Freedom for Hostages Was Top Reagan Aim, Aide Says

President Reagan, while publicly vowing to make no deals with terrorists, has been so concerned about the safe return of American hostages in Lebanon that he has raised the issue repeatedly with his national security advisers during the last year, a senior Administration official said Thursday.

Echoing Reagan’s televised speech Thursday night, the senior official said that winning freedom for the hostages was only one of several goals of the secret U.S. diplomacy with Iran, which he said was also aimed at restoring normal relations between the two countries.

But he also acknowledged, unlike the President, that freeing the hostages was the Administration’s driving motive.

The desire to improve U.S. relations with Iran had led to months of study and discussion, he said--but the Administration pressed ahead with its plans to seek more contact with the Tehran regime only after it saw a chance to free the hostages.

“It is a matter simply of priorities,” the official said, speaking on condition he not be identified. “When it began to be clear who took the hostages (and) who has influence on them, we began to see that, as we looked into the hostage situation . . . there was a possibility of furthering our other objectives. And so we could work two issues at the same time.”

Reagan approved shipments of U.S. arms to Iran with “all of the objectives” in mind, the official said. But he also described the President as emotionally concerned with the safety of the hostages and as frequently urging his advisers to seek ways to gain their release.

“He worries about the hostages being over there every day,” the official said, briefing reporters at the White House before the President’s speech.

His account of the President’s constant personal concern over the fate of the hostages was the most authoritative confirmation of the role this emotional element played in the Administration’s decision to launch secret negotiations with Iran.

Another Avenue Needed

As a measure of the depth of Reagan’s concern over the hostages’ safety, the senior official said that Reagan has raised the question of freeing the hostages in perhaps half of his daily briefing sessions with his national security adviser, John M. Poindexter.

And, while saying that disclosure of the secret negotiations “probably damages the chances of getting the other hostages out soon,” the official declared: “We’ll have to figure out probably, at this point, some other way to go about the problem. Because the President’s not going to forget about them.”

In discussing the highly secret negotiations, the official said that the arms shipments included only defensive weapons and were used “to show good faith” on the part of the United States in dealing with a regime that remains profoundly suspicious of American intentions.

Further, he said, the Iranian officials engaged in the negotiations agreed last year to halt all Iranian-sponsored terrorism against American targets--and kept the bargain.

In the most detailed official explanation yet of the 18-month-long secret negotiations, the senior aide also said that:

--Soon after the negotiations began, the Iranians demonstrated their good faith by promising to prevent further kidnapings or terrorist attacks against Americans by forces under their control--and kept the bargain for at least a year.

--The direct arms shipments were fully discussed by Reagan’s senior national security staff, including relevant Cabinet members, and approved by the President himself in a national security directive signed in January, 1986. While the National Security Council staff was closely involved, he said, “it has not been an NSC ‘cowboy’-run operation.”

--The Administration began by sending arms to Iran through another country, which other sources have identified as Israel. But beginning earlier this year, the United States sent several arms shipments directly to Iran, without going through other countries.

--The shipments did not include parts for Iran’s F-4 jet fighters, which the Administration considers to be offensive weapons. But anti-aircraft missiles, anti-tank missiles and radar parts may have been included. Other sources have said that the shipments included anti-tank missiles, aircraft parts and radar components.

--The CIA was also involved in the operation. But the official contended that the Administration was not legally required to notify Congress of the operation while it was going on because to do so would have endangered lives.

‘A Justified Deviation’

The official said that he is confident U.S. allies in both Europe and the Arab world would understand the shipments as “a justified deviation from our public policy.”

“When you’re trying to accomplish something like this, you have to use unconventional methods,” he said.

The total of all arms shipped by the United States could have fit inside “a large transport aircraft,” the official said. A Boeing 747 designed for cargo, for example, can carry a maximum of 230,000 pounds of freight. A payload of that weight could carry more than 4,000 anti-tank missiles, although sources have said that a mix of military hardware was shipped.

The senior official, who had detailed knowledge of the operation, said that Administration officials had been interested in exploring better relations with Tehran since Reagan came to office in 1981 on the same day that Iran released 52 American hostages. The Americans had been held prisoner by radical students in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran during the Administration of President Jimmy Carter.

Issue Largely Neglected

But the senior official acknowledged that the issue of improving U.S.-Iranian relations was largely neglected until more U.S. hostages were seized by pro-Iranian terrorists in Beirut.

During the first half of 1985, he said, the Administration succeeded in making contact with Iranian officials through a channel he refused to describe, but which other sources have said was the government of Israel.

“We have told the moderate elements within Iran . . . that the major obstacle to progress in any kind of a constructive relationship with the United States depends on their stopping terrorism and also depends on our getting the hostages back,” he said.

“We . . . told them that the only way that we could have a positive relationship with them was if we got the hostages back, and so that had to be one of the conditions,” he said.

“Shortly after we began discussions in the first channel, we got an agreement from the elements that we were dealing with that there would be no more hostage-taking or terrorist incidents conducted against the United States by Iran or by any groups supported by Iran,” he said.

“They said they would do that and what we observed was exactly that. We went for about a year without any hostages being taken.”

Accord in June, 1985

He said this agreement was reached some time after the Islamic Jihad organization seized Thomas Sutherland, dean of the agriculture school of American University of Beirut, on June 9, 1985.

No other Americans were kidnaped in Lebanon until Sept. 9, 1986, when Frank H. Reed, a high school teacher, was seized--by a group that apparently is not under the influence of the Iranian “moderates” with whom the Administration dealt.

At the same time, the official said, the Iranian moderates wanted evidence of the Administration’s “good faith”--in the form of the military hardware Iran needed for its bitter six-year old war with neighboring Iraq.

“It was a matter of our demonstrating good faith and trying to provide some support to the moderate elements” in the Tehran government, the Administration official said. “The people that we’re dealing with have got . . . to be able to show that their connections, you know, are operating to the benefit of Iran.”

‘Third Country’ Involved

As a result of those discussions, he said, a “third country” arranged a shipment of military hardware to Iran in 1985. “It was done in our interests,” the senior official said.

And about the same time, he said, the first U.S. hostage was released: the Rev. Benjamin Weir, who was freed Sept. 14, 1985.

The official refused to provide details of this arms shipment, but he was apparently referring to an Israeli-sponsored supply flight which reportedly traveled from Tel Aviv to an Iranian air base at Tabriz that same month.

After Weir’s release, the official said, the Administration’s negotiations with the Iranians slowed down. But he denied reports that the holdup stemmed from strong objections by Secretary of State George P. Shultz. Instead, the official said, the Administration needed “a period of reassessment . . . to try to figure out what the next best step would be.”

The next step, he said, was to attempt to deal directly with the Tehran regime. In January, 1986, Reagan secretly signed the new national security directive authorizing his aides to arrange arms shipments to Iran, the senior official said. And in May, former national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane was dispatched to Tehran for direct talks with Iranian government officials, reporting back by telephone to Poindexter.

4 Days of Talks

According to Iranian officials, McFarlane arrived with a planeload of weaponry. Iranian Parliament Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani later claimed that security guards arrested McFarlane at the airport and shortly afterward deported him. But McFarlane said Thursday evening on ABC’s “Nightline” program that his visit “had been well arranged” and that he conducted morning and afternoon negotiating sessions with Iranian officials over four days.

In any case, the impasse was broken, for the terrorists in Lebanon released Father Lawrence M. Jenco on July 26.

Both the weapons shipments and the negotiations continued. On Nov. 2, a third hostage, David P. Jacobsen, was freed.