Reagan’s Cabinet, Staff Split on Iran; Ousters Suggested

President Reagan’s Cabinet and White House staff are deeply split over the Administration’s secret operation to ship arms to Iran in exchange for hostages, with some suggesting privately that the affair could force the resignation of national security adviser John M. Poindexter or aide Oliver L. North, officials said Monday.

But White House aides said that they still hope the negotiations can win the release of two more hostages from the hands of pro-Iranian terrorists, and they added that Reagan has ordered silence on the issue until then.

Reagan met Monday with Cabinet members, including Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, both of whom are reported to have objected strongly to the arms-for-hostages swap.

Violation of Policy

Several senior Reagan advisers--most of whom knew nothing of the operation--have also protested that the deals violated the President’s policy of making no concessions to terrorists.

And at least one former high presidential aide telephoned Reagan directly and was “very exercised and very unhappy,” a knowledgeable official said.

“There’s a lot of turmoil right now in the White House,” he said, adding that the pressure on Reagan makes it appear that “somebody’s going to have to take the fall for this.”

After the Cabinet meeting, White House spokesman Larry Speakes said that Reagan has asked his advisers not to comment on the issue.

“While specific decisions discussed at the meeting cannot be divulged,” he said, “the President did ask that it be reemphasized that no U.S. laws have been or will be violated and that our policy of not making concessions to terrorists remains intact.”

Speakes said, “As was the case in similar meetings with the President and his senior advisers on this matter, there was unanimous support for the President.” He said that those attending, in addition to Shultz and Weinberger, were Poindexter, Vice President George Bush, CIA Director William J. Casey, Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan.

Release of 3 Hostages

Nevertheless, aides said that a broad range of senior Administration officials have expressed opposition to the policy of approving secret arms shipments to Iran in exchange for the Tehran regime’s help in freeing Americans held captive by the pro-Iranian Islamic Jihad group in Lebanon. Sources have confirmed that secret shipments of missiles and aircraft parts led to the release of three hostages in the last 14 months, including David P. Jacobsen, who was freed last week.

“The fallout from this is going to be a lot worse than anyone ever realized,” one aide said. “I think this could lead to the removal of John Poindexter, if they’re going to save face for Reagan. It’s a very deep split, both within the White House and between the White House and the foreign policy agencies.

“It cuts across partisan grounds. They’re getting fire from the right and fire from the moderates,” he said. “It has to do more with the incoherence of the policy.”

Some officials, reportedly including Chief of Staff Regan, privately have criticized Poindexter, a Navy admiral with little political experience, because of the political problems that revelation of the secret arms deals have caused the Administration.

Others, including Shultz, have charged that the clandestine project went out of control under the supervision of Lt. Col. North, a deputy director of the National Security Council, officials said.

“Shultz is furious,” said one aide. “And he blames Ollie North more than anyone else.”

There have been reports that Shultz was so angry about the U.S. arms shipments to Iran that he was considering resigning. But Shultz, en route to Guatemala City on Monday for a meeting of the Organization of American States, said flatly, “I have no plans to resign.” He also refused, as he has in the past, to discuss U.S. approaches to Iran.

As congressional criticism of the arms deals has mounted, Administration officials have also split over the wisdom of Poindexter’s refusal to inform either the public or congressional leaders of the details.

White House Communications Director Patrick J. Buchanan said emphatically that he had “no part” in the operation, but added that his view has been that in controversial issues, the President “should go early and get it (information) out.”

Another senior Administration official said that Poindexter and his aides “are making it worse by not talking about it, just digging a deeper hole. They’re under a lot of pressure now to explain it, and they’ll have to talk to Congress or somebody pretty soon now.”

Speakes, reflecting Reagan’s and Poindexter’s instructions, said he could not even confirm the existence of the deals with Iran. Asked when the Administration would speak about the issue, he said, “When it’s appropriate for us to do so, when it no longer affects our national interest, when our hostages are free.”

Speakes and other officials have offered contradictory accounts of whether the Administration still holds serious hopes of gaining the release of the remaining five American hostages in Lebanon through the negotiations.

Last week, Speakes said that the chances appeared to have dimmed, and he blamed news coverage of the secret operation for that. He revived that charge Monday, saying, “The coverage of the entire hostage matter and the Iran matter made it extremely difficult.

“Our hopes were dashed once again,” he added.

Asked precisely when those hopes were dashed, he responded: “All week. . . . The more time that went by, the more our hopes were dashed.”

But Reagan and other officials have said that they still are operating on the assumption--and the hope--that further hostage releases are possible. “We still hope to get the others out,” a White House aide said Monday.

Speakes said he could not cite any specific news articles or explain what effect they might have had on the negotiations since the Nov. 2 release of Jacobsen. Asked for evidence that media coverage had slowed the negotiations down, he said, “Well, we don’t have any more hostages free.”

However, other officials said that the Administration had hoped to gain the release of two more hostages at the same time Jacobsen was freed but that the deal ran into problems even before The Times and other newspapers published articles about the secret negotiations. The stories were written after details of the exchanges appeared in a pro-Syrian Lebanese magazine and were elaborated on by the Speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Hashemi Rafsanjani, in a speech in Tehran.

The White House has refused to brief congressional leaders, despite a personal appeal from Senate Democratic Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) that he and Republican Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) be given a private explanation.

Byrd said that a senior Administration official had telephoned him last week and assured him that once he had seen “the whole story, he would support the President’s action.” Byrd declined to identify the official, but sources said it was Poindexter, who made similar calls to other congressional leaders.

Byrd said he replied, “That’s all well and good, but how do I know that? I have to respond to questions about this on the basis of what I get from the press. The leadership on both sides of aisles should be briefed. There are people on the Hill who can keep secrets.”

The official, Byrd said, replied that “in time they would be able to lay out all the facts, but they hoped to get the other hostages out first.”

Byrd said one or more committees will conduct hearings on the issue when the Democrats take leadership of the Senate in January.

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), plans hearings on the arms shipments as early as next week, aides said.