Carter Faults Reagan Stance on Contra Issue

Former President Jimmy Carter said President Reagan appears to be trying to hide the facts of the Iran- contra connection from the American people.

In an interview, Carter said that when Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III acknowledged that arms had been sold to Iran, all Reagan had to do was call in those who knew the details and tell them “he wanted all the facts, to go to your office and write down everything you were involved with.”

Reagan appears to want the Congress to have to dig for the facts, meaning they will come out piecemeal “and that could be more damaging,” Carter said in the interview at a fund-raising reception Monday night for Hamilton Jordan, his former chief of staff who was an unsuccessful candidate this year for the U.S. Senate.

Carter also said he would not have excluded his secretary of state from a major foreign policy decision the way Secretary of State George P. Shultz apparently was excluded from deliberations on the Iran-Nicaragua affair.

“I never made a major decision without a thorough discussion with the secretary of state,” other key civilian and military advisers and members of Congress, Carter said.

“It was beneficial in avoiding a mistake on my part by getting the best advice, and later in presenting your decision to the Congress,” Carter said.

“That way the military commanders and the advisers could testify before the Congress they were a part of the decision.”

Asked if there were similarities between Reagan’s alleged reluctance to discuss the Iranian scandal and former President Richard M. Nixon’s behavior after the Watergate break-in, Carter said, “I wouldn’t want to draw those parallels.”