REAGAN TEXT: ‘I Would Not Go Down . . . Same Road Again’

Following is the text of the questions and answers on the Iran- contra affair at President Reagan’s news conference Thursday night:

Q. Sir, Terry Anderson was taken captive in Lebanon two years and four days ago, and today there are eight Americans held hostage there. How has the Iran-contra affair complicated your efforts to win the release of the hostages?

A. Well, that’s rather hard to tell right now.

Indeed, the affair did get some hostages released, and if it hadn’t leaked, I don’t know whether the word of what we were doing there--I don’t know whether we would have gotten more out.

As the day that the information leaked and everything went public, it was my understanding that there were--the other two were due out in the next few days.

But we’re going to continue to explore, as we always have, every opportunity to try and get them out.

I happen to believe that when an American citizen anyplace in the world is unjustly denied their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it is the responsibility of this government to restore those rights.

Q. Sir, if I may, former President Carter will be in Syria this weekend. Is he carrying a message from you about the hostages?

A. No.

Q. Is he making any effort in that regard as far as you know?

A. I don’t know.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he--if he was, but--and I’d be grateful if he did.

Q. Mr. President, there have been reports that you were told, directly or indirectly, at least twice that the contras were benefiting from the Iran arms sale. Is that true or were you deceived and lied to by (Vice) Adm. (John M.) Poindexter and (Lt.) Col. (Oliver L.) North? And I’d like to follow up.

A. Helen, let me just say, no, that is not true at all.

When I went on the air right after the news broke and told what we had been doing and how we--what our policy was in getting into this affair, I did not know at that time that there was any money involved.

I only knew that we had received our $12 million for the weapons which we had agreed to sell.

Then, a little later, when the attorney general told me that he had come upon something that indicated that there was something to do with money in Swiss bank accounts--and I couldn’t imagine what it could be because, as I say, we got our money--but I said that I thought we ought to go public with that again so that you had all the information that we had and not wait and have someone uncover this and think we were trying to cover up or something.

So that was late on Monday afternoon.

Tuesday morning, the first thing, we went before the joint leadership of the Congress and told them what we’d learned, that all we’d learned was that there was evidently some money having to do with this whole arrangement over there and involving some Swiss bank accounts.

And then I came into the press room to all of you and told you.

Q. Mr. President, is it possible that two military officers who are trained to obey orders grabbed power, made major foreign policy moves, didn’t tell you when you were briefed every day on intelligence? Or did they think they were doing your bidding?

A. Helen, I don’t know.

I only know that that’s why I have said repeatedly that I want to find out, I want to get to the bottom of this and find out all that has happened.

And so far, I’ve told you all that I know and, you know, the truth of the matter is, for quite some long time, all that you knew was what I’d told you.

Q. Sir, Robert McFarlane, who was then your national security adviser, says that in August of 1985, he called you on the telephone and asked if you wanted to give the green light to Israel to send arms to Iran and have them replenished from U.S. stocks, and that you said you did. And he said that he reminded you in that conversation that your secretaries of state and defense were against it and you said you understood that, but you explained to him the reasons why you wanted to authorize it. Do you have no memory of that, whatsoever?

A. Sam, all I know is that I was never--my memory didn’t fail me on the fact that I had agreed to this thing.

The only thing I could not recall was at what point was I asked.

And as a result of that and not being able to recall when I gave this permission, we now have quite a system installed of people taking notes in all our meetings and all our doings.

Q. If you don’t recall, when Benjamin Weir--Rev. Weir was released in mid-September of that year, why did you think they had released him if you couldn’t recall that you had authorized Israel to do that?

A. No. As I say, I’m aware--I can’t remember just when, in all the calls and meetings and so forth, this was presented and when I gave the go ahead.

But this was a thing in which the Israelis were willing to sell weaponry--mainly TOW missiles--and wanted to know if they did, if we would agree to sell them replacements when and if they needed it.

Q. --the day before he was released, sir?

A. I know that I agreed to that and I’ve heard--and there are other people that don’t remember either who were present at meetings.

One of them was Bud and what his memory was--I don’t think it was a phone call.

He has described it as a visit to the hospital where I was after surgery.

But others who were there present, they didn’t remember that conversation.

But I know that it must have come up, and I must have verbally given the OK.

Q. Mr. President, you said that in your heart you still believe that it wasn’t an arms-for-hostage deal, but that the weight of the evidence presented by the Tower Commission convinced you that it was. In your heart do you now believe that it was an arms-for-hostages deal from the beginning, as the Tower Commission said, and that the policy was flawed?

