North Tied to Briefings to Sway Contra Donors : Three Backers of Rebels Gave $2.3 Million After Private Parleys, Channell Solicitations for Funds

Former White House aide Oliver L. North persuaded wealthy Americans to donate millions of dollars to the Nicaraguan rebels by giving them unorthodox private briefings, once even outlining a secret U.S. plan to overthrow the Sandinistas, the congressional committees investigating the Iran- contra scandal were told Thursday.

Potential contributors frequently got what Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.) described as “the one-two punch”: a White House briefing on the contras’ needs from North, followed by a direct pitch for money from fund-raiser Carl R. (Spitz) Channell. Those who gave at least $300,000 were said to qualify for a private meeting with the President.

3 Contributors Testify

All told, the three contributors who testified before the committees--millionaire brewer Joseph Coors of Colorado, Texas heiress Ellen St. John Garwood and New York oil investor William O’Boyle--donated a total of more than $2.3 million as a result of their meetings with North. It has not yet been established whether these funds reached the contras.

Neither Reagan nor North ever asked potential contributors directly for money, according to the witnesses, but Rudman dismissed as “legal fiction” the claim made by some committee Republicans that the President and his aide did not solicit funds.

“The whole event was a solicitation,” Rudman declared.

At the time that these private funds were being raised, the Reagan Administration was strictly prohibited by Congress from giving either direct or indirect U.S. military assistance to the Nicaraguan resistance. The ban was not lifted until last October.

Garwood, 83, a slight, white-haired woman and a frequent donor to right-wing causes, was the only one of the three witnesses who qualified for a meeting with the President. After attending a presidential briefing in April, 1986, in which Reagan thanked her and several other contributors for their generosity, she gave Channell $1.98 million in cash and stocks.

She gave another $10,000 to Channell to be used for North’s legal defense or for his children’s education after the Iran-contra affair came to light, she said. But she later transferred the money to another fund for North when she was told that Channell had been taking 35% of all donations for himself--a charge she said he did not deny when she confronted him.

The Austin heiress to a cotton and rice fortune, Garwood inherited along with her vast wealth a legacy of anti-communism that led to her involvement in the contra cause. Her father, Will Clayton, was the undersecretary of state to President Harry S. Truman.

‘Ollie’s the Guy to See’

Coors, a friend of the President who gave $65,000 to buy the contras a single-engine Maule airplane, was referred to North when he asked the late CIA Director William J. Casey how he could help the contras. He said Casey replied: “Ollie’s the guy to see.”

North provided Coors with a brochure about Maule aircraft and the number of a Swiss bank account, where the brewing magnate deposited his contribution. Much later, North showed Coors a jungle photograph of the Maule that he had paid for--what Coors called “my plane.”

Although North’s pitch to Garwood and Coors focused on the military and humanitarian needs of the contras, O’Boyle recalled receiving a far livelier presentation when he met privately with the Marine lieutenant colonel in his White House office April 29, 1986. It was North’s third meeting with O’Boyle, who already had given $130,000 for two Maule airplanes and later contributed another $30,000.

Among other things, O’Boyle said, North claimed to have been involved in the arrest of a major drug dealer who had millions of dollars in a suitcase, confided that he believed that the Soviet KGB was involved in a plot to discredit him and asserted that billionaire Nelson Bunker Hunt had given $1 million--all stories with no apparent foundation in fact.

Wondered About WWIII

“I remember wondering whether we were involved in the beginning of World War III here,” O’Boyle said, referring to North’s KGB saga. But he said North replied: “Russia would never go up against us to save Nicaragua.”

North also outlined what he described as a “very, very secret” plan to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua. At first, O’Boyle declined to testify about the plan, recalling that North had told him: “You can’t tell this to anybody.” But the witness later conceded that he had no idea whether it was classified, and then described the plan:

“He (North) said there were two plans in one. They involved Nicaraguan contras seizing a part of Nicaragua, establishing a provisional capital--a provisional government--and the U.S. Navy going down and blockading the country, preventing the supplies coming in from Cuba to support the Sandinistas and at that point, supposedly, the Sandinistas would fall and the contra government would come into power and then Nicaragua would be restored to democracy.

“If the Congress did approve the money (Reagan’s request for $100 million in contra aid in fiscal 1987), this would happen on a slower time scale, giving the contras more time to consolidate their position. If they did not approve the money, it would happen on a shorter time scale, which would be something of a desperation move, kind of a last-ditch effort, you might say, on the part of the contras. That was the plan.”

Some Give Credence to Plan

Although O’Boyle was instructed by the committee to divulge this information on the assumption that it was pure fabrication by North, some Democrats said afterward that they believe the Reagan Administration actually has such a plan.

“I’m not dismissing anything,” said Rep. Dante B. Fascell (D-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He noted that North was a member of the National Security Council staff, saying: “How much higher can you get?”

