Panels, North Reportedly Agree on Testifying Rules

Lt. Col. Oliver L. North and the congressional panels investigating the Iran- contra affair have reached a tentative agreement that will allow North, the scandal’s central figure, to testify in public in early July, an informed committee source said today.

The proposed agreement calls for North to give limited testimony in private, but possibly not under oath, before the House and Senate committees. He would testify under oath in public shortly afterward, the source said.

The proposed arrangement, which has to be approved by both committees, means North may appear prior to Rear Adm. John M. Poindexter, the former national security adviser who was North’s boss at the White House. He was scheduled to appear on July 7.

It is to the committee’s advantage that North be questioned under oath before he has the chance to hear Poindexter’s statements and further plan his defense.

The tentative agreement was hammered out during weekend negotiations and in talks today between the counsels for the two committees and North’s lawyer, Brendan Sullivan.

“They have pretty well reached agreement,” said the source, who was deeply involved in monitoring the negotiations and spoke on the basis he not be identified. “There are some loose understandings in terms of time.

“He is to testify, narrowly, in private, and perhaps not under oath,” the source added.

“There is to be an exchange of documents, from the committee, and the committee gets some things, (such) as his notebooks.”

The source said the private session would not go into the central question before the committees, which is whether North told the President about the scheme to divert profits from the Iran arms sales to the contras.