North Testifies Behind Closed Doors

Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, the central figure in the Iran- contra affair, testified briefly Wednesday in a closed session aimed at preparing lawmakers for their star witness’ public appearance next week.

Members of the House and Senate committees investigating the affair refused to disclose what North had told them in a one-hour and 40-minute meeting, where they questioned him about only one topic: whether President Reagan knew of or participated in the possibly illegal diversion of Iranian arms sale profits to Nicaraguan rebels.

Testimony by earlier witnesses in the hearings has shown that North was the White House staff member most closely involved in the secret sale of U.S. arms to Iran and the diversion of its profits. Witnesses have testified also that North destroyed evidence of both operations shortly after internal Administration investigators began looking into them last November.

Access to President

However, it was unclear whether the fired National Security Council aide had sufficient access to Reagan to be able to tell lawmakers with certainty whether the President knew of his activities. The session Wednesday, which included a 15-minute break, was shorter than many committee members had predicted.

Spokesmen said only six members of the committees attended the private session, and they described it as “friendly and businesslike.”

North arrived at the meeting 20 minutes early, smiling and winking at reporters. He wore his dress green Marine uniform, replete with service ribbons. When asked what he planned to tell the panel, he replied: “The truth.” When reporters pressed him further, he told them to “have a nice day.”

He saluted to the assembled media as he left.

Procedure in Civil Cases

Private initial interviews with witnesses, a procedure similar to that followed by attorneys in civil cases, prepare lawmakers for what they are likely to hear in public session. It also prevents them from wasting valuable time hurtling down blind alleys when they put their star witnesses under the klieg lights.

“It helps the committee to shape a more meaningful and productive session, and it minimizes the possibility of surprise,” said Sen. Paul S. Trible Jr. (R-Va.), who will be one of the committees’ four primary questioners facing off with North in public testimony next week.

Trible noted that an initial private interview also allows investigators time to “measure the truthfulness” of statements that witnesses plan to make in public and to challenge those assertions, if necessary.

In these less formal closed sessions, investigators are likely to first hear the most startling revelations of an investigation.

That was what happened on Friday, July 16, 1973.

Disclosure of Nixon Tapes

An almost offhand question from a staff investigator in a preliminary interview elicited from White House aide Alexander P. Butterfield the stunning news that President Richard M. Nixon’s offices were bugged and that his phones were tapped. Conversations recorded on those secret White House tapes provided the “smoking gun” in the Watergate investigation that turned public opinion against Nixon and led to his resignation.

Fred D. Thompson, the Senate Watergate Committee’s Republican counsel, recalled that Butterfield was chagrined when Donald G. Sanders, a former FBI agent working for the panel, asked whether there was a possibility that a taping system existed in the White House.

“It was just something that had occurred to (Sanders) from listening to other information,” recalled Thompson, who is now an attorney in private practice. “Butterfield said: ‘I wish you hadn’t asked that question, but, yes, there is.’ ” Three days later, the committee was able to stage what became one of the most dramatic moments of the historic hearings.

Advantage to Committee

“If you’re on the committee, (a private session) is to be done if at all possible,” Thompson said. “If you’re a witness, it is to be avoided if at all possible.”

Without a private session, he said, investigators “don’t have a chance to focus in on your weaknesses or on the headline grabbers.”

Perhaps with that in mind, North’s attorney, Brendan V. Sullivan Jr., negotiated an arrangement with the committees under which his client’s private testimony was limited to an examination of Reagan’s role in the affair. In particular, the investigators zeroed in on whether the President knew of the diversion of $3.5 million in Iran arms sale profits to the contras.

Most of the private interviews have been conducted in the Capitol complex. Many have been informal sessions, where the witnesses have not been required to take an oath that their testimony is truthful, committee sources said.

Hakim Questioned in Paris

But staff members have had to go to great lengths to obtain private interviews with some witnesses. Albert A. Hakim, who engineered the complex financial web around the secret arms sales to Iran and the private contra supply network, insisted that investigators fly to Paris to talk to him.

Hours before North testified before the committees, lawyers for North went back into U.S. District Court in Washington to press their challenge to the constitutionality of the separate Iran-contra investigation being carried out by independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh.

The attorneys are questioning the authority of independent counsels such as Walsh, who are appointed by a special federal court under the 1978 Ethics in Government Act. They maintain that such prosecutorial power belongs solely to the executive branch, not the judiciary.

Barry Simon, one of North’s attorneys, challenged the constitutionality of the ethics law, the validity of a backup executive-branch appointment given to Walsh by Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and the manner in which the independent counsel’s staff was sworn in.

Chief U.S. District Judge Aubrey E. Robinson took the arguments under advisement and promised lawyers for North, the Justice Department and Walsh: “You’ll hear from me.”

Although sharp disagreement has arisen between the Justice Department and the independent counsel’s office on whether the independent counsel works within the department, attorneys for Walsh argued Wednesday for the dismissal of all of North’s arguments, one calling them “irrelevant, metaphysical and immaterial.”

Staff writer Rudy Abramson contributed to this story.