North’s Attempt at Cover-up Is Told : He Got Home Security System Bought by Secord, Witness Tells Iran Panels

Former White House aide Oliver L. North received an elaborate home security system purchased from the proceeds of the Iran- contra arms sales and later mailed two phony letters designed to cover it up, the congressional investigating committees were told Tuesday.

Glenn Robinette, a retired CIA official and private security consultant, testified under limited immunity from prosecution that he received $16,000 from Iran-contra middleman Richard V. Secord for the security system. He said he installed the system, at a cost of about $13,900, at North’s home in a Washington suburb in 1986.

Investigators said at least $9,000 of the total paid to Robinette came directly from a bank account that Secord also was using to sell U.S. arms to Iran and provide military supplies to the Nicaraguan rebels. Secord has denied paying for the security system.

Sent 2 Phony Bills

Robinette said he and North also joined in an effort to “cover up” the source of payment for the security system after the Iran-contra affair came to light last November. He said he submitted two phony bills to North and North sent him two fake letters--all designed to suggest that the system had not been paid for.

It was the first unequivocal testimony to the committees indicating that North benefited personally from the Iran-contra affair. Government employees are prohibited by law from accepting “anything of value” for performing their official duties.

The testimony also added to the growing evidence that North went to great lengths to cover up his role in the Iran-contra affair by creating false documents and shredding originals.

“The evidence here establishes that a government official received a substantial gratuity to which he was not entitled,” Sen. Paul S. Trible Jr. (R-Va.) concluded. “The gratuity was paid for, at least in part, from the funds generated by the sale of arms to Iran. And you (Robinette) and Col. North endeavored to mislead and to cover your tracks.”

Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), a North admirer, added: “Apparently if Col. North accepted a $13,900 gift from Secord or anybody else, we got him, he’s broken the law--the federal law. And we are beginning to zero in on Col. North.”

Ironically, the letters that North wrote to cover up his apparent wrongdoing were themselves incriminating. In the letters, North, a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps, suggested that if Robinette would agree to forgo payment for the security system, he would endorse the product after his discharge from the Marines in 1988. Such a pledge would also be prohibited practice for federal employees.

In addition, investigators said it appears that North took great pains to fabricate his letters--apparently even altering three letters on his typewriter to create the impression that a period of time elapsed between the writing of the two phony letters.

Until Tuesday, committee members were reluctant to conclude that North benefited personally from the Iran-contra affair. Without exception, witnesses before the committee have painted a portrait of North as a selfless patriot who had no interest in personal gain.

If North appears before the committee in mid-July, as tentatively scheduled, he is certain to be asked about the security system as well as $2,400 in traveler’s checks belonging to the Nicaraguan rebels that he apparently cashed for personal purchases. He will also be questioned about whether he knew that he and his family were designated as beneficiaries of a $200,000 education fund and a $2-million will provided by Secord and his business partner, Albert A. Hakim.

No Decision on Testimony

Members of the committees still had not decided Tuesday whether they would agree to hear North’s testimony under the strict conditions laid down by his lawyer. If the committees reject those conditions and North still refuses to testify, he will be cited for contempt of Congress.

The mild-mannered, white-haired Robinette, who served in the CIA from 1951 until 1971, said he was drawn into the cover-up by a feeling of compassion for North, who was fired by President Reagan on Nov. 25. But he decided to drop the pretense after a telephone conversation on May 17 with North’s lawyer, Brendan V. Sullivan Jr.

He said Sullivan told him: “Don’t protect Col. North. He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth.” In addition, he said, Sullivan advised him to get his own attorney.

Robinette said he was first asked by Secord in April, 1986, to look into the security situation at North’s home in Great Falls, Va. At the time, Robinette also was acting as a $4,000-a-month personal investigator for Secord, digging up “dirt” on a group of people who had filed a civil lawsuit against him.

Bombing in Costa Rica

The $23.5-million lawsuit, filed last year in Miami by the nonprofit Christic Institute, contends that Secord and others involved in the Iran-contra affair helped arrange a 1984 bombing in Costa Rica that killed three journalists. The organization, which has a liberal as well as a religious leaning, also alleged that Secord and associates ran a drug-running and gunrunning operation to benefit the contras.

Robinette, who met twice with North and visited his house once before the system was installed, said he learned from Secord and North that several unusual events had caused fear in North’s family. These included sugar or sand dumped in their automobile gas tank; telephone threats; punctured tires; garbage in the mailbox, and lights beamed into the house late at night from passing cars.

North, who was responsible for overseeing the Administration’s policy toward terrorism, expressed the fear that international terrorists such as Abu Nidal might have reason to attack his house, according to Robinette.

When North was told before installation that the security system might cost between $8,000 and $8,500, Robinette testified, the White House aide replied: “Please try to keep it along those lines. Remember, I’m a poor lieutenant colonel.”

