North Refuses to Testify in Private Despite Immunity : Panel Will Skip Bid for Contempt

Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, the eye of the Iran- contra storm, refused today to give private testimony to congressional investigators, contending that such an appearance would violate his rights.

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), the chairman of the Senate panel probing the scandal, said he will recommend that the committees skip the private session, avoid a time-consuming effort to cite North for contempt of Congress and concentrate congressional questioning on a public appearance by North in mid-July.

The fired White House aide had been granted limited immunity from prosecution in an effort to compel his testimony and had been expected to be questioned by the committees’ lawyers Thursday in a private deposition.

Inouye said the panels could start contempt proceedings against North but he recommended that they avoid that option to save time. The vice chairman of the Senate panel, Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), said he agreed.

The lawmakers, asked how a private appearance might violate North’s rights, said they had no answer.

‘Position Untenable’

“We’ve contended his position is untenable,” Inouye said.

“As a practicing lawyer I always had great difficulty in inventing frivolous defenses,” Rudman added.

North’s attorneys, Brendan Sullivan and Barry Simon, were unavailable for comment.

Inouye said North’s action was “unprecedented.”

“All the other witnesses have not objected,” Inouye said. “This is a procedure followed by Congress throughout the ages.”

But he also said contempt proceedings would take two to three months.

When North took the Fifth Amendment before Congress last December, he asserted at the time: “I don’t think there is another person in America that wants to tell this story as much as I do.”

The Marine, who has since remained silent about the scandal, could still refuse to testify publicly, and would then face contempt charges and jail. Inouye and Rudman would not speculate on events should North press matters that far.

Inouye said he expects North to testify “a week or more” in public.

Rudman Angered

“He will be asked probing questions, probably numbering in the hundreds,” vowed Rudman, who was visibly angered over North’s decision.

He said that if the committees choose to go to the House and Senate and ultimately the courts to press contempt charges against North the process might take so long “that it might be impossible for (special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh) to delay any action he might wish to take.”

In other words, Rudman indicated, if North were indicted and awaiting trial, it might not be possible for Congress to simultaneously call him as a witness.

Meanwhile, the head of the House Iran- contra committee said it is too early to conclude that President Reagan is in the clear, as Reagan suggested on Tuesday with a declaration that “there ain’t no smoking gun” linking him to a diversion of Iran arms-sale profits to the Nicaraguan rebels.

“We don’t understand things like whose idea it was to start the diversion,” said Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.). “Everybody’s against it, but it happened. Somebody had the idea. Somebody pushed it through.”

And Hamilton, following up on comments he made last weekend, said there are “multiple possibilities” that could lead to congressional pressure for impeachment, other than the discovery of diversion evidence that would constitute a “smoking gun.” He declined to elaborate.