McFarlane Says North Altered Notes : Testifies Iran-Contra Memos Were Changed Following Inquiries

Oliver L. North rewrote old memos on fund-raising and military aid for the Nicaraguan Contras after two congressional committees inquired about his activities, Robert C. McFarlane testified today.

McFarlane, the former national security adviser and North’s White House boss during the Reagan Administration, said he asked North to take another look at six memoranda culled from National Security Council files in response to inquiries in August, 1985, from the House Intelligence Committee and the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Latin America.

“There was some impression of duplicity” in the memos, McFarlane testified in North’s criminal trial. “I thought it gave a distorted impression of the facts.”

Innocent Pleas Entered

North has pleaded innocent to 12 charges, including lying to Congress and improperly using a tax-exempt charity to collect funds for Contra weapons, stemming from his role in the 1985-86 Iran-Contra scandal.

In his second day on the stand, McFarlane said the two congressional committees asked about North’s activities following news reports in the summer of 1985 that North was providing tactical assistance and raising money for the Contras at a time when Congress had made this illegal.

The memoranda from North to McFarlane concerned Contra fund-raising in the United States and delivery of weapons to the Nicaraguan rebels, among other sensitive topics.

Rewriting Identified

North rewrote one memo to take out a reference to his guidance of the Contras and also excised a reference to supplying them with weapons, McFarlane said, referring to copies of the memos provided by the prosecution.

While McFarlane said the activities described in the memos were legal, he said he wanted to avoid anything that would appear to Congress as “a circumvention of the law.”

McFarlane, who attempted suicide after the Iran-Contra scandal broke, has already been sentenced to two years’ probation after pleading guilty to four counts of lying to Congress for his role in the sale of arms to Iran and diversion of some proceeds to the Nicaraguan rebels.

‘I Was the One’

In often rambling testimony, McFarlane said he was responsible for the actions of his NSC staff, including North.

“I was the one who should properly be accountable for what the staff did,” McFarlane said.

However, under prosecution questioning, he said North never told him about private talks he had with potential donors to the Contra cause and never mentioned a fund-raising organization called the National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty, the tax-exempt entity at the heart of charges that North defrauded the Internal Revenue Service.