THE IRAN-CONTRA HEARINGS : Excerpts: ‘I Don’t Know What (the White House) Had in Mind’

Following are excerpts from testimony Friday by Rear Adm. John M. Poindexter, President Reagan’s former national security adviser, before the congressional committees investigating the Iran-contra affair:

Memory Lapse

(House counsel John W. Nields Jr. questions Poindexter about his contention that he once told Congress he did not know in advance that a November, 1985, shipment to Iran contained missile parts, rather than oil-drilling equipment, because he had forgotten that he had known it did. He also probes Poindexter about his efforts to reconstruct what he and others had known of the shipment.)

Question: You’d forgotten that you knew about the shipment of the Hawks before they were shipped?

Answer: That is correct.

Q: You’d forgotten that you knew that a CIA proprietary had been used to ship them?

A: Mr. Nields, every day in the White House, I received hundreds of documents, hundreds of messages and hundreds of PROFS notes (interoffice computer messages). We had been involved in many, many issues over the year I simply did not remember.

Q: And when the press accounts of the Iranian initiative began in November of 1986, you asked that chronologies be prepared so that senior officials, including yourself, would be brought up to speed on the facts. I take it that’s correct.

(Poindexter asks to have the question repeated, and it is.)

A: Yes. And as I have said, I frankly could not remember the events of 1985, and I thought it was important as this issue was going to become very heated it was clear, that we have a basic source document to use internally in the White House that laid out what had happened.

(Poindexter’s attorney, Richard W. Beckler, objects to the form of questioning. The questioning resumes after some argument and a discussion about several committee documents.)

Q: . . . So you wanted to clear up the question of what the U.S. government knew about this shipment when, and whether and when it had been approved?

A: That’s correct.

Q: And . . . you ran across a document that was relevant to that question, namely the November--excuse me, the December, 1985, finding (in which Reagan approved an arms-for-hostages swap) which you say you had forgotten up until that time, and you destroyed it?

A: But that finding did not answer the question which was the key question at that time, and that was, what happened in Geneva ( when former National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane allegedly told Secretary of State George P. Shultz of the weapons shipment)? It did not relate to that.

Q: It did show, however, and it did remind you, did it not, that you were aware back in November, 1985, that the CIA proprietary had been used to carry the missiles?

A: Obviously at that point the pieces began to fall in place, and it was reinforced by Col. (Oliver L.) North coming over with some notes from his spiral notebook that he had dug out of the files that did begin to put the pieces in place, that’s correct.

Q: And is it correct to say that you found one document that related to this issue, which was the November finding, and you destroyed it? And another--

(Poindexter’s attorney, Beckler, objects and is overruled.)

Q: And Col. North had found one document that related to this subject, which was his notes. And when he left your office it was your understanding that he was going to destroy his notes?

A: That was my impression.

Q: So each of you had discovered one document that would be helpful to answer the question that you told the committee that you were going to clear up, and it was your understanding that both of them would be destroyed?

A: . . . Look, if we were trying to cover up something from the beginning, we would not have gone to all the trouble of preparing all those various drafts of the chronology. It would have been stupid to try to find out what all the facts were, which I think, all of the evidence indicates we were trying to do, if we had intended to cover up something.

(Later, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), pressing Poindexter about the plausibility of his having a memory lapse about the shipment contents, calls his attention to an appraisal of his mental capacity prepared by Adm. Jim Holloway while Poindexter was serving as Holloway’s executive assistant from 1976 to 1978.)

Q: Adm. Holloway has described you as “a brilliant and very effective aide, totally loyal and trustworthy, and a thorough briefer who rarely interjects his own viewpoints.” Would you agree with that assessment?

A: I agree with that assessment.

Q: Adm. Holloway has also stated, quoting him again, “Capt. Poindexter”--this is when you were a captain--”Capt. Poindexter has a spectacular mental capacity. He reads and understands every paper or report that comes into the office. Furthermore, he retains fully, recalls accurately and evaluates with a keen sense of what is important and what isn’t.” Would you agree with that assessment?

A: I think that’s a little bit elaborative. You must be reading from a citation or something--a fitness report?

Q: Fitness report.

A: Yes.

(Nunn asks Poindexter about his intention to keep the Iran arms fund diversion a secret known only to him and North.)

Q: Col. North has testified repeatedly to this committee that he always assumed that you reported the diversion plan to the President, and the President had approved it. Did that testimony surprise you that he was operating under that assumption?

