Briefed Reagan Often, North Told Group : Churchwoman Says Marine Claimed Twice-Weekly Meetings

Fired White House national security aide Lt. Col. Oliver L. North told a church group last winter that he met with President Reagan twice a week on Nicaragua and terrorism issues, a churchwoman says.

North was fired from his National Security Council job for allegedly masterminding the clandestine transfer of money from weapons sales to Iran to the Nicaraguan contras.

Reagan has said he knew nothing about the fund transfers, which occurred at a time that Congress had banned military aid to the contras, until Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III informed him of the program last week. Meese told reporters that only North and former national security adviser John Poindexter knew about the operation.

The United Methodist Church’s Joint Panel on International Affairs had met with North to get the Administration’s views on Nicaragua, said Ellen Kirby, one of 18 church members who attended the Feb. 10 meeting in Washington.

“He showed us a slide presentation and spent about an hour with us,” she said in a telephone interview Thursday. “He told us he had just come from a meeting with the President, having flown in the night before.”

She said North told them he had been in Beirut “working on the hostage situation. He was late meeting with us because he was meeting with the President.”

“He said he meets with the President regularly, twice a week, half on this problem (the contra rebels) and half on terrorism,” she added.

White House spokesman Larry Speakes, asked about the church group’s statements, said: “Ollie North did not brief the President a couple of times a week in private. I don’t know that Ollie North ever briefed the President in private, one-on-one. And . . . there are very, very few times that Ollie North was in the Oval Office even with a group.”

The United Methodist Church officially opposes U.S. support for the contra rebels. Kirby said the church was interested in learning the Administration’s viewpoint and had no trouble arranging a session with North.

Bishop William Grove, who headed the delegation, affirmed in a statement released after the February meeting that North told the group he met with Reagan twice a week.

“During our briefing I became deeply concerned about Col. North’s apparent influence and power . . . as well as his commitment to do whatever was necessary, including direct military action, to impose a U.S. solution on Nicaragua,” Grove said in a another statement released this week by the church.