Walsh May Call Shultz, Meese in Trial of North : Lists 105 Possible Witnesses Who Will Testify Against Marine and Other Iran-Contra Figures

Independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh announced Friday that he might call Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and former White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan among 105 witnesses in the trial of Oliver L. North and three other Iran-Contra defendants.

Walsh submitted the list of possible witnesses, which also includes Deputy CIA Director Robert M. Gates, Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams and three leaders of Nicaragua’s Contras, in response to an order by U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell.

The list, which includes 42 witnesses who did not provide testimony to the congressional committees that investigated the Iran-Contra affair last year, suggests that the trial may produce considerable new information.

National Security Concerns

The list also includes eight witnesses listed only by number--”Witness 1” through “Witness 8”--because of what Walsh described as “national security concerns.”

Former White House aide North, former National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord and Albert A. Hakim, an Iranian-born arms dealer, are charged with illegally diverting profits from President Reagan’s secret Iranian arms sales to aid the Contras during 1985 and 1986. Congress had prohibited official U.S. military aid to the Nicaraguan rebels at the time.

No date for the trial has been set, although Gesell has said he wants it to begin in July and estimated that the proceedings should last about three months.

Charge by Defendants

The judge must first rule, however, on a charge by the defendants that Walsh has improperly based his case on evidence given to Congress last summer under pledges of immunity from prosecution. The independent counsel cannot use evidence produced under a grant of immunity in his criminal case.

Pressing their claim Friday, North and his co-defendants subpoenaed Walsh and nine members of his staff in an attempt to prove that the case against them has been tainted through the use of immunized testimony from last summer’s televised hearings. They were also preparing to subpoena dozens of potential witnesses to argue the same issue, Walsh said.

Walsh, in turn, accused the defendants of attempting to “subvert” Gesell’s order for a limited inquiry by attempting to set up a lengthy procedure to debate whether any testimony had been tainted by the congressional hearings. The prosecutor asked the judge to quash the subpoenas and rule that no evidence the witnesses gave had been tainted.

Gesell did not rule immediately but suspended the enforcement of any subpoenas issued by the defendants until after a hearing scheduled for Monday.

‘Drawing Blood’

Gesell had invited defense attorneys to call one witness from whom they could “draw blood” to show that Walsh’s grand jury evidence was tainted. Instead, the defense intends to call dozens, Walsh said.

The defense told Walsh that it intends to call Assistant Atty. Gen. William Bradford Reynolds as a witness to show that statements he made to the grand jury were influenced by the defendants’ congressional testimony, according to a memorandum submitted by Walsh. The defense also plans to summon Secord and former National Security Council aide Kenneth B. DeGraffenreid, a close friend of North, to prove its point.

Of Walsh’s 105 prospective witnesses, 82 were known to the prosecution before Congress granted Hakim limited immunity last April, and thus could not have been affected by his congressional testimony, Walsh said.

He argued that the other 23 were found and questioned by the prosecution independently of the congressional hearings. Most of Walsh’s investigators have been under strict orders to avoid reading newspapers or watching newscasts that could reveal any immunized testimony to them.

Ex-CIA Men Listed

The list of prospective witnesses includes three former top CIA officials: former Deputy Director John N. McMahon, former Deputy Director for Operations Clair George and former general counsel Stanley Sporkin.

It also names Abraham Sofaer, State Department legal adviser; Assistant Atty. Gen. Charles J. Cooper, former National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane and North’s former secretary Fawn Hall. Hall received a grant of immunity in exchange for cooperating with the investigation; McFarlane agreed to aid the prosecution as part of a plea bargain in which he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of withholding information.

Also on the list are two conservative fund-raisers, Carl R. (Spitz) Channell and Richard R. Miller, both of whom pleaded guilty last year to conspiring illegally to use a tax-exempt foundation to help raise money for the Contras.

Shultz, Meese and Regan all have testified that they did not know of the diversion of profits from Iranian arms sales until after the fact. However, Shultz could testify that he knew of a potentially illegal shipment of Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Iran in November, 1985, but that much of the Iranian initiative after then was concealed from him.

Meese, whose aides discovered the diversion in November, 1986, could testify about efforts by North, Poindexter and Secord to suppress news of the discovery. Regan could testify that Poindexter, with whom he worked daily, concealed the diversion from him.