McFarlane Enters Plea of Guilty in Arms Case : Admits That He Misled Congressmen When He Withheld Information About Dealing With Iran

Former presidential aide Robert C. McFarlane pleaded guilty Friday to misdemeanor charges that he misled Congress by assuring lawmakers that the Reagan Administration was not helping arm Nicaraguan rebels during a ban on U.S. military aid.

President Reagan’s former national security adviser pleaded guilty to four counts of withholding information from Congress when questioned about news reports that members of his staff, particularly Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, were helping to raise money and ship arms to the Contra rebels.

McFarlane, who agreed to cooperate fully with independent counsel Lawrence Walsh’s investigation, could be sentenced to up to four years in prison and fined as much as $400,000 for the guilty pleas he entered before U.S. District Judge Aubrey E. Robinson Jr.

Spoke Softly

Robinson released McFarlane on his own recognizance and did not schedule a sentencing date. McFarlane was subdued and spoke in a soft voice when responding to questions posed by the judge.

“You understand that imprisonment could be consecutive?” Robinson said, referring to the option of making the four one-year terms concurrent or consecutive.

“I understand that,” McFarlane said without showing any emotion.

The judge later asked, “Do you know any reason I should not accept the plea?”

“No,” McFarlane said.

McFarlane played a major role in the Iran-Contra affair, even after he resigned as national security adviser in December, 1985. The following May, he led a secret mission to Tehran to open contact with so-called moderate Iranians who were thought to hold influence with kidnapers of American hostages. He brought with him a cake and a Bible signed by President Reagan.

McFarlane attempted suicide in February, 1987, by taking an overdose of a tranquilizer the day before he was scheduled to testify before a presidential commission investigating the affair.

On Friday, after the hearing before Robinson, Walsh acknowledged that McFarlane could have been charged with perjury, a felony that carries a five-year sentence for each charge.

But Walsh said he agreed to the misdemeanor plea because of McFarlane’s willingness to cooperate with Walsh’s investigation and his “undisguised expressions of remorse after the false testimony.”

‘Fit of Depression’

“He tried to correct his testimony and actually imposed injury upon himself in a fit of depression,” Walsh said of McFarlane’s suicide attempt.

Walsh called McFarlane’s guilty plea a “very important” development in his 14-month investigation. In the coming weeks, the investigation is expected to yield a round of indictments against North and others, including Rear Adm. John M. Poindexter, who was McFarlane’s successor as national security adviser.

“It furthers the work of the Office of Independent Counsel because he has agreed to cooperate fully with our office in the pursuit of the remainder of our investigation,” Walsh said.

McFarlane told reporters that “my actions were motivated by what I believed to be in the foreign policy interest of the United States.”

Affair Unraveled

After the Iran-Contra affair unraveled in late 1986, McFarlane said, “I believed profoundly that it was my personal obligation to testify voluntarily and fully to those bodies formally established to investigate this matter.”

The charges involve statements that McFarlane made in three 1985 letters to House committees and in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 8, 1986, when he denied knowing about solicitations of donations to the Contras from an unidentified foreign country.

The charges also involve assurances to Congress that NSC staffers, specifically North, were not involved in private efforts to help the Contras and that McFarlane knew of no foreign donations to the rebels.

McFarlane admitted withholding information from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in letters he wrote on Sept. 5, 1985, and on Oct. 7, 1985, in response to queries about reports that his staff was secretly helping the Contras in violation of the 1984 Boland Amendment’s ban on direct or indirect military aid to the rebels.

Panel Was Assured

In the Oct. 7 letter, McFarlane wrote that “Lt. Col. North did not use his influence to facilitate the movement of supplies to the resistance.”

He further assured the panel in the letter that there was “no official or unofficial relationship with any member of the NSC staff regarding fund-raising for the Nicaraguan democratic opposition.”

“This includes the alleged relationship with Gen. (John) Singlaub,” McFarlane said.

The letter was misleading, the charge said, because McFarlane knew that North “had used his influence to facilitate the movement of certain supplies to the Contras” and he knew that “a member of the NSC staff had had contact with retired Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub regarding fund-raising for the Contras.”

‘Spirit of the Law’

In the Sept. 5 letter, McFarlane told the panel: “I can state with deep personal conviction that at no time did I or any member of the National Security Council staff violate the letter or the spirit of the law.”

“We did not solicit funds or other support for military or paramilitary activities either from Americans or third parties,” he wrote.

He made a similar assurance in a Sept. 12, 1985, letter to former Rep. Michael Barnes (D-Md.), who then headed the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Western Hemisphere affairs.

The fourth charge relates to Dec. 8, 1986, testimony in which McFarlane told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that he was not aware of any third country or citizens of a foreign nation helping the Contras.

“The concrete character of that is beyond my ken,” McFarlane told the committee.

Millions in Donations

The charge noted that McFarlane was withholding the fact that he was aware that citizens of the unidentified country had been donating millions of dollars to the Contras. McFarlane also withheld the fact that he had provided a representative of the country with the number of a secret bank account where the funds could be deposited, the charge said.

McFarlane told the congressional Iran-Contra committees that as early as May of 1984 he had met with the ambassador from what was called Country 2, who later was learned to be Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia.

The ambassador offered to provide $1 million a month to sustain the Contras at a time when their money was running out. McFarlane told the panels he had not solicited the money, but that it had been offered as a gift after he bemoaned the likelihood of the Reagan Administration’s winning additional Contra support from Congress.