THE IRAN--CONTRA HEARINGS : Excerpts: I Believed This Baby Had Been Strangled

Following are excerpts from testimony Friday by Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and former White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan before the Senate and House committees investigating the Iran-contra affair:

‘Almost Too Absurd’

(Deputy House counsel W. Neil Eggleston asked Weinberger about a June, 1985, White House document, called a National Security Decision Directive, that proposed efforts to improve U.S. relations with Iran, including possible arms sales.)

Answer: Well, I commented that “this is almost too absurd to comment on . . . the assumption here is that Iran is about to fall and, two, that we can deal with them on a rational basis. It is like asking (Libyan leader Moammar) Kadafi over for a cozy lunch.”

(Weinberger was asked what he thought was wrong with the proposal.)

A: Well, the fact that it . . . discussed the possibility of sending arms to Iran at a time when our efforts were being made all around the world to try to prevent other nations from shipping arms to Iran. I think I said in my response here that under no circumstances should we now ease our restrictions on sales to Iran. Attempting to cut off arms while remaining neutral . . . to either belligerent is one of the few ways we have to protect our longer-range interests in both Iran and Iraq. . . . There were other reasons, of course, too. . . . I didn’t think there were any moderates still alive in Iran (with whom to deal), and I thought that it would be not possible to work out an arrangement under--with the present government there. And I still think that’s true.

(Weinberger said that, at a meeting with the President two months later, he and Secretary of State George P. Shultz argued vehemently against the Iran plan, which was being advocated by then-National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane.)

Question: Do you have an impression of what his (Reagan’s) view was of the plan as of that time?

A: Yes, I, I felt that the arguments that I’d made were basically congruent with his views at that time.

Q: And so . . . it was your view that this proposal . . . had essentially died?

A: I thought the whole thing had gone away, yes.

Q: We’ll hear more about that.

A: Unfortunately, yes.

Not Aware of Negotiations

(Eggleston asked if Weinberger was aware in late August or September, 1985, of Israel’s sending about 500 TOW anti-tank missiles to Iran, which was followed by release of a hostage.)

A: No, I was not.

Q: Did you have any knowledge that the release of the hostage was related to the transfer of weapons to Iran?

A: No, I, I, I don’t and I still don’t know whether it was.

(Weinberger said that, in the fall of 1985, he received an intelligence report with cryptic references to negotiations between high U.S. officials and Iranian representatives, apparently involving arms sales and possibly hostages.)

Q: As the secretary of defense, were you surprised to receive an intelligence report that seemed to indicate that American officials were negotiating about weapons with Iranians?

A: Indeed, I was, yes.

(Weinberger said that he had his military assistant, Brig. Gen. Colin L. Powell, check with the agency that had furnished the report. Powell was told that “we weren’t on the distribution list and we weren’t supposed to have this report.”)

Q: Was this an agency which was within the Department of Defense?

A: It was indeed, yes.

Q: . . . Did you give any advice back to that agency?

A: Yes, I did. I asked Gen. Powell to remind the agency for whom they were working.

(Receiving more such reports, Weinberger said he “found the story continually and increasingly disturbing.” Weinberger said he asked Asst. Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage to look into them and that Armitage tracked down Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, a National Security Council assistant, who confirmed he was negotiating with the Iranians. Weinberger then requested a meeting of top national security officials, which took place Dec. 7, 1985. Eggleston then asked what occurred at the meeting, attended by President Reagan, Vice President George Bush, McFarlane and Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III.)

A: . . . The general discussion was now more specific than it had been in August, and it was about a specific plan to transfer some weapons to the Iranians and why this would produce a good result. There was much more discussion of hostages at this time, but there was also discussion of how important it was to have an opening to Iran. And I made a very strong objection to the whole idea, as did the secretary of state.

Q: . . . Secretary Shultz has described your opposition at that meeting as quite forceful. Is that a fair characterization?

A: . . . I think that’s entirely a fair description, perhaps an understatement.

Q: . . . Do you recall who at the meeting, if anyone, was in favor of going ahead with this proposal?

A: Well, I still had the impression that McFarlane . . . favored the transaction. And I don’t--I don’t know of anybody else who was specifically in favor of it. . . . My impression of the President’s reaction was that he was against it and had come down--had decided not to do it. And, in fact, when I got back to the department, I told Gen. Powell that I believed this baby had been strangled in its cradle and that it was finished.

President Favored Plan

(Nevertheless, Weinberger said, there was “a replay really of the whole thing” at a meeting in the President’s Oval Office on Jan. 7, 1986.)

A: And, again, I made all of the same arguments with increasing force, but apparently less persuasion, and George Shultz did the same thing.

Q: Had the views of the other people who attended the meeting changed by Jan. 7?

A: Well, the President seemed to have had a different view by this time. . . . I reached the conclusion at the end of the meeting that the President now favored the plan.

