Fawn Hall, North’s Former Secretary, Heard by Grand Jury

Fawn Hall, the former White House secretary who told prosecutors that she helped Lt. Col. Oliver L. North shred documents when the Iran- contra affair was unraveling, testified Friday before a special federal grand jury.

The proceedings at the U.S. Courthouse were closed to the public, and neither Hall nor her attorney would comment after a hearing that lasted for more than two hours.

Hall has been given immunity from prosecution and is cooperating with the investigation being conducted by independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh.

Plato Cacheris, Hall’s attorney, said his client has also been asked to testify before the congressional committees that are holding hearings on the Iran-contra affair. Cacheris said he does not know when that might occur.

Hall, 27, who was North’s secretary at the National Security Council, told investigators that she helped him destroy documents after Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III began an investigation last fall into the diversion to the Nicaraguan rebels of profits from the Iran arms sales.

Meanwhile, Sen. Howell Heflin (D-Ala.), a member of the Senate committee at the Iran-contra hearings, said Friday that, when Hall is called before the joint investigation, he expects her to testify that she sneaked documents out of North’s office by putting them in “her brassiere and other clothes as she left.”

“I suppose she will testify that she stuffed documents in her underclothes and took them out,” Heflin told reporters.

When asked what Hall did with the documents, Heflin said, “She supposedly gave them to North.” He did not elaborate.

Hall reacted with an angry denial. “It is untrue; it is outrageous that he would say that, and it is certainly sexist,” she said.