Wise to Keep Top Officials in Dark on Scandal: Senator : Reagan Tells Why He Was Not Tipped

Sen. John W. Warner, a former Navy secretary, said today that not informing top Reagan Administration officials about the huge Pentagon bribery scandal investigation was wise because “you never know who may be caught in this net.”

Hours later, President Reagan said that investigators waited until this week to tell him about the two-year inquiry so there would be no leaks. The affair came to light Tuesday when search warrants were issued and telephone taps disclosed.

Reagan, in an interview for Public Broadcasting Service’s “Nightly Business Report,” said, “I think all of that was part of the need to keep it so absolutely secret that there wouldn’t be any tipping off that then might allow some wrongdoers to escape and take cover.”

Reagan said he was informed “the minute they had something to tell.”

Warner (R-Va.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was briefed Thursday by federal law enforcement officials about the investigation.

Top officials, including former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and ex-Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman Jr., were not told of the investigation during their tenure. Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci was briefed on the investigation Monday, and Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III was not informed of the inquiry until March.

‘You Never Know’

“It was wise not to inform the top people because you never know who might be caught in this net,” Warner said on NBC-TV’s “Today” show.

Warner, Navy secretary from 1972 to 1974, said on CBS-TV’s “This Morning” that the investigation was “the most widespread case I or anyone else has ever seen because you’ve got literally dozens upon dozens of contractors . . . and literally hundreds and hundreds of people are now being subpoenaed.”

“When I was secretary of the Navy, I would hope it was not going on, but it’s been going on since the Roman legions, the fraud in the procurement system. But bear in mind there are honest people making this system work,” he said on NBC.

Another GOP senator, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, today called the dimensions of the scandal “beyond the wildest imagination.”

Grassley called for more vigorous enforcement of anti-fraud laws and for the use of regional task forces of federal prosecutors to fight white-collar crime in concentrated defense industry areas such as Southern California and Texas.

The offices of three congressmen--including Rep. Bill Chappell (D-Fla.), as reported by The Times--are under investigation in the affair, law enforcement sources said today.

‘Wild Rumors Flying’

Asked today if he is under investigation, Chappell said, “It’s a bunch of bunk.” He said there are “all kinds of wild rumors flying” which he attributed to election season.

Chappell said he didn’t know whether his telephone was tapped.

The sources declined to identify the other two congressmen, but said the investigation has also focused on the activities of the late Tom Pappas, who was the top aide to House Armed Services Committee member Roy Dyson (D-Md.). Pappas recently died in a suicide plunge from a New York hotel room after press reports that he had made unorthodox social demands on his male staff.

The New York Times reported that one lawmaker whose office is under investigation is an unidentified congressman from New York.

Meese says he expects indictments within 90 days in the case, which is focusing on the alleged sale of secret information to defense contractors through their paid consultants.