North’s Trial Put Off Until After Election : Move Spares Bush Possible Damage During Campaign

The trial of ex-White House aide Oliver L. North was postponed Friday until after the presidential election to give lawyers more time to study hundreds of thousands of top-secret documents.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell canceling the Sept. 20 date means that the first criminal trial arising from the Iran-Contra affair won’t be held while Vice President George Bush campaigns for the presidency.

Bush, whose acquiescence in the decision to conduct arms-for-hostage deals with Iran has been criticized by Democratic rival Michael S. Dukakis, will be free to campaign before the Nov. 8 election without possibly embarrassing reports from the trial.

Subpoena Threatened

North’s lawyers had threatened to subpoena Bush as a witness, apparently as part of their efforts to show that the former National Security Council aide was authorized to divert arms-sale profits to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels.

The delay will inevitably renew speculation about post-election presidential pardons for North and former National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter, who is scheduled to be tried separately.

President Reagan has repeatedly defended both men as innocent of any criminal wrongdoing. He said in May that he had not ruled out granting them pardons, but he indicated that they would not be forthcoming until a verdict was rendered. Reagan leaves office Jan. 21.

Gesell did not schedule a new trial date but ordered North’s lawyers to file any additional motions by Oct. 10.

Deadline for Documents

The judge also set that date as the deadline for the prosecution to give North all the top-secret documents that the court has ruled may be needed for the retired Marine lieutenant colonel’s defense.

The brief order was issued after both sides requested delays in dealing with the problems posed by the vast archive of top-secret documents said to include several hundred thousand pages of material.

Gesell has previously ruled that North is entitled to inspect the documents to determine what material might help him persuade a jury that his activities were authorized by the Reagan Administration.

Walsh sought more time for the CIA and other agencies to search for classified material that Gesell ruled should be made available to North.

The defense, meantime, had accused Gesell of setting Draconian deadlines for lawyers to study the secret documents already turned over by prosecutors.

North’s lawyers harshly attacked the judge in pleadings filed Thursday, saying: “In its frantic rush to trial before the election, the court seems to have abandoned all sense of what is fair.”

At a hearing last month, Gesell complained about the increasingly confrontational style of defense attorneys Brendan V. Sullivan Jr. and Barry Simon, whose firm, Williams & Connolly, is known among lawyers here for its aggressive tactics.

“There’s a breed of lawyer that assumes that the minute they come into the courtroom, the judge is against them, when all along they are trying to help them,” Gesell said. “I’ve been around a long time, and I’m going to be fair to both sides.”

Gesell’s brief order also canceled a hearing scheduled for Monday on how to present secret documents as evidence during the trial under the Classified Information Procedures Act.

North’s lawyers protested that they had not been given enough time to prepare for the hearing, saying that if it goes forward as scheduled, it “will be a complete sham, and the court knows it.”

Gesell also ordered North to file by Nov. 14 a more specific notice of what top-secret government documents he wants to disclose at trial.

The judge agreed with Walsh’s view that the 265-page list of government documents North filed Monday was not the specific notice required by law.

‘Extraordinary Efforts’

In a statement, Walsh said: “The court and this office have made extraordinary efforts to bring this case to a prompt trial. We shall continue our preparation for the trial of the full indictment against the defendant North in accordance with the schedule fixed by the court.”

Gesell’s order highlights the problems that continue to dog Walsh’s efforts to bring the case to trial.

The independent counsel has told Gesell that many of the documents in North’s discovery request will never be released by government agencies for use at the trial.

If enough relevant documents are kept secret, the judge will be forced to dismiss some or all of the charges, notably the three major conspiracy counts against North, Poindexter and arms dealers Albert A. Hakim and retired Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord. All four have been granted separate trials.

Classified Documents

These counts involve the most classified documents because such material would bear on whether the defendants acted with higher authority and not with criminal intent.

But to buy time, Walsh suggested that Gesell put aside the major charges while prosecutors try to declassify more documents. Walsh proposed that North be tried on 13 other charges, including allegations that he lied to Congress and shredded documents.

Gesell, however, rejected this suggestion as moot, signaling that he was granting the delay to give both sides a chance to prepare for one trial--the option favored by Walsh all along.