North Delivers Documents to Inquiry Panels

Lt. Col. Oliver L. North appeared at a Capitol Hill meeting today and turned over seven binders full of documents to congressional investigators after being formally granted limited immunity from prosecution.

North gave the House and Senate investigating committees the papers during a 15-minute closed-door session. He is to appear before selected members of the committees and their staffs Wednesday to begin answering questions in private about his role in the affair, and is scheduled to testify publicly beginning July 7.

The embattled Marine, at the center of the worst scandal of the Reagan presidency, ducked reporters and was escorted into a basement hearing room for the brief procedural meeting.

House committee chairman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.) called the session with North and his lawyers routine and “very congenial.” He said, “We were really carrying out a script” written by lawyers for the two sides.

Phone Logs, Calendars

Each committee was given seven black three-ring binders containing North’s subpoenaed telephone logs, correspondence, personal calendars and copies of the contents of 21 spiral notebooks kept by the fired National Security Council aide, a committee aide said.

Appearing in his Marine uniform complete with medals, North shook hands with the committee members and answered a string of questions designed to establish that he has knowledge of the affair and to lay the groundwork for later questions.

On Wednesday, the committees will question North only about whether President Reagan was involved in the scheme to divert profits from the secret sale of U.S. arms to the Nicaraguan contras.

The session is expected to start late in the day after North appears in U.S. District Court, where he is challenging the special prosecutor’s law that led to the appointment of independent prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, who is pursuing a criminal case in the scandal.