The Nation : Shultz Denies Knowing of Israeli Accord

Secretary of State George P. Shultz said he was unaware of any secret American-Israeli agreement authorizing still-secret counterterrorist operations involving former White House aide Oliver L. North. In a Washington Post story, Amiram Nir, the former Israeli official who died in a plane crash in Mexico last week, spoke in June of the agreement and cited it as authorization for joint operations that he and North supervised in 1985-86. Asked on ABC-TV’s “This Week With David Brinkley” if such an accord existed, Shultz said: “Not that I know of.” An opponent of the U.S. arms-for-hostages deals with Iran, Shultz added, however, that “apparently a lot of things happened in the course of the Iran-Contra business that the secretary of state didn’t know about.” Nir reportedly had said he expected North to maintain at his forthcoming trial that the joint operations financed by the arms sales were sanctioned by the secret accord and, therefore, were legal.