(Weinberger said he heard nothing more on the matter until about Jan. 17, when then-Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, who had succeeded McFarlane as national security adviser, called to say that “the President had decided . . . in favor of making these shipments and that a certain number of TOW missiles were to be transferred (from the Defense Department) to the CIA, and that there was a desire to move on it rapidly--some additional talk of hostages and things of that kind.” Weinberger said that he objected.)

Q: What did he (Poindexter) respond?

A: Well, he said the President decided this and there’s no more room for argument. Something along that line.

Q: So, you--did you take any steps or make any effort to contact the President directly?

A: No, I accepted Adm. Poindexter’s word.

Q: . . . But did you make any attempt to go back and reargue the order?

A: . . . I’d made all the arguments that I could think of at the two meetings and, having been told in very flat, uncompromising terms that the President had decided and that they were anxious to have the order carried out, I--I did not.

Q: . . . Did there come a time when you learned how many TOWs they were talking about?

A: Yes, they ultimately talked about, I think, 4,000, and then somewhat later I was told that it had moved up to 4,500. We did not ever send that many. . . . We sent, I think, approximately 2,000 in three or four increments, I believe.

Not Told of McFarlane Trip

(Weinberger said that he had not been told in advance that McFarlane was making a negotiating trip to Tehran in late May of 1986.)

Q: Were you advised after the trip that he had gone?

A: I . . . started picking up a considerable amount of my information about this from sources other than the United States.

Q: . . . Were you aware that Mr. McFarlane had taken Hawk missile spare parts with him on the plane?

A: No, I didn’t have . . . any knowledge of that until later, when the various aspects of this started to come out.

(Weinberger was asked if national security officials ever discussed whether to close down the arms-for-hostages operation after the Jan. 17 decision.)

A: Well, I--I made a point repeatedly to Adm. Poindexter . . . that I thought it wasn’t working and that I also thought it was an extremely bad way to go about anything to transfer the arms and--and sort of hope for the best. I think I told him that I preferred using the equivalent of a--of an escrow or a title company, and if we didn’t have that, then I told him that I thought that there should not be anything more done until all the hostages were returned to the United States unharmed, since that seemed to be what the thrust of it was becoming. He promised two or three times that that would . . . be the case. But later, when I asked him about it again, many times he would just say he was unable to keep that promise. . . . I don’t recall whether the President was present at any of those specific times or not. . . .

(Eggleston asked Weinberger about a Poindexter memorandum to Reagan that accompanied a Jan. 17 presidential “finding” authorizing the arms shipments. The memorandum stated that the Israelis are “very concerned” about “Iran’s deteriorating position in the war with Iraq.”)

Q: Was it the view of the department of defense that Iran had a deteriorating position in the war with Iraq?

A: No, quite the contrary. . . . It wasn’t my opinion and it wasn’t anybody’s opinion that I talked to.

Q: Were you consulted during this time period about . . . the relative positions of the Iranians and the Iraqis in the war?

A: No.

Q: Do you know whether the President was advised that there was a contrary view to the one that’s expressed in this cover memo?

A: I--I don’t know that. I never saw this memorandum to the President--never had a chance to respond to it. . . .

Q: So, if you had been consulted at that time, you would have advised the President that you disagreed with that Israeli view?

A: In the strongest possible terms, yes.

Q: And to the extent that the President relied upon that concept in deciding to go forward (with arms sales), that . . . was simply an erroneous assumption on their part?

A: Yes.

Opposed Limited Statement

(Weinberger related that, when word of the arms-for-hostages operation leaked out last November, he and other top officials met with the President on Nov. 10. Weinberger said he argued that the United States would be exposed to “blackmail” by the Israelis and the Iranians if the full story were not put out. But Reagan expressed concern about the safety of U.S. hostages and Iranian contacts, and it was decided to issue a limited statement.)

A: I didn’t agree with a lot of the things in the (proposed) statement and we were trying to get revisions. . . .

Q: Were you surprised at the recitation of facts that had--was given?

A: Oh, yes, I was pretty horrified by it all.

Q: Was Secretary Shultz similarly--

A: He seemed to be, yes. He was particularly concerned, as I remember it, that neither of us had known there was a (presidential) finding (dated Jan. 17, 1986) until that time.

(Eggleston referred to a memorandum that Weinberger wrote after the meeting.)

Q: The second paragraph indicates that he (Poindexter) had told you that the hostage-taking had stopped and you responded to that. What was your response?

A: Well, he said there hadn’t been any hostages for a year, and I said they took three just a couple of weeks ago, or quite recently.

Q: Did he have an explanation for that?

A: He said, I believe, that there were different people (who) had taken those three, and I believe I said somewhat caustically that it didn’t make too much difference who actually took them, the fact was the hostage-taking hadn’t stopped.

(Weinberger described a meeting in the Oval Office on Nov. 25 that included Reagan, Shultz, CIA Director William J. Casey, Regan and himself.)

. . . The attorney general was reporting to us that he had found and had told the President, I believe the day before, maybe hours before, that there appeared to be some diversion of (arms sale) funds that the Iranians had (indirectly) paid to the (Nicaraguan) contras, and I was pretty horrified about that. It’s the first I’d ever heard about it. And the President was still very angry about it and was saying that we have to go make public statements about this immediately . . . and directed the attorney general to go out and hold--and make a full statement to the press after that meeting.

