Secret U.S. Contract for Pro-Contra TV Ads Told

The State Department awarded a secret $276,186 contract last year to a public relations firm that, sources say, worked with then-White House aide Lt. Col. Oliver L. North to rally support for giving military aid to the Nicaraguan contras .

The firm, International Business Communications Inc., hosted meetings to plan a $1-million pro-contra ad campaign and acted as “a reference library” for those making the ads, said Adam Goodman, spokesman for the Robert Goodman ad agency, which produced the television spots.

The contract has raised questions about whether the payments might breach a 1948 law that prohibits spending federal money “directly or indirectly” to influence votes by Congress, except when Administration officials provide information “through proper official channels.”

U.S. government officials familiar with the contract also said that it has come under review because it was signed Sept. 2, 1986--11 months after its effective date of Oct. 1, 1985. One State Department official termed the contract’s timing “unusual (but) not illegal.”

Besides participation in the ad campaign, sources close to the contra aid network said that IBC paid for visits by contra leaders and field commanders who came to Washington in 1985 to lobby Congress and seek public support.

Officials at IBC could not be reached for comment.

Administration and contra officials have said that over the last two years North worked with conservative fund-raiser Carl (Spitz) Channell as he organized the $1-million pro-contra TV advertising drive. They said North, while a senior aide on the National Security Council, also met frequently with Richard Miller and Francis Gomez of IBC to discuss public relations strategy for the contras.

IBC’s 1986 contract--and another $90,000 contract signed with the State Department on April 1, 1985, for “media consultant services”--covered the time frame of the ad campaign, but it could not be determined if government money went directly to support the ads.