McFarlane Excerpts: Different Recollections

Following are excerpts from the opening statement Tuesday by former National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane to the congressional committees investigating the Iran-contra affair:

The recollections of events may differ between people. . . . Honest witnesses who are busy with many matters inevitably will have different recollections of the same events many years later, and there is also the tendency for recollection to be colored by the way one would have liked to have acted, not the way in which one in fact did. . . .

Col. North testified that I gave him general authority to conduct covert operations involving widespread military and paramilitary activities, based upon the position that the Boland amendment (restricting U.S. aid to the contras) did not apply to the NSC (National Security Council) staff. He also stated that he kept me advised of all of his activities.

North Reported a Few Acts

Col. North did report to me from time to time on a few, but certainly not all of, the activities that went beyond mere political support for the contras. The committee has seen those memoranda--all six of them. One, for example, involved his request for permission to ask a private U.S. donor to provide a helicopter to the contras. I specifically disapproved the proposal and noted that I did not believe it was legal. On other memoranda on which Col. North asked me to solicit funds from foreign governments, I rejected the proposals, and that is stated on the face of those documents, and you have them. . . .

But implicit in all this was the premise that the Boland amendment governed our actions. . . . It was very evident that the intent of the Congress was that this (Boland) amendment applied to the NSC staff. . . . If we felt that we weren’t covered, what was I doing . . . coming up here day after day, trying to get rid of it?

Never Heard of Operation

Col. North has testified that he and (former CIA) Director (William J.) Casey had agreed upon a full-service operation to support the contras using non-appropriated funds. I never heard of any such full-service operation from either Director Casey or Col. North, and I certainly never concurred in one. . . .

Col. North has testified that he did not recall that I had directed him not to solicit funds to support the contras. I did instruct him not to solicit funds. . . .

Col. North also testified that . . . when I drew Col. North’s attention to certain of his memoranda to me that raised doubts about his compliance with the law, I then instructed him, in Col. North’s words, to “fix them.” This is incorrect. In fact, Ollie proposed revision of certain other documents. . . . (I) did not approve it. . . . Prior to my (previous) testimony, during questioning by the (Iran-contra) committee staff, I learned for the first time that within days before Col. North left the White House in November, 1986, he withdrew these documents and altered them. This was without my knowledge or concurrence.

Col. North testified that I directed the White House chronologies be altered to say that everyone in the U.S. government believed in November of 1985 that “oil-drilling parts” were being shipped by the government of Israel (to Iran). This is not true. Col. North advised me on the evening of Nov. 18, 1986, on the one brief occasion when I was involved in the chronology process at all, that no one in the U.S. government was aware that Hawks (missiles) were involved in that shipment until January, 1986. I had no clear recollection of the matter, having spent the entire period variously in Geneva, Rome, Paris, London, California, but not Washington. . . .

There are a number of facts upon which Col. North’s recollection differs from mine, but they are marginal to our basic disagreement. That disagreement involves a clear implication from his testimony that I authorized an operation involving pervasive disregard of statutory restraints--that I permitted with knowledge the creation of a separate, clandestine and far-reaching network of private operations that involve private profits, and which was to be concealed even from other members of the executive branch. . . . This is untrue because it is unthinkable. It violates every tenet of my political beliefs, everything that I have sought throughout my career to sustain and advance.

Belief in Rule of Law

These are my beliefs in the rule of law, and the doctrine of accountability. These are the essence of the constitutional form of government which I have fought in war to defend . . . and were part of my deepest beliefs when I served in the executive branch. . . . Finally, I would like to say something about all the talk going around about who was to be the fall guy. . . . No such plan existed, to my knowledge. I know I wasn’t party to any such planning before I left government at the end of 1985.