Document Tells of Bush Contra Role : Had McFarlane, Casey Approval, North Testifies

Oliver L. North, taking the witness stand in his own defense, testified Thursday that all his controversial activities in support of Nicaragua’s Contras, including fund-raising and helping equip them with weapons, were authorized by two high-level officials, William J. Casey and Robert C. McFarlane.

North told jurors at his federal court trial that Casey, the late CIA director, and McFarlane, then national security adviser and his immediate boss at the National Security Council, prepped him to take over the CIA’s role in resupplying the Contras when Congress approved curbs on U.S. aid to the rebels in late 1984.

The Marine lieutenant colonel, the central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, asserted that he was merely following orders. “I was not stepping in,” he said. “I was brought in.”

Issue of Authorization

North’s opening two hours of testimony, which he presented in a firm, earnest voice while looking directly at the jury, paralleled the line of defense outlined earlier in court by his lawyers--that whatever North did, he did it with the authorization of his superiors.

Under questioning by his chief attorney, Brendan V. Sullivan Jr., North was not induced immediately to talk about the chief charges against him--that he gave false statements to Congress about his secret activities and that he obstructed congressional inquiries into his work for the Contras at the White House.

Rather, his initial testimony dealt with his legal justification for helping to resupply the Contras and raise private money for them after Congress--effective on Oct. 1, 1984--passed the first amendment authored by then Rep. Edward P. Boland that prohibited further U.S. military aid to the rebel forces fighting the leftist Sandinista government.

When North finally took the stand after sitting at the defense table for 43 days through the testimony of 35 previous witnesses, Sullivan broke the courtroom tension by saying light-heartedly: “So you’re Col. North?”

“Yes, I am,” North replied. “Oliver Laurence-with-a-U North.”

After relating his education at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and his service in Vietnam as a Marine Corps platoon leader, North was asked about the history of U.S. support for the Contras.

Before the Boland amendment curbs took effect in 1984, North told the jury, the CIA had provided the guerrillas with nearly everything they had--food, shelter, clothing, bullets and weapons. Although this support “was not publicly advertised,” Congress had appropriated funds for it as part of the CIA’s non-public budget, he said.

Sought Other Means

However, as congressional debate in 1984 signaled that the first restrictions on such aid were about to be imposed, officials of the Ronald Reagan Administration began to look for other means of helping the rebels, whom Reagan referred to as “freedom fighters,” North said.

Alluding to Reagan Administration officials, North said: “It was clear they wanted to find some way to continue the support. The President was adamant that these people (the Contras) . . . should not be abandoned.”

North said that McFarlane directed him to become the Administration’s chief contact with the Contras and told him to meet with Casey to learn who had been helping the CIA with this work in Central America. He said Casey set up meetings for him with CIA officials in Washington and Central America.

“He explained to me that the Boland amendment prohibited the CIA and the Defense Department from aiding the freedom fighters but that it did not prohibit the National Security Council from doing it or prevent private citizens from doing it.”

McFarlane has said he made clear that the NSC staff was to abide by the restriction, but North flatly contradicted McFarlane on that point. He said McFarlane “never” told him that the Boland amendment applied to the NSC.

Of the assignment, he said, it was “like a handoff in basketball . . . . The CIA responsibility, I suppose, had been passed on to me.”

Secrecy was to be maintained at all times, North said, to avoid jeopardizing longstanding CIA friends in Central America as well as the lives of others who were part of the Contra resupply effort.

Particularly confidential, he said, was the fact that Administration officials decided to solicit aid for the Contras from U.S. allies to compensate for the cutoff of U.S. funds.

“Did President Reagan himself act to facilitate help with the freedom fighters?” Sullivan asked.

“Yes, he did,” North replied, recounting an incident--previously detailed by McFarlane in his testimony--in which Reagan telephoned the president of Honduras in 1985 to get authorities there to release a shipment of surface-to-air missiles that was mistakenly seized while en route to the Contras.

North said that his chief assistant in helping to resupply the Nicaraguan rebels was a private citizen, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord. Secord is expected to be tried later this year for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal.

“Who gave Secord his orders?” interjected U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell.

“I suppose I did, your honor,” North replied. “I’m not sure a major general appreciated taking orders from a lieutenant colonel . . . . But I was following instructions from Director Casey.”

North said that he and Secord “worked with people Director Casey told me to work with, and they were totally reliable people. I never made a single trip to Central America, or a single contact down there without the permission of Casey, McFarlane or John (M.) Poindexter,” McFarlane’s deputy who later succeeded him as national security adviser.

McFarlane, during five days on the witness stand last month, said that he had been unaware of the extent of North’s activities in support of the Contras, presuming that North was mainly in touch with them to keep up their morale.

But the biggest secret, by North’s account, was the Saudi contribution, especially after “the President asked the King (Fahd) for more and the King gave more” in February, 1985.

“I was told by McFarlane not to reveal that to anyone,” North said. “Those were the direct orders of the President. In fact, I was chastised for letting Director Casey know this was proceeding as it was.”

Sullivan asked North if he ever had given tax advice to any private donor to the Contra cause, addressing a charge in North’s indictment that accuses him of conspiracy to defraud the United States of tax revenue in connection with donations for the Contras.

North said that he never directly asked anyone to contribute to the Contra cause, and “I wouldn’t presume to give tax advice to some of the wealthiest people in America” about whether the contributions were deductible. He said that an associate, Carl (Spitz) Channell, who was a witness for the prosecution, would often make a pitch for money after North had given slide lectures to potential donors about the Communist threat in Central America.

“Sometimes Mr. Channell would say: ‘Tell them how much a surface-to-air missile costs,’ ” North testified. Channell, who headed a tax-exempt foundation, has pleaded guilty to tax charges related to the case.