Byrd Plans Probe of Deal With Iran : Irked by Reports of Arms Swap for Aid on Hostages

Senate Democratic Leader Robert C. Byrd, declaring he is angry and shocked by reports that the United States sent arms to Iran in exchange for aid in freeing American hostages, Thursday called for Senate hearings on the matter and demanded an explanation from the Reagan Administration.

Because Democrats will take control of the Senate next January as a result of Tuesday’s election, the West Virginia Democrat said, Administration officials cannot avoid a hearing and will be compelled to tell why they violated President Reagan’s own announced policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists or nations that sponsor terrorism.

“Now, with Democrats in control,” declared Byrd, slamming his fist on a table, “we’re going to have some answers--and they just can’t slough it off, and they can’t hold it off, and they can’t just refuse to hold hearings.”

Indignant Reaction

Other key Democrats also reacted with indignation Thursday to reports that White House officials carried out the secret arms negotiations without informing either Congress or most top officials within the Administration, including Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger. Two leading Republicans interviewed, however, were not critical and suggested that negotiations may have been justified.

In exchange for the American shipments of military supplies, Iran helped arrange the release over the last 14 months of three American hostages being held by the pro-Iranian Islamic Jihad group in Lebanon, informed sources confirmed Wednesday. American arms shipments to Iran have been banned since 1981 because of Iran’s support of international terrorism.

Byrd, who is the leading candidate to be the new Senate majority leader when Democrats meet on Nov. 20, was interviewed during a breakfast session with Times Washington bureau reporters and editors. He had just finished reading a detailed Times’ account of the secret negotiations and said that other Democratic senators “will be as surprised and shocked as I was when I read this.”

Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who will relinquish his majority leader’s post and become minority leader in January, refused to comment on reports of the secret negotiations. But he said that while opposed to “making any deals with terrorists that might encourage more hostage-taking,” he favors dealing with Iran “if Iran is willing to help us get our hostages out, no strings attached.”

However, Byrd said that with Democrats in control of Senate committees, “we’ll call meetings and they’ll have to come up here and explain this right away.”

Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.), the ranking Senate Foreign Relations Committee member who is scheduled to become its chairman, also expressed concern about the clandestine arrangements with Iran and said his committee may hold hearings “right away” after Congress convenes in January “if we don’t know a lot more about the situation by then.”

‘Absolutely Irresponsible’

Rep. Robert G. Torricelli (D.-N.J.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Europe and Middle East, said that if the reports are true, “people are going to answer with their careers.” The secret deals were “absolutely irresponsible” and amounted to “an invitation to additional terrorist acts,” he said.

Another House Foreign Affairs Committee member, Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.), called the deals “shocking and scandalous” and said that if the arms shipments help Iran win its war with Iraq, it would “shake every moderate regime in the Middle East to its roots.” The Administration action, he said, suggested it was “prepared to turn the Middle East over to (Ayatollah Ruhollah) Khomeini.”

However, Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) said that those who say the Administration is negotiating with terrorists are “perhaps putting too fine a point on it.”

No Inside Information

“If we can get our hostages back without yielding to their captor’s demands, without involving ourselves too deeply in that Iran-Iraq War, I would not object to it,” said Hyde, a member of the House Intelligence Committee. “The Administration has been catching unshirted hell for not doing enough,” especially after it secured the release of journalist Nicholas Daniloff from Moscow.

Hyde emphasized that he was reacting to newspaper reports and had no inside knowledge of the situation, even though he serves on the Intelligence Committee.

But, he said, “Sometimes to accomplish something you’ve got to talk to your adversaries. “The whole thing is not to make hostage-taking pay off.”

At The Times’ breakfast session, Byrd said that briefings provided to the Senate by Administration officials, including Shultz, have been “largely a waste of time because we just got the party line, . . . the White House line.”

“But it’s going to be different with the Democrats in control,” he said. “And the use of those committees as a forum is no small item.”

Senate’s Questions

The Democratic-controlled Senate, Byrd said, will be interested in finding out:

--Why Congress was not consulted in advance about the secret approaches to Iranian officials.

--Whether the Administration violated the Arms Export Control Act, which bans the shipment of arms to countries that support terrorism unless Congress is given prior notification.

--How the negotiations may affect U.S. relations with other Arab countries.

--Whether it is a good idea to trade arms for hostages. “To me, it doesn’t make sense,” Byrd said, “and it goes exactly against the grain of what this Administration has always been so courageous and up-front in saying: We won’t deal with terrorists.”

California Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), a member of the Foreign Affairs subcommittee dealing with arms control, international security and science, said that if the Administration has provided arms to Iran, it is a clear violation of the Arms Export Control Act.

He described the negotiations as “an unhealthy situation” that could create “an environment where it becomes in Iran’s interests to continue encouraging terrorists to take hostages.”

Times staff writer Sara Fritz contributed to this story.