Meese Probing Security Staff on Arms Deal

Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, acting on behalf of President Reagan, is personally investigating whether members of the National Security Council staff overstepped their authority in the secret arms-and-hostages deal with Iran, Administration officials said Monday.

In a highly unusual step for an attorney general, Meese himself took part in the questioning over the weekend of Lt. Col. Oliver North, an NSC staff member, about Israel’s critical first shipment of U.S.-made weapons to Iran in August, 1985--the shipment that preceded the release of an American hostage, the Rev. Benjamin Weir, and apparently persuaded Reagan to launch direct U.S. shipments.

Officials outside the Justice Department said that the inquiry involves questions about North’s possible role in the authorization of the Israeli shipment at a time when Reagan is said to have rejected a proposal for sending arms to so-called Iranian moderates as a way of building diplomatic ties and freeing U.S. hostages.

At issue is the possibility that Israel was given approval for its August, 1985, shipment in contravention of the President’s decision not to proceed.

“The Justice Department is looking into the possibility that the Israelis were told by Col. Oliver North to go right ahead--(that) he didn’t bother to tell the President, he didn’t bother to tell the NSC,” a knowledgeable Administration official said Monday.

“They’ve also been looking back into his conduct on Nicaragua,” the official said. “The question is whether he took any action in aid of the contras that was not authorized.”

Another Administration official, reiterating an earlier denial, said Monday when asked about the issue, “I can categorically deny that Lt. Col. North in any way approved any shipments of arms by Israel to Iran.”

North has neither been seen nor questioned by reporters. But a close associate who has talked directly with North told The Times that “Ollie did absolutely nothing without the authority of John Poindexter”--who is the President’s national security adviser--or his predecessor, Robert C. McFarlane.

‘They Are Lying’

“And if anybody is stating that Ollie did something without that authority, they are lying,” the source said.

North, who is deputy director of the NSC’s political-military affairs office, has been a key White House official in several sensitive policy areas. He has been heavily involved in counterterrorism policy and played a key role in putting the Nicaraguan rebels, known as contras, in contact with Americans who could help them organize a secret, private supply line during the period when Congress banned U.S. aid to the guerrillas, U.S. and contras officials have said.

Democrats in Congress have charged that North aided the contras directly and may have given them access to U.S. military transport for some of their supplies. But those charges have never been proven. Such aid apparently would have violated the congressional ban.

Aware of Inquiry

McFarlane refused to comment on the matter Monday. A spokesman for the former presidential aide, asked whether he had been questioned by Meese or other Justice Department officials, said, “He’s not going to make any comment until the congressional process is finished.” She said he was aware of the Meese inquiry.

While officials declined to specify details of the inquiry, for which Meese canceled participation in a two-day conference at Harvard, they said the purpose was to “find out what happened” rather than attempting to fix any possible criminal responsibility.

In confirming the unusually direct involvement by senior Justice Department officials over the weekend, however, one Administration official said, “They were out knocking on doors.”

Meese’s involvement in the inquiry appears to signal Reagan’s determination to obtain the full facts of the Iran affair, even though the President is continuing to insist that he made no mistake in authorizing U.S. arms shipments.

No FBI Involvement

One source noted that the FBI, which normally conducts questioning when any criminal conduct is suspected, thus far has not been involved in the inquiry.

Meese, who is a member of the National Security Council, himself has been involved in the Iran arms shipment matter “from the outset,” his Justice Department spokesmen have been saying. After consulting with his office of legal counsel, the attorney general gave Reagan an oral opinion that the 1986 shipments were legal.

In his biweekly meeting with the Justice Department management team on Nov. 14, Meese repeatedly assured subordinates that the White House had checked with the department on legal authority each step of the way, according to officials who attended the session.

The attorney general nevertheless does not consider his effort to uncover the full details of the Iran case as raising any conflict on his part, one official explained, because he was not involved in any 1985 authorization.

The Critical Consignment

The Meese inquiry reflects confusion over whether the first shipment of arms to Iran in August, 1985--the critical consignment that apparently spurred the release of Weir and triggered an ill-fated stream of later arms shipments--had President Reagan’s approval to begin with.

The Israeli shipment took place before Reagan secretly signed documents on Jan. 17, 1986, waiving the U.S. embargo on arms going to Iran.

The question of whether it had U.S. authorization goes to the core of the President’s management of the Iran affair and, ultimately, to the direction of the Administration’s policies on terrorism and the Middle East. For the moment, there is no single answer.

The Reagan Administration, in the person of CIA Director William J. Casey, told the House and Senate Intelligence committees in closed session last Friday that the first shipment did not have Reagan’s approval.

Rejection by Reagan

The lawmakers were told that Reagan had rejected a proposal by aides to make secret weapons shipments to Iranian moderates in the summer of 1985, shortly before the initial shipment of U.S.-made arms left Israel for Iran.

But Israeli officials, reportedly representing their country’s intelligence service, the Mossad, told Senate experts last week that they proceeded with the first arms shipment, and later in 1985 with others, only after getting approval from McFarlane, who was Reagan’s national security adviser at the time.

That account was privately confirmed by an Israeli government source, but it remains unclear whether the Israelis said that McFarlane personally gave the go-ahead or said that approval came from someone representing his office.

A Washington Post article quoting McFarlane and sources “familiar with his thinking” said the Israelis made the shipment without McFarlane’s approval.

‘Worth the Risk’

In the article, the sources said that David Kimche, director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, met with McFarlane in July, 1985, in the United States. Quoting an anonymous source, the article said Israel concluded after the meeting that “sending arms to the reformist elements of Iran was . . . probably worth the risk, even though neither McFarlane nor anyone else had given a formal OK.”

Poindexter--who was McFarlane’s No. 1 aide at the conception of the Iranian operation--has told superiors that he was totally unaware of the first Israeli arms shipment and played no role in approving it.

“Poindexter had no knowledge,” an Administration official agreed.

Times staff writer Doyle McManus also contributed to this article.