Abrams Denies Leading Group Involved in Supporting Contras

Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams today hotly denied a claim that he had directed a three-man government group closely involved with support for the Nicaraguan rebels at a time official U.S. assistance was banned.

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Abrams snapped when asked by congressional Iran- contra investigators about testimony to the contrary that they received last week from Lewis Tambs, a former U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica.

Abrams, the first current member of the Reagan Administration to testify, answered questions under oath without the grant of immunity from prosecution. His testimony opened the fifth week of the hearings.

Tambs Testimony

Tambs had said that Abrams, as chairman of a three-member group in Washington, took a close interest in efforts to supply assistance to the contras. Tambs said this interest included construction of a secret airstrip in Costa Rica and creation of a second military front for Nicaraguan rebels seeking the overthrow of the Sandinista government in Managua.

According to Tambs, the other members of the Restricted Interagency Group (RIG) were former White House aide Lt. Col. Oliver L. North and the chief of the CIA’s Central-American task force, who has been identified elsewhere as Alan Fiers.

But Abrams, who heads the State Department’s Latin American division, said there was no such elite group within a much-larger group of officials monitoring the Central American situation.

Sub-Group Denied

“There were meetings among the three of us, as there were meetings among virtually any combination of two or three or four people within the RIG that you could find. But there was no sub-RIG, or something like that,” he said.

Tambs had said he was told in 1985 to help establish the second front by North, and that Abrams was at a meeting in Panama in early September, 1985, and had discussed plans for the clandestine airstrip with him privately at that time.

“Did you ever tell Tambs . . . one of his missions as ambassador to Costa Rica was to assist the opening of the southern military front?” Abrams was asked by Mark Belnick, a lawyer for the congressional committees.

Learned About Airstrip

“At no time whatsoever,” Abrams replied.

Abrams said he first learned of the airstrip in Santa Elena “probably in August of 1985, maybe September, 1985.” He said he could not remember whether the information came from North or the CIA.

A committee source said it was the first time Abrams has acknowledged knowing about the airstrip in 1985. Previously, he had said his knowledge dated to the spring of 1986 when it was near completion and about to be closed down by the Costa Rican government.

Abrams testified that around Labor Day of 1985 he asked Secretary of State George P. Shultz whether he, Abrams, should check on reports that North’s activities with private supporters of the contras were violating the congressional ban against military aid.

‘You’ve Got to Know’

He said he asked Shultz, “Do you want me to find out whether they are true and what he’s up to, or do you want me to sort of leave that? And he said, ‘No, you’ve got to know.’

“The note that I have in my notebook says, ‘Monitor Ollie.’ ”

“ ‘Monitor Ollie’ is not an activity you do in one morning,” Abrams said later, and the Senate Caucus Room erupted in laughter.

Abrams also added detail to the familiar story of the $10 million in humanitarian aid supplied by the government of the oil-rich sultanate of Brunei.

He told how, using the pseudonym “Mr. Kenilworth,” he made a pitch for the money during a stroll through a London park with a Brunei representative.

‘What’s in It for Us?’

“He said to me ‘What’s in it for us?’ ” Abrams testified. “I had not thought about the question much. I said the President will know of this and you will have our gratitude. He said, ‘What concrete will we get out of this?’ and I said ‘You will not get anything concrete.’ ”

Abrams said he chose a secret Swiss bank account that he was referred to by North to receive the Brunei funds because he thought it would be “cleaner” than a separate Caribbean bank account, the number of which was supplied by the CIA. But the $10 million was mistakenly transferred to a third account because the number on North’s account had been miscopied.

Abrams acknowledged he was wrong when he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in October, 1986, that the Nicaraguan rebels had not received a dime in assistance from any foreign country. Such aid has been established in other testimony.