Bush Strongly Disputes Iran-Contra Involvement Story

Vice President George Bush mounted an aggressive effort Thursday to counter allegations of broad involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, forcefully contending that he never realized the plan involved selling arms in return for hostages until it was too late.

In an impromptu, 20-minute outdoor press conference conducted in biting 12-degree cold, Bush sought to refute a Washington Post story detailing his attendance at dozens of meetings at which the shadowy plan was discussed. But he offered few new details, said he could not recall events testified to by other participants, and refused to discuss what he told President Reagan in their private talks.

He knew of efforts to gain the release of American hostages in Lebanon, Bush said, and also of Administration efforts to reach out to groups inside Iran. What he did not know, he said, was that they were one and the same.

‘Benefit of Hindsight’

“It’s only when it became clear that it was arms for hostages--the benefit of the hindsight and all that--that I (did) say, ‘Yeah, that was wrong,’ ” he said.

Bush also placed greater emphasis on a humanitarian rationale for the existence of the plan, saying that his and Reagan’s involvement stemmed from their concern for the hostages. In the past, Bush has suggested that his support flowed from a foreign policy strategy to make amends with an Iranian alternative to the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

“I solidly supported the President’s plan and it was not at the time it was conceived considered to be an ‘arms for hostages (plan),’ ” Bush said.

“If we erred--the President and I and others who supported it erred--it was on the side of human life. It was over concern about freeing Americans, one of whom was reportedly tortured and I guess even died.”

Refers to Buckley

Bush was referring to William Buckley, the CIA station chief taken hostage in Beirut and held for months before apparently dying in captivity.

The renewed furor over Bush’s level of involvement in the Iran-Contra crisis derailed the vice president’s plans to enjoy a three-day campaign swing in Iowa, site of the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses next month.

The Post story--which was printed on the front page of the Des Moines Register, Iowa’s biggest newspaper--came at a politically inopportune time for Bush, and set his aides scampering to control the issue’s spread.

Tonight, Bush will take the stage with five other Republican presidential candidates in a debate that Bush hoped would help his chances in this Midwestern state, where he currently lags behind Kansas Sen. Bob Dole in voter polls.

Instead of focusing on issues, though, the debate seems certain to pit Bush against his opponents on the subject of arms sales to the Iranians and, in general terms, of Bush’s role in the Administration.

Policy Opposes Ransom

The embarrassment is compounded because Bush frequently boasts of having authored the Administration’s anti-terrorism policy, which specifically criticizes paying ransom or making any concessions to terrorists.

Already Thursday, three of Bush’s fellow Republicans called on him to release more details about his activities.

“It would be in his best interests and the interests of all Republicans to tell us precisely what he knows, whatever it is,” Dole said at a southern New Hampshire campaign appearance.

New York Congressman Jack Kemp and former Delaware Gov. Pierre S. (Pete) du Pont IV echoed Dole’s remarks.

“On one hand he said he was standing by the President,” Kemp added. “On another hand he said he didn’t know about it. On another hand he said he told the President not to do it. I think it’s time for him to just tell the American people . . . just what it was that he was doing.”

Staff on Attack

Bush’s staff members, expecting an onslaught of questions tonight, went on the attack against perceived Iowa front-runner Dole. Several suggested that the accusations about Bush’s Iran-Contra involvement had been leaked specifically to harm the vice president’s chances here.

Bush’s campaign press secretary, Peter Teeley, accused Dole in particular of “playing this for political” benefit. Dole campaign officials denied they had a hand in raising the issue.

Asked whether Bush’s Thursday claim that he was not informed of specifics of the Iran-Contra plan would bolster Dole’s efforts to paint Bush as an Administration nonentity, Teeley said:

“You can also look at Dole and say he’s a leader in the Senate. How successful has he been? What happened in the Bork nomination? He didn’t even get all the Republicans on that one.”

Teeley was commenting on the failed attempt to place Robert H. Bork on the Supreme Court. The nomination died when Senate Republicans sided with their Democratic counterparts to deny Bork a court seat.

Bush’s Thursday comments about his knowledge of the Iran-Contra affair left major contradictions between his account and those of other involved parties.

For example, Secretary of State George P. Shultz and then-Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger voiced strident opposition to the arms sales at a Jan. 7, 1986, meeting, Shultz has testified. Bush attended the meeting according to congressional testimony, but on Thursday he stuck with earlier statements that he was unaware of the Cabinet members’ opposition.

“I don’t recall that,” he said.

Ten days later, President Reagan signed an intelligence finding approving the covert sale of arms to Iran. Bush was at the meeting, according to a note taken by then-National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter. Bush said Thursday he still does not recall any such finding.

“I do not recall a finding being signed and I think I’d remember that,” he said. “The President may have signed the finding but there was no discussion of a finding in front of me. . . .”

Expresses Reservations

Never in the long months in which he listened to discussions of the Iranian weapons-selling efforts did he realize that it was a direct arms-for-hostages swap, Bush said. He repeated that he had expressed private reservations to the President, but declined to list those concerns.

“I could see that it got a little close (to a direct exchange),” but not close enough to convince him to object he said. “I was persuaded by the President’s view on that,” Bush said.

“Now if it were a question of, you know, my feeling I may have broken some law or done something wrong, why then I’d be much more concerned about it,” he added. “It’s a question of judgment. You correct it and go on to the future.”

Surfaces Three Times

But Bush acknowledged that may be easier said than done. Three times in recent weeks, the Iran-Contra issue has surfaced to embarrass him--on Dec. 1, when fellow candidate Alexander M. Haig Jr. pressed Bush on it in a debate, and three weeks later when a memo about Bush’s involvement surfaced, and Thursday.

On Thursday, he suggested that he was resigned to the issue following him on his quest for the presidency.

“I’m not very happy, the day before the Iowa debate to have a how-many-inch story appear, especially when I didn’t see anything particularly new in it,” he said. “But that’s the way the game is played.”

And as for the voters, Bush expressed hopes that they would listen to his protestations of innocence.

“Because I’ve told the full truth,” he said. “I hope they look at the whole record which I’m convinced they will and I think everything will be just fine.”