Robinette said he paid two subcontractors a total of $13,900 to install a variety of security improvements in North’s house, including an electronic front gate, heat and smoke detectors, door and window alarms, outdoor lights and portable transmitters.

In exchange, he said he received two payments from Secord--a $7,000 cash advance and a final check for $9,000 drawn on CSF Investments, one of Secord’s Swiss bank accounts. He said he sought payment from Secord--not North--because it was Secord who had hired him.

It was not until early December--six months after the system was installed--that North called him asking for a bill for the security system, according to Robinette. He said he instantly realized that he was being asked to participate in a cover-up, although North did not say so.

Robinette willingly went along with it. “I was trying to help Col. North,” he said. “I think my action was one of heart rather than head. And I think you make a mistake if you lead with your heart instead of your head.”

Sen. William S. Cohen (R-Me.) noted that Robinette was “not the only person to fall under the spell of Oliver North.” Others have testified that they complied with North’s requests because they were charmed by him.

Robinette drafted two fake bills for the security system--the first dated July 2 and the second dated Sept. 22. He said he put them together in an envelope addressed to North and put that inside another envelope addressed to North’s lawyer. Within a few days, he said, he received North’s two phony letters by return mail.

The first letter, dated May 18, was a legalistic document listing two ways in which North could compensate Robinette for the security system--24 installment payments or, in lieu of payment, the opportunity to use the North home for “a commercial endorsement” after North left the Marines in June, 1988.

Promise of Endorsement

The second letter, more casual in tone, indicated that Robinette had agreed to accept the promise of a commercial endorsement in lieu of payment. North wrote that he had no other way of paying for the security system and quipped: “I don’t want to have to resort to holding up gas stations on my way home from work at night.”

The letters “e,” “g,” and “u” in the second letter were blurred, and North sought to explain this with a postscript: “Please forgive the type--I literally dropped the ball”--an apparent reference to the typing ball of an electric typewriter.

This, too, was apparently part of North’s effort to mislead investigators. A documents expert employed by the committee said the three typewriter letters actually were altered with a file, not as a result of being dropped.

Although Secord was not involved in the exchange of phony bills and letters, Robinette said he later discussed the matter over a drink with Secord on May 17 after a story about the security system appeared in the Washington Post.

He said Secord asked him: “Well, you sent bills to Col. North, didn’t you?” And when he replied in the affirmative, Secord replied: “Well, you did the right thing.”

Although Secord was not asked about the security system when he appeared before the committee last month, he has since publicly denied paying for it. “The money for the system came from the guy who put it in without any blessing from me and without any financial assistance from me,” he told the Washington Post.

In questioning Robinette, Republicans sought to prove that North had reason to fear for the safety of his family. They noted that the Naval Investigative Service is currently providing security for the North home.

Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.) noted that North’s security was a matter to be handled by the government, not by Secord. “Let the record show that this government does not leave its employees out on a limb.”

In other testimony Tuesday, two Pentagon officials--one former and one current--told of warning the Administration that the initial transfers of U.S. weapons to Iran were unwise, contrary to U.S. policy and possibly illegal.

Noel Koch, who resigned last year as the Pentagon’s chief anti-terrorism policy-maker, noted that he had even joked with Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger about the possible illegality of the arms sales.

“I said: ‘Do we have a legal problem with this? Is somebody going to go to jail?’ ” Koch testified. “And his response was in the affirmative.”

He added, however, that he did not take Weinberger’s response seriously.

‘Background of Watergate’

“We had the shared background of Watergate to bounce some of these perceptions off of,” Koch said. “Chiefly, I assumed that if there was any prospect of it being illegal, that he would have stopped it. I mean, you know, he became secretary, put his hand on a Bible and swore to uphold the laws of the land, and I thought that was an ironclad guarantee.” Henry Gaffney, who heads the Pentagon office supervising government-to-government sales, told the panels of writing a memo warning that the secret transfer of U.S. arms--initially carried out by Israel--could violate Arms Export Control Act requirements for notification of Congress. He also noted that Iran, which had been linked to terrorist activities, was not eligible for U.S. arms.

Gaffney said he was told that Weinberger wanted him to write the memo “as negatively as possible. . . . I had a clear signal on writing this paper to color it.”

Koch said he was particularly concerned with the implications of trading arms for hostages: “The question of not making concessions to terrorists was about the last shred of a fig leaf that we had that constituted any kind of a pretense at having a policy toward dealing with terrorism at all. And so to have shed that one, it seemed to me, left us in a very difficult position.” Despite such reservations, Koch said, President Reagan apparently became preoccupied with finding a way to free the hostages. His pressure was evident in a conversation that Koch recalled having with North in the fall of 1985, shortly before the arms sales began.

“This thing is really eating (Reagan), and he’s driving me nuts about it,” Koch quoted North as saying. “And he wants them out by Christmas.”

When Koch asked if that would be possible, he testified, North replied: “I hope so.”