Investigation Continuing; Future Charges Uncertain

The 101-page indictment of four key figures in the Iran-Contra affair handed up Wednesday contains signposts pointing to other investigations and perhaps other criminal charges by the federal grand jury operating under independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh.

Walsh said as much Wednesday, describing the indictment as an “interim report” by the grand jury, though he declined to predict further indictments.

The document itself, which charges persons “known and unknown to the grand jury” with conspiring to defraud the United States, broadly hints that some officials of the Central Intelligence Agency and some lesser private and government operatives remain objects of strong interest.

Cites CIA Backing

It repeatedly cites CIA backing for Lt. Col. Oliver L. North’s secret arms-resupply network to Nicaragua’s Contras. The indictment also focuses on efforts to cover up the scandal after it broke publicly in November, 1986, an area where last summer’s congressional hearings indicated that CIA officials and perhaps others may be culpable.

The document refers, for example, to meetings by North and others with “United States officials” and “an official of the CIA” in Costa Rica. The descriptions apparently refer to former U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica Lewis A. Tambs and the recently fired CIA station chief in that country, known as Tomas Castillo, both of whom testified to Congress last summer.

Castillo and CIA employees in Honduras have been linked to North’s Contra resupply network, and last summer’s testimony suggested that U.S. military officials in the region also may have indirectly supported the secret operation as well.

The indictment also describes in detail efforts by North and retired Rear Adm. John M. Poindexter to conceal knowledge of a November, 1985, arms shipment to Iran, as well as their publicly admitted destruction of White House documents and computer records. It omits any reference to two CIA cables about the shipment which also were found by investigators to be missing from agency files, another area believed ripe for investigation.

Future Action Unclear

Nevertheless, after a week in which Walsh indicted four men and obtained a guilty plea and a pledge of cooperation from a fifth, former National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane, it is not clear that Walsh can assemble evidence to back a second round of charges.

A major reason for this may be the grants of limited immunity from prosecution given last year to North, Poindexter and a North associate, Iranian-American businessman Albert A. Hakim, by two congressional panels probing the scandal.

Under the conditions of this immunity, their confessions to Congress cannot be used against them; Walsh must rely solely on information gathered before they testified and on other evidence collected independently of that testimony. Some of that data apparently is proving difficult to acquire.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week, for example, that Walsh is embroiled in a court battle to win possession of North’s office diaries--a mother lode of evidence turned over to Congress and made public months ago but not yet independently available to prosecutors.

Clines Not Mentioned

The clearest indication of Walsh’s problem may be the complete absence in the indictment of any mention of another central figure in the Iran-Contra affair: Thomas Clines, a retired CIA covert operations official and a worldwide arms merchant.

Clines was a full money-making partner in the Contra arms network and the Iran adventures with North and two other men indicted Wednesday, Hakim and a second North associate, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord.

At Walsh’s suggestion, sources say, Clines’ equally vital role in the affair was largely ignored by congressional investigators last year. The independent counsel reportedly asked that Clines not be granted immunity from prosecution so that Walsh’s staff could attempt to build a criminal case against him.

That case, if it has been built, may be a key to unlocking other crucial pieces of evidence in the scandal. Sources describe Clines as a potentially invaluable witness to much of the affair and say his continuing contact with CIA operatives and former employees may open entirely new fields of investigation.

The indictment’s failure to mention Clines suggests that Walsh may be delaying possible criminal charges against him in hopes of securing his testimony against North and perhaps others still to be indicted.