Tower Report Blames Reagan, Aides : Devastating Criticism Is Leveled at President

The Tower Commission, using restrained yet devastatingly critical language, drew a portrait Thursday of a White House in which the President of the United States failed to supervise his staff adequately and permitted the Iran- contra scandal to develop unchecked beneath him.

Reagan’s style, the commission reported, is to place the principal responsibility for policy formulation and implementation on the shoulders of his top advisers, which was the National Security Council staff in the case of the sale of arms to Iran and the diversion of profits to the Nicaraguan rebels.

But, it concluded, “with such a high-risk operation and so much at stake, the President should have ensured that the NSC system did not fail him.”

“He did not force his policy to undergo the most critical review of which the NSC participants and the process were capable,” the commission said. “At no time did he insist upon accountability and performance review.”

In a press conference after presenting the report to Reagan, former Sen. John Tower (R-Tex.), the commission’s chairman, declared: “The President made mistakes. I think that’s very plain English. A lot of his subordinates made mistakes.”

The commission rebuked Reagan’s top aides--particularly his NSC staff and White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan--for failing to compensate for Reagan’s hands-off management style.

The staff, the commission said, should have taken pains to consider all policy options and fully air the consequences of their decisions--yet they managed the Iran-contra affair almost entirely in secret.

As a result, the commission found, “the President did not seem to be aware of the way in which the operation was implemented and the full consequences of U.S. participation.”

Reagan himself, the commission insisted, bore a full share of responsibility for his ignorance.

Although the President took office promising that his principal advisers on national security matters were to be the secretaries of state and defense, the commission said he let the White House NSC short-circuit his Cabinet secretaries but then failed to review its work.

The commission portrayed him as a President who did not control his staff and was ignorant of the most sensitive operations of his assistants working for the National Security Council. He was, for example, unaware of the diversion of Iran arms profits to the contras, the commission said.

Quotes Reagan Diary

“Had the President chosen to drive the NSC system, the outcome (of the Iran affair) could well have been different,” the Tower report said.

The commission did find the President to be fully aware of the arms sales themselves. In January, 1986, when Reagan authorized the sale of TOW anti-tank missiles to Iran, he wrote in his diary: “I agreed to sell TOWs to Iran.”

In offering its view of Reagan’s decision-making process--and apparent reluctance to deal with contentious issues in the midst of meetings with aides--the report quoted Robert C. McFarlane, Reagan’s national security adviser before resigning in December, 1985:

“Generally speaking, the President would reach decisions at the time of a meeting only if there was unanimity,” McFarlane told the panel. “Where there was disagreement it was his habit almost never to make the decision there but to wait and then convey it to me later on.”

Commission Member Brent Scowcroft, whose post in the White House 12 years ago gave him a first-hand look at how President Gerald R. Ford operated in the national security arena, said of Reagan, his aides, and their role in the Iran affair:

‘Not . . . Enough Questions’

“He did not, perhaps, ask enough questions, but it was incumbent upon the other participants in the system to ensure that the President was absolutely clear about what was going on. There should have been bells ringing, lights flashing and so on, so that there was no question . . . what the consequences of his pursuing this policy was.”

The commission concluded that “President Reagan’s personal management style places an especially heavy responsibility on his key advisers. Knowing his style, they should have been particularly mindful of the need for special attention to the manner in which this arms sale initiative developed and proceeded. On this score, neither the national security adviser (John M. Poindexter) nor the other NSC principals deserve high marks.”

Poindexter was Reagan’s national security adviser until resigning last November. “On one or more occasions,” the commission said, “Secretary (of State George P.) Shultz may have been actively misled by Vice Adm. Poindexter,” the commission said.

Poindexter “failed grievously on the matter of contra diversion,” the commission concluded. “Evidence indicates that Vice Adm. Poindexter knew that a diversion occurred, yet he did not take the steps that were required given the gravity of that prospect.”

Notes Political Risk

The efforts by Reagan’s National Security Council staff to support the contras at a time when U.S. military aid was prohibited “presented great political risk to the President,” the commission said.

It added: “The appearance of the President’s personal staff doing what Congress had forbade other agencies to do could, once disclosed, only touch off a firestorm in the Congress and threaten the Administration’s whole policy on the contras.”

In particular, the report pointed a finger at White House Chief of Staff Regan.

“He, as much as anyone, should have insisted that an orderly process be observed,” the report stated. Yet when the scandal burst into the open last November, it said, Regan failed to prevail over the “chaos that descended upon the White House.”

Although the commission found no evidence that Regan knew of the diversion of Iran arms sale profits to the contras, it said he failed in his responsibility to ride herd on the Iran policy.

Regan’s resignation from the White House is widely expected now that the Tower Commission has issued its report. Nancy Reagan and virtually all the President’s closest outside advisers have urged him to let Regan go.

Expect Regan Departure

According to one source familiar with the operations in the White House West Wing, where the President, Regan, and the President’s other most senior assistants have their offices, Regan’s departure is imminent.

“I think something’s going to happen this weekend, or maybe even tomorrow,” he said.

But another source, a longtime Reagan adviser, said that the process of removing Regan, who has fended off unprecedented pressure for more than two months, may be moving more slowly and that he may hold onto his office into next week.

Has Agreement With Reagan

A Regan loyalist in the White House said the chief of staff and the President had agreed before the report came out to discuss Regan’s tenure next week. The release of the report did not change that, he said.

The panel based its portrait of Reagan and his aides on interviews it conducted with 53 people, including Reagan, his three predecessors, his most senior assistants, Cabinet members, and others tied to the Iran arms affair.