Limited North Immunity Voted by Investigators

The congressional committees investigating the Iran- contra affair voted Thursday to grant fired White House aide Oliver L. North limited immunity from prosecution but gave independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh more time before forcing the scandal’s central figure to give public testimony that could interfere with Walsh’s expected prosecution of him.

Under a provision approved by lopsided votes of both the House and Senate committees, North will be required to testify in private to a few committee staff members as soon as June 15 and may go before the committee in public on July 16. That is three weeks later than the original agreement between Walsh and the lawmakers, which could have forced North to testify publicly on June 23.

Moreover, the committees plan to vote again before making a final decision to compel North’s public testimony.

Revised Arrangement

Although the revised arrangement fell short of Walsh’s request that the panels deny North immunity, the independent counsel said in a statement that “the precaution they have taken to prevent premature, and perhaps unnecessary, exposure of Col. North’s testimony will reduce as much as is reasonably possible any adverse effect on our investigation.”

Once North receives limited immunity, Walsh will be prohibited from using in his prosecution any information that he obtains from North’s testimony. He must be able to prove that all the evidence he uses was gathered independently of such testimony.

Thus, Walsh has pressed for time to accumulate as much evidence as possible before the lawmakers take the step that could hamper his efforts to prosecute North.

“Each passing day helps, but the problem never goes away completely” if immunity is granted, Walsh had told reporters Wednesday, shortly after he went to Capitol Hill to plead that the committees either refuse to grant immunity to North or delay it.

Although the congressmen expressed sympathy for the time pressures on Walsh, they noted that they have a mission of their own: to produce a complete explanation of the Iran-contra scandal by this fall.

Many said that, as they have heard from more than a dozen witnesses over the last five weeks, it has become increasingly clear that they will never know the full story without hearing from the Marine lieutenant colonel who was the central player in both the secret sale of U.S. arms to Iran and the secret network that aided the Nicaraguan rebels in possible violation of a congressional ban.

North was fired from the National Security Council last November after a memorandum found in his safe disclosed that profits from the arms sales had been diverted to the rebels.

In earlier appearances on Capitol Hill, North had invoked the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, making it clear that he would not testify unless compelled to do so with an offer of limited immunity. Once a potential witness is offered immunity, he or she must testify or face a jail term for contempt of Congress.

The Senate committee voted unanimously in favor of immunity, and the House panel approved it 12 to 3.

The panels already have offered limited immunity to dozens of other witnesses, including North’s former boss, ex-National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter. Committee staff members have heard Poindexter’s testimony in private, and he is expected to be called to testify in public early next month.