THE TOWER COMMISSION REPORT : Panel Chairman Commends Spirit of Unanimity in Landmark Inquiry

Laying bare a chapter of intrigue and deception at the top of the United States’ national security apparatus, members of the Tower Commission on Thursday completed a landmark investigation in which the sharpest difference was said to have concerned a split infinitive.

“I want to note that I have never been privileged to work with two more public-spirited, perceptive and intellectually honest men than Ed Muskie and Brent Scowcroft,” commission Chairman John Tower, a former Republican senator from Texas, told a news conference. “Our working relationship was congenial and collegial. The report represents the collective understandings, evaluations and judgments of all three of us.”

‘Unanimous Report’

And there was no demurrer from the other two members: Muskie, a former secretary of state and former Democratic senator from Maine, termed it a “unanimous report,” while Scowcroft, a retired Air Force lieutenant general and former national security adviser, insisted that it was not bipartisan but “nonpartisan.”

But, Tower jokingly added: “We got into a lengthy debate on split infinitives one time, I remember.”

Thus, in evident warm agreement, the commission takes its place in history beside other presidentially appointed panels summoned in times of crises past. Those included the commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren that investigated the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the commission headed by former Pennsylvania Gov. William W. Scranton that explored campus unrest in the 1960s, the commission headed by former Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner that scrutinized racial violence in the late ‘60s and the commission headed by former Secretary of State William P. Rogers that probed last year’s Challenger tragedy.

After 91 days, 50 witnesses and journeys to Paris, Plains, Ga., and a Bethesda Naval Medical Center ward, the Tower group wound up where it began--in front of the klieg lights, receiving the praise of President Reagan.

Surprised Many

In the weeks since it was named, the commission had surprised many observers who had expected it to concentrate far more on the organization of the National Security Council than on the Reagan Administration’s ill-starred Iran initiative, the effort to swap arms for hostages and the diversion of funds to the Nicaraguan contras.

Rather than a detached look at national security machinery, the inch-thick report handed out Thursday chronicled extensive efforts to cover up the scandal, even after the Administration had proclaimed that it wanted the full truth made public.

“The White House appointed an independent commission, and now it has found out how independent it was,” said one commission source who is pleased with the outcome.

Indeed, the report came from a commission confronted by ingredients that could have made the investigation chaotic: It was under a presidentially imposed deadline, operating without subpoena power and confronted by key witnesses who declined to appear. Even as the investigation was getting under way, new National Security Adviser Frank C. Carlucci joined the Administration and began remedying some of the flaws the commission was expected to quickly spot, among them an NSC staff that had grown by leaps and bounds in recent years.

On top of everything else, the commission chairman was a Reagan loyalist, who had recently served as one of the Administration’s Geneva arms negotiators and who, according to friends, still yearns to be secretary of defense.

Close Ties to McFarlane

Moreover, former National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane, the key figure willing to testify before the panel, was a Tower protege. While Tower was the ranking minority member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, McFarlane had served on the committee’s minority staff. In addition, he had been personally and professionally close to Rhett Dawson, the commission’s staff director, who had also worked for Tower on Capitol Hill.

One of the most difficult moments for Tower, friends said Thursday, was when the commission members went to Bethesda Naval Medical Center to interview McFarlane, who had taken an overdose of Valium in an apparent suicide attempt hours before he was scheduled to make his second appearance before the panel earlier this month. Not only did McFarlane have close ties with Tower, but he also had served as a military aide to Scowcroft.

McFarlane, whose testimony was at sharp odds with that of White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan, was offered the opportunity to submit written answers, but insisted upon talking face-to-face with commission members in his hospital room.

The report showed that the hospital session produced some of the richest detail in the investigation, however.

Account Hard-Hitting

Sources close to both Muskie and Tower said Thursday that they were not surprised the commission had produced a hard-hitting account, making clear that President Reagan’s own detachment from detail had helped create the atmosphere in which the affair took place.

“Both Tower and Muskie knew full well from the beginning that they will have to testify before their former colleagues in the Senate someday,” said one source who declined to be identified, “and they could not afford to have even the suggestion of a whitewash on their part. Their credibility is all that they have, and the one thing they could not have was to come out of this with their credibility tarnished.”

At the same time, this source continued: “Tower, Muskie and Scowcroft are all old-fashioned in their respect for the office of the presidency. All of them have a respect for the office that transcends the individual, and they are committed not to damage the office.”

Although the investigation turned immediately into an in-depth probe of the affair, which already has been investigated by the Senate Intelligence Committee and faces many more months of investigation by select House and Senate panels, Tower said Thursday that he had stayed within the mandate laid down by the President in November.

Scope Not Broadened

“We actually did not broaden the scope of our inquiry,” he said. “We were brought into being by the Iran-contra affair. That’s what prompted the White House to appoint this board. And the President specifically directed us to study the Iran-contra case and other cases.”

Experts pulled together previous studies of national security crises going back to the Harry S. Truman Administration, including the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban missile crisis, the fall of the Shah of Iran, the Carter Administration’s failed effort to rescue American hostages from Iran and the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 by Lebanese terrorists.

But in the case of the Iran-contra episode, the commission was forced to conduct its own original research.

“Our recommendations . . . really are based not just on the Iran-contra affair but on the performance and operation of the National Security Council and the National Security Council staff and the national security adviser, historically,” Tower said.

Spokesmen for the House and Senate investigating committees now laying the groundwork for hearings on the affair said Thursday that as yet there are no plans to call commission members to testify.

Tower and Muskie served together in the Senate for 20 years, more often than not disagreeing in major debates on the floor. Both, especially Muskie, had reputations for sharp temper, but both are said to have mellowed in recent years.

Aide to Kissinger

Scowcroft, a highly regarded arms control specialist, reached prominence in Washington as a White House national security deputy to Henry A. Kissinger. He later was President Gerald R. Ford’s national security adviser, but in recent years he had not had a strong public political identification.

Reagan earlier had asked Scowcroft to head the commission that advised the Administration on its basing scheme for the new MX intercontinental ballistic missile, but more recently Scowcroft criticized the Administration’s handling of the arms negotiations with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev at the Reykjavik summit last year.