A. But it could be that the policy was flawed in that it did deteriorate into what I myself and when I went on the air recently said--was arms-for-hostages.

But let me just as briefly as I can take you through the steps which I did from the very beginning.

We had, by way of Israel, a report that there were responsible people, some from the government of Iran but not necessarily in the inner circle of--with (Ayatollah Ruhollah) Khomeini, who wanted to see if they could not open a dialogue with representatives of the United States that would lead to a better understanding--and I’m sure that they had in mind a future government of Iran--that we could have the kind of relationship that we’d had once earlier.

I thought, because our policy had always been based on trying to restore a relationship with a country that is very important strategically, and also behind the scenes to try and get an end to that war--an end with no victor, no vanquished, both countries retiring to their own boundaries and so forth.

So, I wasn’t going to miss that opportunity.

And I approved our going ahead.

One of the first things brought up in the meeting with those who were representing us was that these people said that they, for two reasons, needed something like--and they mentioned the arms sales.

It came from them, not us.

They said, one, for their own prestige it would give them a standing with the people that they would have to be dealing with in the future, including the military leaders.

And, at the same time, it would assure them that the people they were dealing with did have access to our government at the highest levels and they could trust them to deal.

And, so, our answer to that was that we had a policy of not doing business with a country that supported terrorism, and Iran was on that list.

Well, they made quite a pitch that they, too, were opposed to terrorism, and that they had even done some things counter to terrorism--terrorist activities and so forth.

Well, our reply to them was, there is a very practical way in which you can prove that, and that is, help the--use your influence to get the hostages out.

Now, I have never believed, and I don’t believe now, that Iran can give orders to the Hezbollah, but there is a philosophical relationship there that we thought they might be able to be persuasive and they’ve indicated that that was true.

Now, with no further information than that, until I read the Tower Commission report, after appointing the Tower Commission to get to the bottom of this thing and see what was going on, then I found that the strategy talks had disappeared completely, and led by the Iranians, the conversation was totally arms-for-hostages.

So I don’t see where I could say now that isn’t what it degenerated into.

Q. Mr. President, they faulted you in the Tower Commission report for caring too much about the hostages. If you had it to do all over again, sir, would you do it again?

A. No, I would not go down that same road again.

I will keep my eyes open for any opportunity again for improving relations.

And we will continue to explore every legitimate means of getting our hostages back for the reason that I explained earlier.

Q. Mr. President. At your last news conference four months ago, you said that Israel has nothing to--U.S. had nothing to do with Israeli arms shipments to Iran when you knew that that was not true. Why did you say that?

A. Chris, I’m glad you asked that, because I’ve read at great length references to that, and heard them on the air.

I’m glad to explain.

When I left here after that press conference and went back there, and our people were waiting back there and had been watching on the monitor what was going on, they told me what I had said.

And it was evidently just a misstatement on my part.

I did not know that I had said it in such a way as to seemingly deny Israel’s participation.

And when they told me this, and when I finished bumping my head, I said to them, “Quick, write down a correction of this.”

I didn’t realize that in there maybe I talked too long.

I said: “I didn’t realize that I had said that or given that impression. We’ve got to get this message to all of you before you went to work on your stories.”

So it was just a misstatement that I didn’t realize that I had made.

Q. But the fact is that you were asked it four times in that news conference, and you made this inadvertent statement four times you were specifically asked about Israel’s role. And during that early period, it now turns out that there were a series of statements you made that were misleading. One of the first statements was, you said that the whole story that came out of the Mideast was without foundation.

A. No. That wasn’t at the press conference. That was on Nov. 6, when you were shouting questions at me.

Q. Well--

A. And at that--well, right.

But then, what I was trying to do, and I think some of you will recall this, I was trying to plead with all of you, hoping that this leak that came from that weekly paper in Beirut could be corralled, because I wanted to explain that we didn’t know--what the lives of the people we’d be dealing with would be endangered, and certainly our hostages could be in danger.

And so this was all I was trying to say, and I remember saying, “Please--stop speculating and stop asking questions.”

I didn’t know how far we could go before we could get someone killed.

And when David Jacobsen came here and met with you in the Rose Garden, he repeated that without knowing that I had said it.

He said the same thing, and quite passionately, that you could get some people killed if we kept on with that story.

Q. If I may ask my question, sir, do you feel an obligation always to tell the truth to the American people? Or sometimes do you feel you may have to mislead, as in that case, saying it’s without foundation for a higher diplomatic purpose?

A. No, there are things in which I--there are times in which I think you can’t answer because of national security or other people’s security.

