously undisclosed clandestine visits dating back to his days as the White House national security adviser.)

Account Disputed

But a U.S. government official who is a close friend of McFarlane said a mission to Tehran would run counter to the former adviser’s position on the hostages. The official said McFarlane had been adamantly opposed to arranging any deal to secure the hostages’ freedom and, thus, did not believe that the former adviser was involved in any such effort.

The first report that McFarlane had paid a secret visit to Iran appeared Monday in Ash Shiraa, a pro-Syrian weekly magazine published in Beirut.

Addressing a Tehran rally on the seventh anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Iran, Rafsanjani said that as a “humanitarian gesture,” Iran would consider using its influence to gain the release of the hostages in return for U.S. and French pledges to cease all “hostile acts” against Iran.

According to the Iranian news agency, Rafsanjani cited France’s refusal to settle Iranian financial claims and a freeze by the United States on the shipment of arms purchased by the late shah--but never delivered--as examples of what Iran considered “hostile acts.”

Rafsanjani also said the United States and France must persuade Israel to meet “the demands of the oppressed Muslims of Lebanon”--an apparent reference to calls for the release of Lebanese prisoners in Israel--as another condition for Iran’s help. However, he indicated later that proof of U.S. and French willingness to cease all “meaningless hostile acts” against Iran would be enough to induce his government to intervene in the hostage issue.

Humanitarian Gesture

“If you (the United States and France) prove that you are not hostile toward us, or at least do not act on your hostility, as a humanitarian gesture we will let our friends in Lebanon know our views,” Rafsanjani told the rally outside the Iranian Parliament in Tehran.

Iran maintains close ties with several of the terrorist groups in Lebanon that claim to be holding foreign hostages. One of those groups, calling itself Islamic Jihad, released Jacobsen and indicated that it would be willing to free two other Americans it is holding if certain “approaches” undertaken by the Reagan Administration are carried out.

Rafsanjani acknowledged these ties, saying that, while “our friends in Lebanon . . . do not owe us anything, they sometimes listen to us.”

The American hostages in Lebanon include Terry A. Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent of the Associated Press; Thomas Sutherland, dean of agriculture at the American University of Beirut; Joseph J. Cicippio, chief accountant of the American University Hospital in Beirut; Frank H. Reed, director of the Lebanese International School, and Edward A. Tracy, a book salesman.

Kidnaped by Others

Anderson and Sutherland were kidnaped last year by Islamic Jihad and were held with Jacobsen, he has indicated. The other three Americans were kidnaped in recent months by other terrorist groups.

The relationship between movement in the long-dormant hostage crisis and the internal power struggle in Iran reportedly centers on a battle between Rafsanjani’s followers and forces loyal to Mehdi Hashemi, a hard-line anti-American cleric who is the son-in-law of the Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, Khomeini’s designated successor.

Hashemi, who headed the government office in charge of spreading Iran’s Islamic revolution abroad, was arrested recently on charges of murder and treason. Despite Montazeri’s intervention, Information Minister Mohammed Reyshahri has refused to release his son-in-law.

Trying to Improve Ties

It is thought that Reyshahri, along with Rafsanjani and Prime Minister Hussein Moussavi, have tried to improve relations with the United States and secure U.S. spare parts but were strongly opposed by Hashemi.

Rafsanjani, considered one of Iran’s shrewdest politicians, has been a central figure in the maneuverings over the question of who will succeed the 86-year-old Khomeini.

Doyle McManus reported from Washington and Michael Ross from Nicosia, Cyprus. Times staff writers Gaylord Shaw and James Gerstenzang in Washington contributed to this story.