Footnotes Delay Iran-Contra Report

Last-minute checking of nearly 1,000 footnotes will delay release of the congressional Iran-Contra committees’ final report by one day, until Wednesday, the panels said Monday.

The voluminous report, the culmination of the biggest congressional investigation since the Watergate scandal 14 years ago, is expected to be highly critical of President Reagan and his key officials for their policy and actions in the U.S. arms sales to Iran and the diversion of sales profits to the rebels in Nicaragua.

Last week, committee aides promised to release the 700-page report from the Government Printing Office today, but the release was delayed at the last minute. Senate committee spokesman Lance Morgan said: “The reason for the delay was to check the footnotes.”

The two special panels were created in January and will go out of business when they issue their report. The House panel has nine Democrats and six Republicans; the Senate panel has six Democrats and five Republicans.

The final report--a 500-page majority report and a 200-page minority report, which takes issue with some of the majority’s conclusions--is expected to review the entire affair, but sources have said that it might not shed much new light on the foreign policy scandal.