Iran Inquiry Reported Focusing on New Data : Source Says Key Officials Attempted to Cover Up Scandal Last Fall; Computer Records Revealed

The federal criminal probe of the Reagan Administration’s Iran- contras affair has widened to include recently discovered indications that key figures in the operation tried to cover up the scandal as it began to unravel last fall, a government source said Tuesday.

The reported expansion of independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh’s investigation came as FBI agents reviewed National Security Council computer records that sources had said may shed new light on the Iran-contras affair. It was not immediately clear whether information in those records was related to the broadened investigation.

The records, part of a massive electronic filing system disclosed to investigators by the White House this winter, contain copies of private messages sent between National Security Council offices to the White House’s internal IBM computer network, called PROFS.

The suggestions that officials tried to conceal parts of the Iran operation appear to focus on individuals who took part in the 18-month arms-and-hostages operation.

There is no indication that the allegations involve President Reagan or other senior White House officials, said the source, who asked not to be identified.

But, while refusing to describe the nature of the apparent effort at concealment, the source said flatly that “the scandal aspect” of the Iran-contras affair “has been heightened to include a cover-up.”

The computer messages under scrutiny by the FBI--which range from routine memos and obscene jokes to eyes-only accounts of intelligence operations--were composed and sent by most NSC employees in the belief that they were not being recorded elsewhere.

In fact, however, their contents were stored on magnetically treated “hard” computer discs and retained for at least one to two months before being erased, White House spokesman Dan Howard said Tuesday.

“We were living under a delusion. We thought when we deleted them from our own files, that they disappeared,” one rueful Administration official said. “In fact, they were just going into storage.”

NSC employees and even one former worker used the PROFS computer system regularly to send informal, confidential messages to one another, Administration sources say. Since the messages often were not written for the formal files that make up the National Security Council’s official document record, they may be especially revealing.

May Include Many Months

It was not known how many months of messages were contained on the hard discs given to Walsh. However, on Nov. 28, Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III ordered the preservation of all written, electronic and tape recorded data relevant to the Iran-contras inquiry. That would indicate that messages dating to the end of October and perhaps earlier are available.

The personal message records were said Tuesday to have led the Central Intelligence Agency to reopen its own investigation of its role in aiding a private supply pipeline to the contras that was directed by a former NSC aide, Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North.

The agency’s Costa Rica station chief, who goes by the pseudonym of Tomas Castillo, reportedly had told CIA officials that he played no significant role in aiding North’s management of the supply pipeline, an act that probably was not illegal but was against the CIA’s stated policy.

Tower Gets Memo

One government source said Monday, however, that an electronic message sent by North and preserved in the NSC’s computer discs describes Castillo’s involvement in the contra supply routes in detail.

The lengthy memo was forwarded to the presidential commission headed by former Sen. John Tower (R-Tex.) that is studying reforms at the National Security Council. The commission in turn sent the memorandum to the CIA, which since has placed Castillo on leave and was reported by one source to have decided that he will resign this spring.

The remaining contents of the discs were not specifically known. But federal officials were reported to believe that they would “greatly assist” Walsh’s investigation, one source said.

At least some of the computer messages may also have been delivered to congressional intelligence committees looking into the Iran-contras affair, Howard said Tuesday. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the scandal, issued last month, refers in several places to “electronic messages” sent by North to former National Security Advisers Robert C. McFarlane and Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter.

Describes McFarlane Computer

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Tuesday that McFarlane had a White House phone and secure computer terminal in his Bethesda, Md., home while he held the senior White House position in 1984 and 1985 and the equipment remained in his home when he left the staff and served as a White House consultant.

“I know it was necessary to be able to communicate with Mr. McFarlane on classified matters. There was a computer terminal and a safe in which to lock up the keyboard and any hard copies” of documents, Fitzwater said.

“The telephone, the safe and the terminal were removed in November, 1986,” he said. That was apparently at the same time as McFarlane’s involvement in the Iran operation became known.

Times staff writers James Gerstenzang and Ronald J. Ostrow also contributed to this story.

Israeli officials deny they are negotiating for hostages. Page 9.