But no, I’m not--I’m not going to tell falsehoods to the American people.

I’ll leave that to others. (Laughter.)

Q. Mr. President, speaking to young people in your reelection campaign in ‘84, you referred to government as a sacred trust and you said we’re going to keep this trust. The Tower report says that some of your officials in your Administration made untruthful statements, and you’ve acknowledged here that it became a trade of arms for hostages. Do you feel that you kept your promise that you made in that campaign to the young people and that your government has?

A. Yes, I do.

And from the very first, I told you all everything I know about this situation.

I am still waiting to find out the source of extra money, the bank accounts, and where that extra money went.

And that’s why I appointed the Tower Commission to get to the bottom of this and a special prosecutor. You see, I’m old fashioned--I call these independent counsels--I still call them special prosecutors.

Q. If I could follow, sir--are you distressed that even your own polls show that a majority of American people, including many who voted for you, believe that you’re not telling the full truth on the Iran-contra affair?

A. Well, in view of what they’ve been reading and hearing for all these several months--I can understand why they might think that.

Q. Mr. President, in view of what you told the Tower board, and what they concluded--that you had difficulty recalling the decision and the timing of the decision to send the arms to Iran--is it at all conceivable that you may also have forgotten being told about the diversion of funds to the contras?

A. Oh, no.

You would have heard me from--without opening the door to the office if I had been told that at any time.

No. And I still do not have the answer to that money.

The only thing that I can see is that somebody, in the interplay of transporting the weapons, must have put an additional price on them.

We asked for $12 million, which was the cost--no profit on those weapons--and we got our $12 million back.

And it was a complete surprise to me to discover that there was any additional money--and this, I think is the thing--we’re still waiting for that to be explained.

Q. If I could follow in a related element, then--Mr. North is quoted in the Tower report in a memo he wrote as saying the President obviously knows why--he has been meeting with select people to thank them for their support for democracy in Central America. Were you aware that such meetings that you attended were being used to solicit funds from private citizens in the U.S. for Central America for the contras?

A. I knew that there were many people privately giving money to things of that kind--in the country here--but the people I met with--and I subsequently found out that some of them were doing this.

But when I met with them, I met with them to thank them because they had raised money to put spot ads on television in favor of the contras in an effort to try and influence Congress to continue giving aid.

And I thought that was worth a thanks.

I’ve gone to the public many times since I’ve been here to get the public to help put the pressure on the Congress for us to get some worthwhile cause.

Q. Mr. President, to follow up Bill’s question, the Tower report said that the arms deal with Iran should never have been made in the first place. You have said that you accept the Tower Commission report.

A. Yes.

Q. And yet your friends say that in private you still have a deep feeling that you do not feel it was wrong to sell arms in the beginning. I want to know, Mr. President, in your heart do you feel that you were right or were you wrong in selling arms to Iran?

A. We had quite a debate, and it was true that two of our Cabinet members were very much on the other side.

And it turned out they were right because, as I say, it did deteriorate into that.

But what my position was, and still is, you are faced with some kidnapers--they have kidnaped some of our citizens.

Now, you cannot do business with them.

There’s no way that you can discuss ransom or do them any favor which makes taking hostages profitable.

But suddenly, an opportunity to get into a conversation with a third party--and you find that that third party maybe can do something you can’t do, that they can have an influence on these people over here, these kidnapers, and get your people free--I did not see that as trading anything with the kidnapers.

They didn’t get any advantage out of this; they didn’t show any profit on what was going on.

And the place where I was wrong was in not realizing that once that pressure was put on from the other side--and it did stem from the Iranian representatives--they saw an opportunity, they thought, to start bargaining for more weapons than that, more or less, token amount that we had agreed to sell, and to put the price at varying numbers of hostages.

So I still believe that if someone in my family was kidnaped and I went out and hired someone that I thought could get that person safely home, that would not be engaging in ransom of the victim.

Q. If I could follow, Mr. President, you’re still arguing that somehow this event deteriorated, it went awry as it went along. I want to know whether you think it was wrong or right in the beginning.

A. Well, if I hadn’t thought it was right in the beginning, we never would have started that.

It was an opportunity presented by people evidently of some substance in the Iranian government to open up a channel to probably better relations between our two countries, maybe even leading to more influence in getting this terrible war ended there in the Middle East.

And they, themselves--there was never--when we entered into this, there wasn’t any thought of hostages in this particular thing; they’d never been mentioned.

It was only when they put in this request, as I’ve explained, for arms and we had to explain that we didn’t do business with people that supported terrorism, that they offered to prove that they weren’t supportive of terrorism, either.