A: As I have testified, I did not tell Col. North whether I was going to talk to the President or not. Frankly, I didn’t think that it was important for him to know who else knew about it, because I didn’t want him to talk to anybody but me about it in the government. And, so I’m not surprised about that. He would have probably made that assumption.

Q: Well, admiral, you say that you didn’t want Col. North talking to anyone but you about it. Wouldn’t it not have been wise at that stage to tell him that you were not going to tell the President of the United States about the diversion?

A: No, I don’t think so, senator. My whole concept of keeping a secret is to keep things highly compartmented, and I was his lawful superior. He understood very well the military chain of command, and he felt that the actions that he was recommending were lawful, or he wouldn’t recommend them.

Q: Well, you didn’t think Col. North would tell anyone, including the President of the United States, without your permission?

A: That’s correct.

Q: Well, now did you hear the testimony where Col. North told Bud McFarlane without your permission?

A: That’s correct, and I, as I have testified I think in depositions, I was surprised at that.

Q: So, you were surprised that he did tell Robert McFarlane about the diversion without your permission?

A: That’s correct. I was surprised.

Q: Did you hear his testimony, that he told (former CIA director) Bill Casey without your permission?

A: I heard that testimony.

Q: Well, it seems to me then that you misjudged Col. North, did you not? In his ability or willingness to keep this very close hold, “compartmentalized,” in your words?

A: Well, I made a mistake in that assessment, obviously.

Q: Well, wasn’t it a very serious mistake, admiral, not to have confided to Col. North that the President was not going to be told back in February of ‘86?

A: No, I don’t think so. I don’t see that he had a need to know.

Q: Even when he was with the President in most of the meetings and could have very well assumed the President, did assume the President knew, and could have blurted out something that would have given the President the information that you were trying to protect him from?

A: No, Col. North didn’t speak out in these meetings, unless he was asked to, and I would usually nod to him if I wanted him to--

Q: So, you thought you had Col. North under complete control as far as not telling anyone?

A: I felt that he understood what I wanted and that he would carry that out.

Q: Looking back on it, admiral, wouldn’t it have been much more protective of the President and giving him much better deniability if Col. North had been in on the plan not to tell him?

A: I don’t know, I just--I never analyzed it quite the way that you are right now.

Denials by White House

(Nunn asks Poindexter about White House statements that dispute Poindexter’s assertion that President Reagan would have approved the diversion of Iran arms funds to the contras had Poindexter proposed it to him.)

Q: . . . After reading the denials by the White House since your testimony, do you still believe the President would have approved that decision if you had asked him?

A: I do.

Q: So you have not changed your mind.

A: I have not changed my mind.

Q: Again, you said ( Nunn reads from earlier testimony ): “I made the decision. I felt I had the authority to do it. I thought it was a good idea. I was convinced that the President would, in the end, think it was a good idea.” Do you see that?

A: I see it.

Q: Is that still your testimony?

A: It is.

Q: So the denials from the White House have had no effect on your testimony?

A: No, they have not.

Q: That means, admiral, you must believe the White House is now misleading the American people.

A: No, I don’t think so.

Q: How can it not be?

A: Well, No. 1, what you have are reports of what (White House spokesman) Marlin Fitzwater said. I don’t know exactly--

Q: You don’t believe he’s speaking for the President?

A: Well, I would want to have a personal conversation with the President, which I have not had and which would not be appropriate at this time.

Q: Well, if Marlin Fitzwater really was speaking for the President, would you agree that those statements are, in your opinion, misleading the American people?

A: Senator, as I have testified before, and you have gone over some of the instances just now, I felt that the President would approve that, if I had asked him. I still feel that way. I’ve given my thought process at the time, my thought process now. At this point, I can’t speak for the White House, I don’t know what they’ve got in mind over there. I really can’t comment on that.

Q: Well, I would just observe, admiral, and you can refute this if you like, the White House statements directly contradict your testimony and you’re standing by your testimony, so your testimony directly contradicts the White House statements.

A: That is correct, that appears to be obvious, and people can draw their own conclusions, I guess.

(Beckler chastises panel members over comments they made to reporters about Poindexter’s testimony after Thursday’s session, and Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) responds with a sharp counterattack.)

INOUYE: Chairman (Lee H.) Hamilton has leaned over backward to be fair, but at the same time, when we sit here and listen to your testimony, in which you tell us that you have either withheld information from or mislead or misinformed the highest ranking Cabinet members of the United States, that you have withheld information from your most trusted deputy, Col. North--I don’t think it is improper for any member of this panel to characterize that testimony as being incredible, mindboggling, chilling. I think they are all proper. . . .