Two Security Staffers Resign in Reshuffling

The White House today announced the resignations of two National Security Council staff members as new council chief Frank Carlucci, described by sources as shocked at the mediocrity he has uncovered, began a shake-up of President Reagan’s foreign policy apparatus.

Howard Teicher, a controversial Middle East specialist on the council staff who reportedly helped engineer Reagan’s secret arms sales to Iran, will leave in March, presidential spokesman Larry Speakes said.

Speakes also said Rodney B. McDaniel, executive secretary for the council, is resigning. A source said McDaniel was among the first to be told to find another assignment as Carlucci began cleaning house.

Political-Military Affairs

Teicher headed the council’s office of political-military affairs, where Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North worked before being fired Nov. 25 for his alleged role in skimming profits from Iranian arms sales to aid U.S.-backed Nicaraguan rebels.

Speakes, however, said Teicher “was not Ollie North’s supervisor,” because North reported directly to since-resigned National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter--”when he reported.”

Speakes said Teicher is leaving “for what he describes as personal reasons.”

Teicher was to testify later today before the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding his role in the Iranian affair.

Trip to Iran

Reagan’s former national security adviser, Robert C. McFarlane, reportedly has testified in closed hearings that Teicher accompanied him and North on their secret trip to Iran last May aboard a plane carrying military equipment for Iranian forces.

Earlier this year, reports identified Teicher as a source of a Wall Street Journal article suggesting that the United States and Libya were again on a collision course after the U.S. bombing raids in April.

The article--and Teicher’s role--later figured in a controversy over Reagan’s approval of a Poindexter “disinformation” plan designed to frighten Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi into thinking he was about to be attacked again.

Among those Carlucci reportedly has picked to serve on his new team of advisers is Fritz Ermarth, the CIA’s ranking Soviet affairs expert. Described as a hard-liner by those who know him, Ermarth served on the National Security Council staff under Zbigniew Brzezinski in the Carter Administration.