THE IRAN--CONTRA HEARINGS : Congress’ New Docudrama Becomes Instant Hit

With effusive pledges of fairness, obsequious courtesy and two hours of rhetorical hand-wringing, Congress Tuesday launched into its most eagerly awaited television docudrama since Watergate.

Nearly four hours before special House and Senate investigating committees gathered in the storied caucus room where scandals have unfolded and political campaigns have been launched for generations, a line already had formed for the opening of the congressional airing of the Iran- contra scandal.

Washington’s version of a Hollywood opening night brought television anchormen down from New York, inspired decorators to trim the stark marble of the hearing room in brilliant maroon, rallied reinforced security and created an instant tourist attraction.

Student There to Learn

“We all want to learn how not to run an administration,” said Scot Plotnick, a political science student at Georgetown, who took his place in line soon after the arrival of a cloudy dawn.

A few steps behind him, Robert M. Teng, an elderly Chinese-American solemnly observed what congressional investigators shortly began to reiterate a dozen different ways in their opening salvos: “This is the best system--checks and balances.”

But few members of the public ever made it into the room, for hundreds of reporters descended to claim reserve seats and members of the Senate kept others for constituents.

Members of the two panels, who expect to work into the dog days of summer reconstructing the convoluted scandal, came under the klieg lights wearing red ties, fresh haircuts and solemn expressions and carrying tediously crafted speeches.

Inouye Sets Theme

Most of them followed the lead of Senate Committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), who solemnly declared: “This is not an adversarial proceeding. . . . Our purpose is self-examination, not recrimination.”

But the chairman has already expressed his belief that President Reagan himself knows more about the affair than has been indicated thus far, and at the outset he characterized the sale of arms to Iran and the diversion of proceeds to anti-government rebels in Nicaragua as a “sad and sordid” affair in which none of the participants emerged unblemished.

At the same time that several committee members emphasized the importance of finally untangling the scandal that had tied the Reagan Administration in knots, they acknowledged that they had been asked why the investigation was being undertaken at all. Several confessed some distaste for the undertaking.

Drawing From Others

In their efforts to explain the imperative for the massive undertaking, they took turns citing the wisdom of Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Robert LaFollette, Walter Lippmann and Gerald R. Ford. One after another, they reasserted Congress’ role as a partner in conducting the nation’s foreign policy.

Sen. Howell Heflin (D-Ala.) came closest to capturing an echo of the late Sen. Sam J. Ervin Jr. (D-N.C.), who in the summer and autumn of 1973 turned the Senate Watergate hearings into a civics seminar that made him a national folk hero.

“As the truth is found and told, we may well conclude, sadly, that in the course of pursuing democratic principles in foreign lands, we may have subverted them at home,” Heflin declared.

“These hearings are about affirmation. Yes, they’re about rogue elephants, Persian rug merchants, loose cannons, soldiers of fortune, privateers, profiteers, believers, hostages, contras.

‘Respect for the Law’

“But they are also about separation of powers, national security, Fifth Amendment rights, allegations of misconduct, charges of cover-up, the right to know, and importantly, they’re about the rule of law. Passion for the rule of law. Yes, these hearings are about the elevation of respect for the rule of law and constitutional principles above ideology and power.”

Less eloquent, but perhaps more to the point, was Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), one of President Reagan’s most loyal supporters in the Senate.

Insisting that the country has already become “sick and tired” of the scandal, he declared that the only questions left to be answered are: “What did the President know, and where did the money go.”

But it was clear from the moment that Richard V. Secord, a retired Air Force major general, took the stand as the committee’s first witness that the hearings, far from focusing on the bottom-line questions asked by Hatch, will be a reconstruction of the entire scandal.

Members Listen in Silence

Unlike the Watergate hearings, dominated by Ervin and then Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr. (R-Tenn.), the Iran-contra probe began with committee members listening in silence as House committee counsel John W. Nields Jr. examined Secord in the first chapter of the saga.

Inouye, who was a member of the Senate Watergate committee, gently reminded the Iran-contra panel that there are times when silence is advisable.

It was Inouye who created one of the angriest confrontations of the Watergate investigation when, not realizing that a microphone was on during testimony by White House aide John D. Ehrlichman, muttered to himself: “What a liar.”

Staff writer Karen Tumulty contributed to this story.