And this is how we weren’t going to overlook an opportunity if we could get those hostages back.

And we’re not going to overlook an opportunity in the future.

But we’re not going to try the same thing again, because we see how it worked.

Q. Mr. President, setting aside what the Iran initiative turned into, as you were setting the policy in motion, did you give consideration to how our Arab friends in the region would think about the United States sending arms to their mortal enemy?

A. I think we have a very good relationship--better than we’ve had in many, many decades--with the countries in the Middle East.

And I think that we have proven our friendship for them to the place that they could understand what we were doing.

But I also think it ought to be noted that countries in the Middle East, countries in Europe, countries in Asia, and the communist bloc, have been selling arms to both sides in this war for the last few years and they’ve been selling about almost four times as much to Iraq as they have to Iran.

And the biggest amount of sales is coming from the communist bloc to both countries.

So, what I was sure of was that we were not affecting the balance--military balance between the two countries with the small amount that we were going to sell.

Q. If I could follow up, sir, you’ve said that Defense Secretary (Caspar W.) Weinberger and Secretary (of State George P.) Shultz opposed the policy, that you waived their views and decided to go ahead anyway. Given all the other concerns that you have to deal with as President, how much thought did you give to this policy? Was it a casual thing or did you give it quite an extensive going over before you embraced the policy?

A. The only thing I’ve done casually since I’ve been here in these six years is hold a press conference. (Laughter).

I remembered I promised you I’d call on you.

Q. Thank you, Mr. President, I’m afraid I’ve caught your laryngitis.

A. Well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. (Laughter).

Q. Long before the diversion of funds to the contras, the Tower board has documented two years of an extensive military support for the contras at a time when Congress ruled that to be illegal--air strips, phony corporations, tax exempt foundations--all directed by Oliver North, and John Poindexter, and before them Robert McFarlane, out of the White House. And--the question is, how could all this be taking place--millions and millions of dollars--without you having known about it, especially at a time when you were calling the contras the moral equivalent of our founding fathers?

A. Andrea, I don’t believe--I was aware that there are private groups and private individuals in this country--I don’t believe it was counter to our law.

But these people were voluntarily offering help, just as we’ve seen in the past.

We had a thing called the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain in the Civil War there.

And I don’t know how much that would amount to.

I don’t know whether it’s enough to keep them in business or not.

But I do know that it is absolutely vital that we not back away from this.

We’ve had some experiences in our country where the Congress has turned on a President.

Angola was the most recent example, perhaps--when in Angola, when--being a colony, and the civil war broke out there, and there was a communist faction, and there was a group that wanted democracy.

And an American President asked Congress just for money.

No blood, just money to help the democratic people of Angola have a democratic government.

They don’t have a democratic government, they have a communist government now, and there are 37,000 Cuban soldiers fighting their battle.

Q. But sir, if you were truly unaware of the millions of dollars in government money and government operations that North and Poindexter were directing to the contras, what does this--respectfully, what does this say about your management style? You have said in your speech that your management style in the contra-Iran affair did not match your previous track record. The Tower board criticized your management style. If you were unaware of these things and forgot when you actually approved the Iranian arms sale, what does it say about the way you’ve been managing the presidency?

A. Andrea, I’ve been reading a great deal about my management style.

I think that most people in business will agree that it is a proper management style.

You get the best people you can to do a job, then you don’t hang over their shoulder criticizing everything they do or picking at them on how they’re doing it.

You set the policy, and I set the policy in this Administration, and they are then to implement it.

And the only time you move is if the evidence is incontrovertible that they are not following policy, or they have gone down a road in which they’re not achieving what we want.

And I think that that is a good management policy.

Q. Would you--

A. I’m not going to comment now because all that you’ve mentioned are involved in investigations and I, more than anyone, want these investigations to proceed so that I know, and will know, what has been going on that has been kept from me in various covert operations.

(At this point the formal news conference ended but reporters continued to shout questions.)

Q. Mr. President, you didn’t answer the question on North or Poindexter. Did they deceive you? You didn’t answer whether Poindexter or North deceived you.

A. They just didn’t tell me what was going on--

Q. Did Don Regan deceive you?

Q. Did they lie to you?

Q. Did Don Regan pressure you, sir, to change your testimony?

Q. Did the vice president--did the vice president object to this plan in Iran, Mr. President? You said that-

Q. Would you come back and talk to us?

Q. You said that Shultz and Weinberger didn’t. Did the vice president?

A. No.

Q. He didn’t object to it? Thank you, sir.