Reagan OK of Iran Trip and Note Told : Approved McFarlane Visit and Policy Declaration, Congress Sources Say

President Reagan last May 15 personally authorized a clandestine trip by U.S. officials to Tehran and approved a document outlining the “pillars and principles” of American policy toward Iran that was delivered to Iranian officials during that visit, congressional sources said Wednesday.

Thirteen days later, a U.S. delegation headed by Robert C. McFarlane, Reagan’s former national security adviser, arrived secretly in Tehran with a planeload of weapons for Iran. Also in the U.S. delegation was Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, a White House National Security Council staff member who was fired last November for his role in the Iranian arms sales and the diversion of profits to the Nicaraguan contras.

The 3 1/2-page, single-spaced document that was delivered by the Americans declared that the United States recognized the Iranian revolution “as a fact,” sources said. The regime of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini apparently had been seeking such an assurance in exchange for help in winning the release of American hostages held by pro-Iranian terrorists in Lebanon.

Swiss Transactions Cited

On the same day that Reagan authorized the U.S. delegation to travel to Iran, according to congressional sources, several key financial transactions were made in the Swiss bank accounts where Iranian arms money was deposited.

Some money was forwarded that day to the contras, the sources said. In all, the contras were believed to have received $8.5 million from the May, 1986, arms sale.

Sources also said that a chronology written by the Senate Intelligence Committee shows a payment of $6.5 million on May 15 to reimburse the Pentagon for the weapons to be delivered later that month to Iran.

Earlier, according to sources, a group of private investors led by Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi had put $15.7 million into the Swiss bank accounts as up-front money to guarantee that the United States would be paid for its arms.

Expected a Profit

It is believed by committee members that these investors expected to make a profit after the Iranians paid for the arms but instead suffered a loss of at least $8 million as a result of the diversion of $8.5 million to the contras.

According to sources, the document that McFarlane took to Iran was titled the “pillars and principles” of U.S. policy. It reportedly discussed a wide variety of issues of interest to Iran, including U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and the Reagan Administration’s attitude toward Soviet influence in the region.

The name of the author of the document could not be learned, but Administration officials said Wednesday that it was written without the knowledge of State Department officials, including Secretary of State George P. Shultz, who opposed the arms sales policy.

“We have a policy, but it doesn’t come with pillars,” said one Administration official.

The title of the paper appears to be an allusion to the five “pillars”--or obligatory duties--of the religion of Islam, which is practiced in Iran. These are prayer, fasting, pilgrimage to Mecca, payment of religious tax and recital of the profession of faith.

According to sources, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee first learned about the document last November from Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, then Reagan’s national security adviser. Poindexter later refused to testify before the committee.

Earlier Testimony

Congressional investigators said the document, which the committee obtained during hearings last month, bolsters the testimony of others that the President personally approved the Tehran mission during a meeting with his top staff on May 15.

The document apparently was just one of several items carried by the U.S. delegation--in addition to the weapons themselves--that apparently were designed to show good faith on the part of the Americans after years of hostility between Iran and the United States.

Sources said the Senate committee has heard testimony that the group also carried a Bible signed by the President and a cake baked in Israel with a key in the middle to symbolize the opening of a new relationship with Iran.

McFarlane’s Denial

McFarlane, who has publicly denied reports of the Bible and cake, is understood to have refined his story in testimony before the committee to indicate that he did not personally carry such items. Sources said other witnesses have confirmed the story of the Bible and cake in various forms.

The U.S. delegation also carried 10 CIA-supplied passports, sources said. In addition to McFarlane and North, the delegation included Howard Teicher, then North’s boss on the NSC staff; George Cave, a former CIA agent who acted as interpreter, and Amiram Nir, a representative of then-Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres who by some accounts suggested that Iranian arms sale profits be diverted to the contras.

According to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s still-unpublished report on the Iran-contra affair, the U.S. delegation encountered a variety of unexpected difficulties when it arrived in Tehran on May 28 for a four-day visit. The first was the failure of its Iranian contact, Manucher Ghorbanifar, to meet it at the airport.

Iranians’ Demand

McFarlane threatened to leave on the first day in Tehran, according to sources, after Iranian officials demanded that Israel withdraw from southern Lebanon, release all of its Lebanese prisoners and sell missiles to Iran.

On the next day, sources said, the group met with higher-level Iranian officials who strongly objected to the high price that was being demanded for the weapons shipments. The Iranians had been asked to pay a total of $24 million for the May arms shipments, but they refused to pay more than $8 million, according to sources.

An Administration official who has read Teicher’s minutes of these meetings with Iranian officials in Tehran gave this account of the role of Hashemi Rafsanjani, Speaker of the Iranian parliament:

“Rafsanjani put forward attractive young men in their 20s who said we want to do the things you want us to do--we want to end the war, we want to free the hostages, we want to stop terrorism, we want to lessen Soviet influence--but we need your help. He played on our vulnerabilities. It sounded like our agenda. But when they got down to negotiating, it was all their agenda--guns and money. They took us for a ride.”