Alternatives Presented

(Under questioning by Democratic Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes of Maryland, Weinberger disputed testimony by Poindexter that Shultz and Weinberger had not offered any alternatives when they opposed the plan of seeking the release of American hostages by selling arms to Iran.)

I have to say, senator, that I think virtually all of those statements that you have quoted are wrong. . . . My staff in the defense department regarded this as a very high priority and had alternatives and those alternatives were presented. I am not able to go into them in open session but I have discussed them in a closed portion of the deposition (private interview with committee staff).

(Republican Sen. James A. McClure of Idaho asked who had tried to keep Weinberger from receiving intelligence reports issued by an agency within his own department. Weinberger said that apparently someone from the National Security Council had given the instructions. But the secretary said he had decided not to fire anyone over it.)

Senator, you know there is a certain mystique that goes with somebody receiving a call from the White House, that says to do such and such. . . . I’m confident it will never happen again.

Q: Well, I’m confident it won’t either, but I’m amazed it could happen once.

A: I was extremely disappointed.

Pardon Discussed

(Regan was asked by Democratic Rep. Louis Stokes of Ohio about a discussion involving President Reagan on the possibility of a presidential pardon for Poindexter and North. The discussion occurred after the scandal broke in November.)

Q: Can you tell us when that (discussion) was?

A: Yes. Somebody brought it up to him (Reagan). It got shot down right away. That--that was something the President wouldn’t even listen to, the--the fact that he should grant a pardon. His reasoning went along this sort of line: To grant a pardon means you think somebody’s committed a crime. You only pardon for a crime. And he didn’t know what the crime was. As yet, there had been no evidence brought to him. The Tower Commission report was not out. The independent counsel had been put in being, but he had no report. Obviously, neither the Senate nor the House intelligence committees had finished, let alone the fact that this committee would be set up. So he--the President said, “Not only is it premature, but I’ll be darned if I’m going to accuse them of a crime in advance.”

Q: Was that the extent of the conversation that day, as you recall?

A: Yeah, it never came up again. I mean, he put his foot down hard and it never came up again.

(McClure, addressing the U.S. scheme to divert excess proceeds from Iranian arms sales to the Nicaraguan contras, noted that the Israelis had previously charged the Iranians high prices for arms and diverted the profits to other purposes. He asked Regan whether knowledge of that recently disclosed fact would have reduced his concern last year about large profits being made on U.S. sales to Iran.)

A: Had we known that at the time, we would have blown a whistle right away, because, you know, what is this? What’s going on here? How come we have people making a profit here on this deal? This was not supposed to be that type of deal. I think we’d have looked at it a little more closely. . . . Anytime that something of this nature has ever come up involving money, I’ve always been very cautious, I want to know who’s getting paid for what. If there’s somebody making a profit on it, let’s be careful.

Which Side Weaker?

(Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia asked Regan about a meeting last Nov. 10 at which, according to Regan’s notes at the time, the President argued that Iran needed arms assistance in its war with Iraq because Iran was “the weaker of the two sides.”)

Q: Well, my problem with that is that . . . our government’s position (then) . . . was that the Iraqi side was deteriorating and that the Iranian side had the long-range advantage. . . . Did anybody correct him in that meeting?

A: No. . . .

(Nunn noted that the meeting included Poindexter, Weinberger and Casey.)

Q: And here you had the President of the United States giving what is essentially erroneous policy. . . . It wasn’t a small detail. It was a question of who our government believed was winning that war, and . . . we have classified reports from the whole community, including intelligence, including defense, including state, saying exactly the opposite of this, and the President makes this statement . . . and nobody corrects him. . . . Don’t you find it alarming that the President could be under a total misinterpretation of what the U.S. government believed about that war?

A: Well, there’s a lot of this that’s classified information, I’m not sure I want to discuss it in this meeting, Mr. Chairman . . . .

Q: Were you under the impression that the Iranians were deteriorating and losing the war?

A: I have a problem here, Mr. Chairman. This is very sensitive, classified material that we’re discussing here in public.

Q: I’ve been given--Mr. Chairman, I’ve checked with the state department very carefully on this and I know exactly what’s classified and I know what’s not. I won’t push Mr. Regan on this, but it is not classified that the United States government position at that time was that we felt the Iraqi position was deteriorating. . . . I just suggest to you, Mr. Regan, that only . . . four or five months later, we were basically agreeing to flag Kuwaiti vessels (to give them U.S. protection), which is a tilt towards Iraq. And here the President is, on November the 10th, 1986, saying, “We had to help the Iranians because the sides weren’t even, and the Iranians--”

A: Well, that’s trying to keep things evenhanded, senator. You see, we can’t help one side or other. If we give help to one, we’ve got to give help to the other.

Q: Flagging vessels, shipping arms, that’s--is that--is that a balanced foreign policy?

A: As I explained to you, we want neither side to win. You can’t help one--just one side.