Israeli Aide Told of Arms Sale Contacts Last Summer : Bush Knew of U.S. Ties to Iran Radicals, Memo Says

A key Israeli official involved in the sale of U.S. arms to Iran told Vice President George Bush last summer that “we are dealing with the most radical elements” in Iran because “we’ve learned they can deliver and the moderates can’t,” according to a top secret memo written by Bush’s chief of staff.

The description of the Iran effort provided by the Israeli official, Amiram Nir, contradicts the claim by President Reagan that he was dealing with Iranian “moderates” in sending the weapons to Tehran.

The memo quotes Nir as saying that Iranian officials were trying “to squeeze as much as possible” out of Israel and the United States “as long as they have assets”--presumably, the hostages. The portrait Nir drew for Bush of transactions of arms for hostages undermines Reagan’s repeated claims that he was not engaged in trading for hostages.

Asked That North Be Told

Although Bush learned from Nir that the United States and Israel were dealing with Iranian radicals, not moderates, his only known response was to direct that a copy of the memorandum describing his meeting with Nir be passed to Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, the National Security Council aide who ran the secret Iran operation.

What Nir told Bush, according to the memo by Bush chief of staff Craig L. Fuller, also undermines the Israeli government’s repeated claims that it played only a minor and passive role in the dealings with Iran. Nir is quoted as saying of the Israelis: “We activated the channel; we gave a front to the operation, provided a physical base, provided aircraft.”

Nir met with Bush on July 29 at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, and the details were recorded in a three-page memo written by Fuller.

Panel Omits Text

The initial draft of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on the Iran- contra affair included the text of the Fuller memo, but the State Department requested it be deleted, and there was no reference to it in the published Senate report.

A copy of the Fuller memo was obtained by the Washington Post. Fuller on Saturday confirmed the accuracy of the document and said he had advocated that it be released publicly.

It has been reported previously that Bush reluctantly met with Nir at the behest of North.

Fuller’s memo on the meeting indicates that he and Bush did not even tell other members of the party traveling with the vice president about the session with Nir. Fuller said Saturday that on his return to Washington he gave North a copy of the memo on the meeting with Nir. Fuller said the information passed on by Nir was “far more detailed from an operational standpoint” about the Iran initiative than anything he or the vice president had earlier known.

Bush had attended some previous meetings on the Iran arms sales, including one on Jan. 17 when Reagan signed an intelligence “finding” authorizing arms shipments to Iran, but was excluded from others. Fuller said he learned of the Iran arms sales in the Nir meeting.

Fuller said that despite Nir’s reference to deals with the “radicals,” Bush “was given assurances by National Security Council officials both before and after the Nir meeting indicating that U.S. representatives were dealing with moderate elements in Iran.”

Linked to Ghorbanifar

But other Administration and congressional sources said that Nir’s chief contact since he entered the operation in late 1985 was with Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms dealer and intermediary. These sources said Nir and Ghorbanifar had been dealing with “radical” elements since the outset of their involvement.

According to the Fuller memo, Nir told Bush there were two levels to the Iran effort: a “tactical” one “to get the hostages out,” and a “strategic” one, to build better contacts with Iran.

The Fuller memo also portrays the vice president as simply a listener to Nir, making no commitments and giving no direction.

Fuller’s account of the conversation with Nir provides new evidence of Israel’s independent role in the secret dealings with Iran.

“According to Nir,” Fuller recorded in the memorandum, “he told them (the Iranians) about 10 days ago he would cancel the deal. Then nine days ago their prime minister called saying they were taking steps to release one (hostage)--the priest (Father Lawrence Jenco). The second one to be released would be (David) Jacobsen. . . . “ This in fact was the sequence of events that followed.

Briefings Differ

The Nir briefing for Bush outlined an operation in practice that differed substantially from the one outlined to Reagan and Bush by then-National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter on Jan. 17, 1986. That plan called for dealings only with Iranian “moderates,” and that day Reagan signed the intelligence order or “finding” authorizing the direct arms sales.

According to the Fuller memo, Nir told Bush that there was a February, 1986, meeting with “the prime minister on the other side.” The Iranian prime minister is Mir Hussein Moussavi. Nir did not say who attended this meeting other than to describe it as “dramatic and interesting,” and ending in an agreement to sell 4,000 units “for a fixed price.”

The units were TOW anti-tank missiles, the number mentioned by Poindexter’s briefing paper used the month before summarizing the operation to Reagan, Bush and White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan.