Explanations of Crisis: Study in Contradictions

In his first public explanation of the Iran arms crisis, President Reagan denounced “false rumors and erroneous reports” about the previously secret program and proposed, “Let’s get to the facts.”

That was more than three weeks ago. Since then, Reagan, his top aides and government leaders in Israel have repeatedly contradicted each other and--in some cases--themselves on such seemingly objective matters as who first suggested selling arms to Tehran, who authorized the shipments and how profits were diverted to Nicaraguan rebels.

Inconsistencies Cited

The sharpest disagreements recorded so far pit often anonymous sources against the President and other senior officials. But a review of the on-the-record remarks of Reagan and his associates reveals many contradictions and inconsistencies within the Administration’s own version of the story.

For example, the President and his aides have contradicted themselves repeatedly on the sequence of arms shipments to Iran.

In his Nov. 19 press conference, Reagan insisted that the United States had “nothing to do with other countries or their shipment of arms.” He said all shipments condoned by Washington came after he signed an order Jan. 17 waiving the provisions of the U.S. arms embargo against Tehran.

That conflicted with what Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, who later resigned as Reagan’s national security adviser, had said six days earlier. “There was one shipment that was made not by us but by a third country prior to the signing of that (Jan. 17) document,” he told a White House briefing. He said that the weapons had been sent “in our interests.”

So less than an hour after Reagan’s press conference ended, the White House issued an extraordinary “clarification” attributed to the President: “There was a third country involved in our secret project with Iran.” He referred in the clarification to shipments “that I have authorized or condoned . . . by the United States or any third country.”

Israel Named

Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, who has been investigating the affair, told a Nov. 25 press conference that the third country was Israel.

But Meese said the President knew about the shipment “probably after the fact and agreed with the general concept of continuing our discussions with the Israelis concerning these matters. . . . To my knowledge, nobody (in the U.S. government) authorized that particular shipment specifically.”

However, Robert C. McFarlane, whom Poindexter succeeded as national security adviser last December, in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Dec. 1 reportedly said that Reagan approved the initial Israeli arms shipment in August, 1985, and instructed him to inform the Jerusalem government that the United States would provide Israel with replacement weapons for the ones sent to Tehran.

McFarlane Testimony Told

McFarlane’s testimony was taken behind closed doors, but it was revealed by three sources who were familiar with what the former national security adviser told the committee.

In his Nov. 25 press conference, Meese revealed that profits from the sale of weapons to Iran were diverted into a Swiss bank account for the benefit of the anti-government contras in Nicaragua. Although he said the United States never had control over the funds, he said that Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, an aide to Poindexter on the National Security Council staff, “knew precisely” about the diversion of funds.

He said that the weapons were priced at about $12 million by the U.S. government but were sold to Iran at a price between $10 million and $30 million more than that. When asked how the sale price was reached, Meese said: “All of that took place in negotiations between people we might call loosely representing Israel and people representing Iran.” He said the talks were not carried out “in the presence of or with the participation of any American person.”

Reagan was even blunter in an interview in Time magazine, published Dec. 1. “Another country was facilitating those sales of weapons systems,” he said. “They were overcharging and were apparently putting the money into bank accounts of the leaders of the contras. It wasn’t us funneling money to them. This was another country.”

Meese Points Disputed

Top leaders of the Israeli government, after a crisis meeting that ended around midnight Nov. 26, issued a statement disputing most of the points made by Meese. The statement by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said Israel transferred arms to Iran “upon the request of the U.S. government.”

As for the money Iran paid for the weapons, the Israelis said it was deposited in “a Swiss bank in accordance with instructions from the American representative.” The Israeli leaders added: “The funds did not pass through Israel.”

In his Nov. 13 speech and his subsequent interview with Time magazine, Reagan said that press accounts of the program had turned a success into a fiasco. He told Time: “What is driving me up the wall is that this wasn’t a failure until the press got a tip from that rag in Beirut”--a reference to a pro-Syrian Lebanese journal that first revealed the U.S. overtures to Iran.

But in his White House briefing Nov. 13, Poindexter conceded that the risk of discovery had been inherent in the plan from the start and that the operation probably was betrayed by anti-American Iranians intent on sabotaging it.

“It was one of the risks that we considered from the very beginning. . . . “ he said. “It is my assessment that the reason that (McFarlane’s) trip was revealed has to do with that political infighting (in Iran). . . . The radical faction is opposed to an improved relationship with the United States.”

