Tracing the Scandal

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the Iran-arms /contra -funding scandal, which has now been released in full, makes clear that while much has been learned about the whole misbegotten affair much remains to be exposed. The report describes how Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer, began by giving President Reagan bad advice about the legality of the arms deal and then proceeded to botch the internal investigation of what went wrong. It shows that the President, despite continuing White House denials, sanctioned the Iran arms connection first and foremost in an effort to buy freedom for American hostages in Lebanon. And it illustrates the pattern of deception, evasion and self-delusion that prevailed within the Administration and later in the responses of its officials as Congress sought to get at the truth.

The committee worked under the considerable disadvantage of not having the testimony of three crucial participants in the scandal. They are former national-security adviser John M. Poindexter, Lt. Col. Oliver L. North of the National Security Council staff, and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord, all of whom refused to cooperate to avoid possible self-incrimination. The committee also lacked full access to information about Israel’s perhaps central role in fostering or encouraging the Iran arms link.

Despite these barriers the committee has made a solid start in tracing the origins and the unfolding of a major foreign-policy blunder. It has been less successful in tracking the tens of millions of dollars that came from skimming arms-sales profits and soliciting rich foreign governments for the supposed support of the Nicaraguan rebels. An aroma of corruption and duplicity surrounds this untraced money, just as the smell of diplomatic ineptitude clings to the decision-making that was at its source. The Intelligence Committee has produced a good outline of what went on. Those who have now taken up the investigation must fill in the pieces.