Weinberger Skeptical Profits Were Diverted : Defense Chief Says He Knows No Facts to Prove Meese’s Report That Contras Received Funds

Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger said Tuesday that “there aren’t any facts that I know of to sustain” assertions that Iranian arms sales profits were diverted to Nicaraguan rebels.

In an oblique challenge to Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III’s disclosure at a news conference Nov. 25 of evidence that “certain monies” from the arms sales “were taken and made available” to the contras , Weinberger said in an interview with The Times that “I’m not ready to leap to the conclusion that there was a diversion of funds.”

He said Meese’s disclosure was based on statements by Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, the fired National Security Council aide who since “has stopped talking.”

“I don’t know that it happened,” Weinberger said of the reported fund diversion. “ . . . Maybe skepticism is exactly the right word. . . . All I’m saying is that I simply don’t know and I don’t know anybody who does.”

Justice Official Scoffs

A Justice Department official, however, scoffed at Weinberger’s expressions of doubt about the validity of one aspect of the two-sided scandal that has shaken Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

The official, who asked to remain anonymous, said that, in addition to North’s admission, other evidence of the diversion was found in NSC documents examined by Meese and a group of Justice Department officials on the weekend before the November news conference.

Weinberger made his comments as a White House spokesman challenged the scope of accounts that North had shredded documents in his last hours with the NSC.

Government sources reported in late November that, as details of the scandal unfolded, North entered his secure office and shredded papers at least 36 hours before White House security officers were dispatched to change the combinations on North’s office and safe locks.

“The Ollie shredding of documents was grossly misrepresented in the press,” White House spokesman Larry Speakes said Tuesday.

‘Limited’ Shredding

“If there was shredding, it was very limited, and we have not uncovered any missing documents,” Speakes told reporters. “We had very prompt access to the shredding machine” after it was used by North, he said, and “very little” appeared to have been destroyed.

The spokesman said he had no knowledge about whether computer tapes had been destroyed. But, he said, if a message sent by computer among staff members had been removed from files, “it could be (in) two other places”--a central file or the computer file of the person to whom it had been sent.

Such data is saved in 30-day segments, Speakes said.

In another development, independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh, the court-appointed attorney charged with investigating criminal wrongdoing in the case, said that Justice Department officials have agreed that he has authority to look into every relevant aspect of the case.

Other Investigations

Officials said that the agreement means Walsh, if he chooses, may take over such related probes as a Miami-based FBI investigation of Southern Air Transport, an airline formerly owned by the CIA and used to ferry arms to Iran and to Nicaraguan rebel forces, as well as an inquiry by the U.S. attorney in Miami into the reported shipment of tons of rifles and other weapons from an airport in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to a contra base in Costa Rica.

At a breakfast meeting with reporters, Weinberger expressed concern that the controversy over the Iranian arms shipments might divert attention from other critical issues, including the budget Reagan sent to Congress Monday.

Weinberger, along with Secretary of State George P. Shultz, advised Reagan against undertaking the arms shipments but was overruled by the President. Asked whether this caused him to privately debate what to do, Weinberger replied that “I considered all possible courses” before deciding to help carry out the President’s orders.

In the later interview, Weinberger was asked if this meant he has considered resigning. He replied: “I wouldn’t want to go into any detail. I have great reluctance talking about matters that . . . involve the advice or discussion I’ve had with the President.”

Staff writer Robert L. Jackson contributed to this story.