Rudman Calls Meese’s Inquiry Incompetent

The vice chairman of the Senate Iran- contra investigating committee, Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N. H.), charged Friday that Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III was guilty of “gross incompetence” in his handling of the initial investigation into the affair last year.

“I tend more to believe it was a case of gross incompetence, not criminal intent,” Rudman told reporters in the harshest congressional criticism yet of Meese’s inquiry. “I guess it’s better to be dumb than crooked,” he added.

Denies Wrongdoing

Meese, who has denied any wrongdoing, has been named by fired White House aide Oliver L. North as a participant in a cover-up of U.S. involvement in shipments of American-made arms to Iran in 1985. The shipments, which may have been illegal, were authorized by President Reagan in a secret “finding” signed after the fact and withheld from Congress.

But former National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter testified before the Iran-contra committees Friday that “I don’t have any reason to believe that Ed was aware of that finding,” a statement that supported Meese’s denial of a key element behind North’s cover-up charge.

Meese, who will be called to testify before the panels next week, has been criticized for conducting his brief investigation last November with a group of close aides who have little experience in criminal cases.

Poindexter and North were notified well in advance that Meese and his aides planned to question them, and both men used the delay to destroy key documents relating to their secret operations. In addition, the targets of the inquiry were allowed to confer with each other before and between interviews, and the investigators failed to ask several critical questions.

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Senate Iran-contra committee, said he has not yet concluded whether Meese’s inquiry was actually part of an attempt to cover up wrongdoing in the secret operations. “We will have to wait until he appears before us,” Inouye said.

In addressing the involvement of other figures in the affair, Rudman said he believes that former White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan did not know of the diversion of Iranian arms profits to the Nicaraguan rebels, which is a central issue in the investigation.

Regan has told the committee privately in a sworn deposition that he did not know about the diversion, Rudman said. Poindexter also has testified that the chief of staff was unaware of the plan, under which about $3.5 million of profits from secret arms sales to Iran were used to help the contras despite a congressional ban on aid to the rebels.

Justice Department spokesman Terry Eastland said Meese would not comment on Rudman’s remarks about the attorney general. “This close to the hearing, we’ll let the attorney general respond there,” he said.

A team of Justice Department aides has begun briefing Meese on questions that the committee is likely to ask him. The preparatory sessions began last week but were interrupted to allow Meese to fly to California to attend a meeting of the board of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow contributed to this story.