End Iran Secrecy, McFarlane Urges : Strategic Concerns Outweigh Issue of Hostages, Reagan Emissary Says

Robert C. McFarlane, the former White House national security adviser and President Reagan’s emissary in the Administration’s clandestine negotiations with Iran, said Tuesday that he has urged the White House to lift its lid of secrecy and release “a complete, accurate” record of the controversial operation to the public.

Interviewed by The Times, McFarlane said that the strategic importance of Iran--and the need to establish ties with moderates in Tehran--was of “more enduring importance” than the freeing of Americans held hostage by pro-Iranian factions in Lebanon.

Those Americans have been a focus of more than a year of secret U.S. dealings with officials in the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s regime in which the Reagan Administration helped channel U.S. military equipment to Iran--supplies that nation desperately needed for its lengthy war with Iraq.

Refused to Discuss Specifics

McFarlane, who sources say conceived the plans for the operation in 1985 while still serving as the national security adviser, refused to discuss the specifics of his role. He challenged the news media’s “portrayal of motives” in the operation, but not the overall account of how arms were exchanged for Iran’s aid in freeing Americans held hostage in Lebanon.

“I would like to give you details, but I just can’t,” he said.

He said that he hopes the White House will release information within a week, but he added: “I accept their reasons for not doing it now.” He declined to elaborate but said that concern for the safety of the American hostages still being held in Lebanon “is not trivial, it’s a real risk.”

McFarlane, now a foreign-policy consultant, was interviewed in his seventh-floor office of a downtown building here. He expressed frustration over not feeling free to discuss details of the Iranian operation.

Several times he said that he did not want to make any “self-serving statements.” But he said he would make a detailed accounting of his actions when the White House gave its approval.

The arms shipments, approved by Reagan, led to the release 10 days ago of David P. Jacobsen, 55, of Huntington Beach, Calif., the former director of the American University Hospital in Beirut, who had been held by Islamic Jihad (Islamic Holy War), a group of Shia Muslim fundamentalists. The operation also has been credited with the freeing of the Rev. Benjamin Weir, 61, a Presbyterian minister, in September, 1985, and of Father Lawrence M. Jenco, 51, Beirut chief of Catholic Relief Services, this past July.

Lid on Explanations

Despite McFarlane’s urgings, the White House clamped an even tighter lid Tuesday on both public and private explanations of its courtship of the Iranians.

The effort to maintain tight secrecy came amid indications that the Administration is still working through intermediaries to free at least one of two Americans still held captive by Islamic Jihad. They are Thomas Sutherland, 55, dean of the school of agriculture at American University of Beirut, and Terry A. Anderson, 39, chief Mideast correspondent for Associated Press.

In addition, another extremist group, the Revolutionary Justice Organization, claims to have recently kidnaped two other Americans in Beirut--Joseph J. Cicippio, 56, acting controller of American University of Beirut, and Edward A. Tracy, an illustrator and salesman of the Koran. Another American, Frank H. Reed, 53, director of the Lebanese International School in West Beirut, was seized by four gunmen in September and a pro-Libyan group called Arab Revolutionary Cells has claimed responsibility.

One official said that a central White House figure in the Iranian dealings, Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North of the National Security Council, has undertaken two and perhaps three clandestine missions in the two weeks since the secrecy surrounding the arms deal began to unravel in public.

The Wall Street Journal reported on one of those trips Monday. The White House denied then that North was on a mission but did not address the question of whether he had undertaken other recent trips.

Believed Tied to Iran

Although North frequently travels in connection with other National Security Council duties, the current trips are believed to be for the purpose of meeting with intermediaries in the Iranian situation.

The State Department, which has asked the White House to provide confused allies with an explanation of the U.S.-Iran connection, instead was ordered Monday to continue calling on them not to ship any military goods to that nation, one official said.

The order, handed down in a Cabinet-level session, was accepted only “grudgingly” by ranking State Department officials, according to that source, who refused to be named.

A second official said the State Department has complained that it is being forced to defend a policy that appears contrary to U.S. government behavior. As a result, he said, both European and moderate Arab governments have been upset by the lack of U.S. candor.

‘Concern About Credibility’

“Especially among our NATO allies, our closer allies, there is concern about the credibility and coherence of our policy,” that official said. “They have not had a good week as far as finding out the facts of what our policy is.

“The policy hasn’t changed. The question is whether it has any credibility.”

Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, personally sought an explanation of the Iranian weapons deal from national security adviser John M. Poindexter but was told to “trust us . . . (and) please don’t ask for details,” one reliable source with high Saudi contacts said Tuesday.

The Saudi government, which long has feared that a strengthened government of Iranian fundamentalists could promote instability throughout the Middle East, was described as “very unhappy” over news of the arms shipments.

“Riyadh is really off the ground about this. The United States is always asking us to help them in Morocco, Libya, Lebanon and even Central America,” the source said. “Saudi Arabia is six minutes by air from Iran, and if the United States is supplying bomber parts to Iran we (the Saudis) would like to know.”

No Details Till Nov. 21

On Capitol Hill, House members were told by Administration officials that details of the Iranian operation will not be revealed until a meeting of the House Intelligence Committee on Nov. 21, one lawmaker said.

The White House’s public reticence in the face of questions from leaders of both political parties raised speculation that hopes of freeing other U.S. hostages--described as “dashed” by a White House spokesman on Monday--still might be flickering.

Administration officials have flatly refused comment on all matters surrounding the still-captive hostages, saying that any publicity could endanger the release and even the safety of remaining hostages.

In the interview with The Times, McFarlane expressed disappointment over the lack of national press coverage of a speech he delivered Monday that set out a series of suggested conditions for improved U.S.-Iranian relations.

‘Dispassionate Look’

In that address in Atlanta, McFarlane called for a “dispassionate look” at Iran, saying that the country’s size, proximity to the Soviet Union, its vast oil reserves and its potential to cut off other Middle East oil supplies through military action all make it logical for the United States to seek a “stable relationship.”

He conceded that that has been impossible during the seven years since Iranian militants first seized American hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and the Khomeini regime began a policy of sponsoring terrorism to force Western interests from the area.

That policy is succeeding, and the United States should “accept their (the Iranians’) revolution as fact and . . . not seek to overturn it,” McFarlane said. “But we are fundamentally opposed to its expansion beyond Iran’s borders through overt hostilities or the use of terrorism.” That end could be advanced by cultivating moderates within the government, he said.

McFarlane said that U.S.-Iranian relations cannot formally improve until all American hostages held by Lebanese groups under Iranian influence or control are freed.

Aggression at Issue

To move toward better relations with Iran, he said, the United States could make a statement that Iraq, not Iran, was the “original aggressor” in the war between the two nations in September, 1980, when Iraq troops crossed the Shatt al Arab estuary into Iranian territory. Iran has repeatedly called for the world to recognize Iraqi aggression before it would consider talks that might end the blood bath.

McFarlane made no direct reference to the reported secret U.S. arms shipments in his address, but he said that efforts to cultivate sworn enemies such as Iran, and in past years China, “seldom happen in the open sunlight of town meetings.”

“Occasionally it requires a little patience and trust,” he said, adding that that “is not too high a price to pay” for improved relations.

Times staff writers Doyle McManus and Karen Tumulty contributed to this story.