Casey Questioned 5 Hours, Offers ‘New Names, Errors’ : Foreigners Mentioned to Panel

CIA Director William J. Casey underwent private questioning by House investigators on the Iran- contra scandal for more than five hours today, and his sworn testimony led one ranking Republican member to say serious errors had been made at the top levels of the spy agency.

Others who heard Casey respond to questions said he added names--some of them foreign--to the roster of people involved in the Iran-contra connection. One member, Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.), said Casey had added “a significant new dimension to this whole affair.”

Rep. William S. Broomfield (R-Mich.), the ranking GOP member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he thought Casey brought “good news and bad news.”

President Not Implicated

“The good news was that none of what he said indicated that the President knew or should have known” of anything illegal, Broomfield said.

He said the bad news is that “there have been serious errors of judgment” by senior officials of the CIA which he said should lead to important staff changes.

Broomfield did not identify either the alleged errors or the officials said to be involved.

Rep. Dante B. Fascell (D-Fla.), the committee chairman, when asked about Broomfield’s statement, said: “I’m not ready to say that yet. . . . I’m not prepared to make that kind of judgment.”

But Fascell did say that the private questioning of Casey produced an “extraordinary story” which “needs to be made public in its entirety as rapidly as possible.”

More Questions Raised

“I would characterize it as raising more questions then we were able to get answers to,” Fascell said.

He said “it’s like a very gigantic jigsaw puzzle with a puzzle on either side and all in three dimensions. It’s like a Rubik’s cube.”

He said Casey’s testimony was important because he provided names, procedural steps and “the role of the agency in the entire process.” Fascell said the names of some of the new characters “probably shouldn’t be made public yet, considering their nationalities.”

“We’ve got a long way to go; we’re not through yet,” Fascell said.

Earlier, other House members said Casey had professed ignorance in answer to many questions and had said he had not known profits from Iranian arms sales were being diverted to Nicaragua’s contra rebels until he was informed of that by Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III on Nov. 25.

News Reports Contradicted

Casey’s sworn testimony contradicted reports today in the New York Times and the Village Voice, a New York weekly, that he had learned of the funds transfer nearly a month earlier, after it was detected by CIA agents.

One report said Casey and several CIA officials confronted Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, the since-resigned national security adviser, who in turn promised to look into the reported diversion.

Rep. Morris K. Udall (D-Ariz.) said Casey left him with the impression “that he was on the sidelines and that others in the agency were doing the work.”

“Here’s a man who doesn’t seem to know too much about what’s going on,” Udall said.

Rep. Gerry E. Studds (D-Mass.) said there was a “pretty universal astonishment” at Casey’s testimony. “There were a lot of open mouths in the room,” Studds said. “Much of what he said is of great significance and has not to date been public.”