McFarlane Recalls Debate on Legality of Contra Plan

Former National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane told a jury today that top Reagan Administration officials discussed whether arranging third-country aid to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels was an illegal act for which the President could be impeached.

Testifying at Oliver North’s Iran-Contra trial, McFarlane said then-White House chief of staff James A. Baker III took the position at the June 25, 1984, meeting of the National Security Planning Group that it is illegal to solicit third-country aid.

“I took it to mean . . . that if the President were to authorize . . . money from third countries that would be a violation of law and he could therefore be so charged and impeached . . . removed from office,” McFarlane said. Members of the planning group included then-President Reagan, Vice President Bush and secretaries of state and defense.

McFarlane recalled that Baker’s view was “strongly countered” and that the consensus from the meeting was that Baker’s opinion was “not true.”

Saudi Arabia that year began giving the Contras $1 million a month.

Prosecutor John Keker asked McFarlane whether top Reagan Administration officials were being asked to lie to Congress about the secret third-country aid. McFarlane said the intent was “just not to have” the matter “become public.”

McFarlane said the Administration decided to seek help for the rebels from other countries because it did not wish to become involved in a messy political fight with Congress by seeking additional Contra aid in an election year.

“The American people don’t like violence,” McFarlane said in regard to the war the Contras were waging against the leftist Nicaraguan government.

Earlier today, a public relations consultant who moved money to the Contras testified at the U.S. District Court trial that North approved taking a 10% cut from private donations to the rebel cause.

Richard Miller said North told him at the end of 1985 that “most of the people involved” in the fund-raising network were “getting 20% to 30%.”

Miller also told how he asked the former White House aide for lists of “big-ticket items” the Contras needed that would be “comprehensible” to potential contributors.