Key Data May Be Available, Regan Asserts

White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan raised the possibility Thursday that if key documents in the Iranian arms sale controversy have been shredded, duplicates may be available in central White House files.

Regan, spending the Thanksgiving holiday with President Reagan at his ranch near Santa Barbara, told reporters that the White House keeps copies of all national security documents. But his remarks left unclear whether the documents that may have been destroyed were formally designated “national security.”

The Times on Thursday quoted government sources as saying that Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, who was dismissed Tuesday from the White House National Security Council staff, had entered his White House office over the previous weekend and destroyed documents from NSC files that are believed to have indicated the scope of involvement in the venture by other Administration officials.

Barred From White House

North, a central figure in the clandestine sale of U.S.-made arms to Iran and the diversion of profits from those sales for use by the contras seeking to overthrow the Marxist-led government of Nicaragua, was barred Thursday when he tried to enter the White House grounds.

But it was only on Tuesday afternoon that Administration officials dispatched White House security officers to change the combinations on North’s office and safe locks, government sources said. According to sources, that was at least 36 hours too late to prevent North from entering his office and destroying the documents.

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) told CBS News that if North had been able to destroy documents in his office, that provided further reason to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the burgeoning scandal over the Iranian arms deal. To date, only the Justice Department is investigating the matter, and Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, a long-time confidant of President Reagan, is heading the investigation.

Regan said that neither he nor President Reagan had been questioned by investigators. But the Justice Department earlier had said that among the persons whom its investigators had interviewed were the President, Regan, Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger.

Different Terms

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the discrepancy may stem from the difference between “questioning” and “interviewing.” “Talking to people and investigating are different things,” he said.

Regan’s remarks on the possible destruction of documents left open the question of whether duplicates remained on file.

“I do know all national security documents are not in the possession of just one person,” Regan said. “There are copies of them. There is a central file. That’s under close supervision. There’d be no chance that those would be missing.”

Asked specifically whether copies of documents in North’s office would be available elsewhere, Regan replied: “If those are national security documents, yes.”

A government source has said that destruction last weekend of the documents, which could be crucial in determining the scope of other Reagan Administration officials’ involvement in the case, is being investigated by the FBI.

In Professional Hands

Dan Howard, a White House spokesman, said of the report that the documents had been destroyed: “The whole matter is in the hands of the professional investigators, where it should be.”

Regan told reporters that he knew “absolutely nothing” about the shredding.

Asked whether he or the President had been questioned in the case, he replied: “No, no, no. They’re looking for evidence of a different nature. We have not been talked to and the President wouldn’t be talked to in any event.”

Later he said that it was “possible” that he would be interviewed by Justice Department officials conducting the investigation.

So far the FBI, which joined the investigation only on Wednesday, is understood not to have spoken with most of the key figures, and is believed to have conducted no interviews on Thursday.

Others Not Interviewed

It was understood that those who have not yet been interviewed include the following:

--Michael A. Ledeen, a senior fellow at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, who reportedly participated in the initial contacts among the United States, Israel and Iran that led to the establishment of the arms pipeline through Israel to Iran.

--Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord, who has been tied to the Administration-supported private effort to aid the contras.

--Robert Owen, a consultant who worked with North in seeking private funding for the contras.

Regan insisted: “We want to have out in the open anything of a wrongdoing. Remember, the first we heard of this was Monday afternoon, . . . when the President first got the information that there’d been wrongdoing.”

Asked about whether an independent counsel should take over the investigation, Regan said: “If there’s a violation of the Ethics Act, then a special prosecutor would be called on.”

Ethics Act

The 1978 Ethics in Government Act provides that independent counsels, once known as special prosecutors, conduct investigations of alleged wrongdoing by high-level government officials. Reagan’s two most recent national security advisers--Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, who resigned Tuesday, and Robert C. McFarlane, whom he replaced last December--are sufficiently high-ranking to trigger the Ethics in Government Act.

Meese said Tuesday that both Poindexter and McFarlane knew of the scheme to divert funds from the Iranian arms sales for the contras. North, as a member of the National Security Council staff first under McFarlane and then under Poindexter, does not rank high enough to automatically trigger use of an independent counsel.

But the Ethics in Government Act allows the attorney general to seek an independent prosecutor for such lower-ranking officials when an internal investigation would raise even the appearance of a political or financial conflict of interest.

A White House official in Washington, speaking anonymously, said that North, whose pass to enter the White House grounds has been revoked, arrived at a White House gate on Thursday and asked the “situation room”--the national security monitoring center in the White House basement--to clear him into the complex.

On ‘Do-Not-Admit List’

The official said that North “was being followed very closely by the press” and left the gate area before finding out whether he would be admitted. But in Santa Barbara, spokesman Howard said: “Lt. Col. North’s name has been placed on the official ‘do-not-admit list’ at the White House. He no longer has a White House pass, and he cannot be admitted to the compound.”

“This is standard operating procedure for anyone who is under an investigation,” Howard said.

Times staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow contributed to this story from Washington.