North Memos’ Original Data Believed Found

Federal investigators have found the original versions of four 1985 White House documents altered last November on the orders of Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, all of them memos detailing his secret program to raise money and supply arms to the Nicaraguan rebels, sources who have seen the originals said Tuesday.

The original memos, all written by North and sent to his superior at the time, former National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane, were changed in “subtle” ways in an apparent effort to conceal the secret operation in the days just before North was dismissed from the National Security Council staff by President Reagan, those sources said.

The altered papers were dated in March, April and May of 1985--well before the United States began selling arms to Iran and diverting some of the profits to the contras through a program managed by North. The papers make no mention of any fund diversion, the sources said.

At the time North wrote the memos, a congressional ban on U.S. government aid to the Nicaraguan rebels, including official participation in fund raising or military advice, had been in effect for more than half a year. Congress later eased the prohibition to permit “non-lethal” or humanitarian aid.

Several sources who have seen the original documents said they include accounts of “sources of money and uses of money” in North’s program to resupply the contras . According to one description, the memos recount who was financing North’s contra-aid program in the spring of 1985, as well as how North was directing spending of the donations for weapons and other military goods.

‘Lethal Assistance’

“It is clear from the original documents,” one source said, “that what was involved wasn’t simply fund raising for humanitarian purposes but for lethal assistance to the contras.”

One source said a comparison of the original and altered memos seems to show no obvious pattern in North’s changes, made by his secretary, Fawn Hall. Other sources, noting that the originals came to light only recently, say they are now being closely reviewed by investigators for independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh and Senate and House select committees.

A federal grand jury here is expected to review the changes later this month in weighing possible obstruction of justice charges against North and in attempting to decide whether other charges should be brought.

Hall’s attorney, Plato Cacheris, declined comment on the discovery of the original papers, as did McFarlane’s attorney, Leonard Garment.

Apparent Date of Alterations

The alterations apparently took place last Nov. 21, at a time when Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III was heading an inquiry into the Iran arms sales. His inquiry--conducted with the help of politically appointed Justice Department aides who had little criminal law experience--has drawn congressional criticism because it allowed North to alter and destroy documents before the FBI was brought into the case and sealed North’s office, five days after the probe began.

The four altered documents are some of the evidence assembled by the investigation into allegations that North and Hall changed, removed and shredded stacks of NSC documents in the two weeks before the President dismissed North last Nov. 25.

Hall, who has been given immunity in the Iran probe, is understood to have told a federal grand jury that, acting on her own initiative, she removed several NSC documents Nov. 25. It is not clear what Hall did with those documents.

Shredding Machine Jams

In addition, the grand jury has been told that Hall and North shredded so substantial a volume of NSC papers that an office shredding device jammed at one point. The destroyed documents that have not been recovered included a lengthy memo of an unspecified nature, messages that North sent over the NSC computer system and telephone logs that Hall maintained for North that kept track of an estimated 90% of his meetings, conversations and contacts.

The alterations have been among the least understood of the efforts to disguise details of the scandal.

By Hall’s reported account, North checked out about four documents from an official NSC file Nov. 21 and then gave the papers to her. Using an office word processor, Hall retyped the originals, deleting and rewriting sections as ordered by North. The deletions ranged from one paragraph to half of a typewritten page, but the scope of the alterations was not clear.

Originals Left Behind

The altered documents were intended to be replaced in the NSC file from which the originals had been taken. But sources say they were left in North’s office by mistake Nov. 25, amid the confusion surrounding North’s dismissal that morning.

North and Hall are believed to have destroyed the original memos that had been in the NSC file. However, in the confusion, they apparently neglected to shred copies of the originals that had been sitting since 1985 in North’s own office files.

It is those copies that investigators recovered in recent days, sources said.