But Rudman and Sen. Paul S. Trible Jr. (R-Va.) said that the committee has found no other evidence of such a plan, which Trible dismissed as “a grand plan in the mind of Oliver North.” Rudman added: “People said whatever they thought they had to say to raise money.”

Before O’Boyle made his initial contribution, he was invited to a White House briefing in which North showed a group of potential contributors photographs of an airport in Nicaragua and told them: “One of the uses for which the airport was intended was to recover the Russian backfire bombers after they made a nuclear attack on the United States.”

Intercept of Speech Told

North also told them that the United States had intercepted transmission of a speech from Moscow to Managua that later was delivered at the United Nations by a Nicaraguan official, he said. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) noted that all such intercepts are top-secret.

After his first White House briefing, O’Boyle was hosted overnight at the posh Hay Adams Hotel in Washington by Channell’s organization, the National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty. Channell then told him that $300,000 would get him a meeting with the President.

At breakfast, North showed up to explain what weapons the contras needed, including Blowpipe missiles at a minimum price of $200,000 for 10. But O’Boyle decided instead to buy a Maule aircraft.

Channell succeeded in creating an aura of mystery for his fund-raising activities by telling O’Boyle that there would be no record of his hotel stay or of his meeting with the President, suggesting that the businessman’s credentials had been checked through national security channels overnight. O’Boyle confessed that he was frightened by some of these cloak-and-dagger tactics, particularly by North’s story about the KGB.

Briefings in Dallas

Likewise, Garwood was briefed on the contras’ needs several times by North, who even flew to Dallas to meet with her along with contra leader Adolfo Calero in September, 1985. After each briefing, Channell told her specifically how much money was needed and she provided it.

Garwood and O’Boyle intended to take tax deductions for their gifts to the contras because Channell’s organization was tax-exempt, but they have since changed their minds. Channell recently pleaded guilty to charges of tax fraud conspiracy.

Garwood said that she was assured by Channell as late as December, 1986, after the Iran-contra scandal broke, that North had approved her tax deduction on grounds that the money she gave for weapons could have been spent on humanitarian needs.

Although Coors never tried to take a tax deduction, he said he was surprised to learn that O’Boyle also had contributed money for two Maule planes. He was also surprised when committee members told him that retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord, the owner of the Swiss bank account where his money was deposited, claims that he is the owner of the Maule--not the contras.

“I didn’t give this money to Gen. Secord, I gave it to the freedom fighters of Nicaragua,” Coors said.

Says He Raised $3 Million

According to committee investigators, there is no evidence that any Maules ever were purchased with O’Boyle’s contribution. Channell has admitted to raising more than $3 million for the contras. Calero has testified that he received about $1 million from Channell; Secord said he got a similar amount.

Garwood said that North always emphasized in his conversations with her that he was not soliciting money because he was prohibited from doing so by the law that restricted Administration support for the rebels. But she conceded that she gave the money with the clear understanding that she was fulfilling the wishes of the Administration.

A similar theme--the Administration’s use of others to solicit military aid for the contras when doing it directly would have been legally questionable--emerged when retired Army Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub returned for a second round of testimony Thursday afternoon.

Singlaub made his requests for contra aid from individuals and at least two foreign governments, identified by investigators as Taiwan and South Korea. Taiwan ultimately contributed $2 million to a secret Swiss bank account controlled by Secord, though Singlaub said he never was informed of the contribution.

Required ‘a Signal’

Although Singlaub insisted he had made it clear that he was not acting on behalf of the U.S. government during a 1985 trip, the countries had nonetheless required “a signal” from Washington that would assure them that “I was not an unguided missile, ricocheting through that part of the world.”

He said North agreed to provide that signal and that Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams had agreed to do likewise when Singlaub made a second trip in early 1986. However, Abrams phoned Singlaub shortly before he was to meet with Taiwanese officials and asked him not to request a contribution.

The retired general also described a complex three-way arrangement--proposed by his business associate Barbara Studley and presented to Casey--under which the U.S. government secretly could provide military aid to anti-communist forces in Nicaragua, Angola, Afghanistan and Cambodia.

Under the plan, China would provide Soviet-compatible weapons to the four countries through a trading company and receive military equipment in return from Israel. For its part, Israel would receive credit toward the purchase of high-technology items from the United States.

“The United States then has at its disposal a large and continuous supply of Soviet technology and weapons to channel to freedom fighters worldwide, mandating neither the consent or awareness of the Department of State or Congress,” according to Studley’s memorandum describing the plan.

No Evidence on Casey Role

Congressional investigators said they found no evidence that Casey had acted upon the plan, but they noted that a copy of the memo had been found in North’s safe.

Singlaub also told the committees that he was angry when he discovered that Secord was holding millions of dollars in contributions to the rebels in a Swiss bank account at a time when Singlaub was “working very hard” to secure much smaller donations. Moreover, Secord was selling the rebels arms for much higher prices than Singlaub offered.