In his Nov. 13 speech and repeatedly since then, Reagan insisted that the United States did not provide arms to Iran as part of ransom for U.S. hostages in Lebanon. He said: “We did not--repeat, did not--trade weapons or anything else for hostages--nor will we.”

He conceded, however, that “hostages have come home.” He called the release of three American hostages a show of good faith on Iran’s part, just as he described the U.S. arms shipments as a demonstration of U.S. good will.

And in the same speech, Reagan also said: “Some progress has already been made. Since U.S. government contact began with Iran, there’s been no evidence of Iranian government complicity in acts of terrorism against the United States.”

But Secretary of State George P. Shultz said in a television interview three days later: “Iran has and continues to pursue a policy of terrorism.” And on Nov. 24, Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead told a House committee: “I don’t like to differ with my President, but I believe there is some evidence of continued Iranian involvement with terrorists.”

‘Passed on Legality’

Poindexter said in the Nov. 13 briefing that Meese had “passed on the legality” of Reagan’s Jan. 17 waiver of the embargo on arms shipments to Iran “before the President signed this directive.” White House spokesman Larry Speakes, in virtually identical comments at each of his daily briefings between Nov. 12 and 24, said Meese “provided legal advice on U.S. dealings with Iran from the start.”

But Meese said on Nov. 25: “The only legal opinion (that he gave) had to do with the routine concurrence with the finding of January, (17) 1986. That’s the only legal advice that was asked for or that was given.”

Meese said on Nov. 25 that North was the only person who “knew precisely” about the diversion of money from Iran to the contras, although Poindexter and McFarlane knew part of the story. He said no one else knew anything at all about it until Meese discovered the operation while trying to reconcile factual differences in testimony prepared by government witnesses for congressional hearings Nov. 21. No other Administration official has disputed that assertion.

But there has been some disagreement about how much Shultz knew of the arms sales to Iran. Shultz told reporters on Nov. 21 that he attended two “full-scale discussions” of U.S. policy toward Iran in December, 1985, and January, 1986. But he declined to say if he was present when the President decided to sign the waiver of the arms embargo. State Department spokesman Charles Redman said earlier that Shultz had nothing to do with carrying out the arms sales and was only “sporadically informed of some details” of the Iran operation.

However, McFarlane told reporters on Nov. 20 that he had briefed Shultz “repeatedly and often on every item” of the relationship with Iran.

Three Possible Versions

Even the accounts of how the idea of an arms deal originally came about show little consistency. Reagan himself has hinted at all three conceivable versions of the origin--that it was a U.S. initiative, that the idea came from the Iranians or that it was suggested through a third country.

In his Nov. 13 televised speech, Reagan appeared to imply that the plan started at Washington’s initiative. “It’s because of Iran’s strategic importance and its influence in the Islamic world that we choose to probe for a better relationship between our two countries,” he said.

But in his Time magazine interview, he said: “The Iranians came to us at first. They wanted to talk about a better relationship.”

And in his radio speech Saturday, the President said: “Individuals in Iran, including some members of the government there, had asked through an intermediary in a third country for a meeting.”

A senior Administration official--now known to have been Poindexter--told an official White House briefing before Reagan’s Nov. 13 speech that the United States sought the contacts and had to overcome substantial Iranian resistance.

“One of the major hurdles that we’ve had to overcome here, during this Administration, was how to reach out to Iran. . . . “ Poindexter said. “Now, because of the extremely bad situation between the United States and Iran, it’s been very difficult to do that.”

Meese, gave still another account in his Nov. 25 press conference. “The policy was proposed initially as a result of conversations with Israel,” he said.

Tells of ‘Secret Mission’

Reagan’s Nov. 13 speech marked his first full-scale attempt to get control of the situation. In that address, he said he had asked McFarlane “to undertake a secret mission” to Iran.

That was his first acknowledgment of McFarlane’s mission. A week earlier, in answer to a reporter’s question after the signing of the immigration reform bill, Reagan had said there was “no foundation” to published accounts of a McFarlane trip to Iran.

In his Dec. 2 press conference, Meese conceded that it has proved to be far more difficult to assemble all of the details than Reagan seemed to imply when he said on Nov. 13: “Now you’re going to hear the facts from a White House source, and you know my name.”

“I think that the facts, as I related them a week ago, as we knew them at the time, which was a very preliminary review, were in themselves rather complex, involving several people, involving several countries, involving several parts of the world, involving different transactions,” Meese said. “So, I agree with the President that it’s easy to understand how it is difficult to comprehend all these things, including who might have had knowledge of all this.”