Agent Involved in Arms-for-Hostages Deals Given High CIA Post

A Central Intelligence Agency expert on the Middle East who played a key role in the Iran arms-for-hostages deals was named this week as the CIA’s second-ranking clandestine operations official, government sources said Wednesday.

Thomas A. Twetten, now chief of the agency’s Near East and South Asia operations division, will become associate deputy director for operations, replacing an official who accepted an overseas assignment. The move apparently completes a sweep of senior clandestine service jobs begun last November by CIA Director William H. Webster.

CIA Won’t Comment

A CIA spokesman refused to comment on the action, which was disclosed internally Tuesday but has not been made public. Twetten will help supervise daily operations of agency divisions that receive intelligence reports from CIA officers worldwide.

Outside the agency, some experts expressed surprise that an official tied so closely to the Iran-Contra affair and to former White House aide Oliver L. North was chosen for one of the CIA’s top operations jobs. Others said that Twetten is ranked among the agency’s most deft operations officials and that he performed well in testifying about the Iran-Contra affair before several congressional and White House investigative panels.

“If there’s a signal from Webster there, it may be a signal to the agency that the Iran affair is behind them,” said one Washington consultant and intelligence expert, who asked not to be identified.

Twetten was among the first CIA officials to question the veracity of Manucher Ghorbanifar, the Iranian wheeler-dealer who promoted the arms swaps, writing at one point: “This is a man who lies with zest.”

Started in Africa

Twetten, 53, began his career in North Africa and rose to top positions in the CIA’s Near East division in the mid-1980s. He took daily command of the agency’s role in the Iran arms-for-hostages deals in late 1985 at the direction of the late CIA Director William J. Casey.

In that position, Twetten not only supervised the transfers of TOW and Hawk missiles to Iran but also traveled at least twice with North--to London and later to Paris and Frankfurt--to negotiate with Iranian government representatives on the release of captive Americans.

He testified that he had concurred in North’s choice of retired Air Force Gen. Richard V. Secord as a “commercial cutout” for the arms sales to Iran, partly to conceal CIA bank transactions from Israel.

Aware of Price Hikes

Government documents made public last year show that Twetten was one of a handful of U.S. officials to become aware, in May of 1986, that Iran was paying more for U.S. weapons than the arms originally cost the agency to procure from Pentagon stocks.

Twetten later told congressional investigators he did not realize that Secord’s role as a “cutout” would create the opportunity to divert profits from the arms sales to other uses or that the inflated weapons prices were evidence of misuse of the arms money.

In addition to his Iranian dealings, knowledgeable sources say, Twetten was one agency official to whom North turned in April, 1986, in an attempt to obtain a $1.5-million CIA contract for his private associates, Secord, Albert A. Hakim and Thomas Clines.

Wanted to Lease Ship

North sought help in leasing a Danish ship owned by the three men to the CIA for use as a floating platform from which to broadcast propaganda into Libya.

Twetten argued against the proposal because of the involvement of Clines, a former CIA officer turned arms merchant. But he later helped direct an operation in which North used the ship in an attempt to acquire a Soviet T-72 tank from Iran.

Twetten has disclaimed to two congressional committees any involvement in North’s unauthorized activities.