North Lied, Poindexter Judge Says

Former White House aide Oliver L. North is expected to testify this morning in the Iran-Contra trial of John M. Poindexter, a day after the federal judge presiding over the case said that North lied under oath in pretrial proceedings.

U.S. District Judge Harold H. Greene said he had concluded that North was “prevaricating” at a hearing in the Poindexter case last December.

North testified at his own trial that he saw Poindexter destroy a politically embarrassing document, signed by President Ronald Reagan, which depicted U.S. involvement in arms sales to Iran as a straight arms-for-hostages deal.

But North gave different testimony at a Dec. 13 pretrial hearing for Poindexter, his former superior. At that time, North said he only knew about the destruction by watching Poindexter’s congressional testimony on national television. North was convicted last May on three of 12 felony charges in the Iran-Contra scandal.

“The court rejects as totally incredible the suggestion that an eyewitness to the almost ceremonial destruction of a state paper such as a signed presidential finding would not know that he had been such an eyewitness,” the judge said.

In a footnote, the judge said that “since North has changed his testimony several times, a further recantation can obviously not be excluded.”

The judge said the former White House aide was trying to avoid having to testify against his former boss when he made the statements at the December hearing. North said at the time that Poindexter was the only one in the Iran-Contra affair who “didn’t hang Ollie North out to dry.”

“North appears to have embarked at that time upon the calculated course of attempting to assist his former colleague and co-defendant . . . by prevaricating on various issues,” Greene said.

However, the judge concluded: “North told the truth at his trial rather than at the Dec. 13, 1989, hearing.”

Greene’s statement that North had lied was surprising because perjury was not among the charges for which he was convicted. Rather, he was found guilty last year on three felony counts of altering and destroying top-secret documents, helping to mislead Congress and accepting an illegal gratuity.

The issue arose when Poindexter’s lawyers tried to bar North’s testimony altogether. But Greene said he would allow it since North had witnessed the document destruction, even though insisting he only had learned the nature of the document from Poindexter’s later testimony.

After Greene made his ruling Thursday, Poindexter’s lawyer, Richard W. Beckler, acknowledged to jurors in his opening statement that his client had destroyed the document, one of the charges in the trial. But Beckler said Poindexter’s motive was to protect his boss, President Reagan.

The document in question was a presidential finding that authorized a November, 1985, shipment of U.S. missiles to Iran two months after the transaction. Poindexter has said that the document was “embarrassing” because it linked the shipment to U.S. efforts to free hostages in Lebanon, a linkage which Reagan had consistently denied.

Elsewhere in his opening statement, Beckler said the trial will show that Poindexter is “a decent, hard-working professional” who sought to implement Reagan’s “longstanding policies” on the anti-terrorism front and in assisting the Nicaraguan rebel forces.

“He did not conspire with anyone to hide or conceal the truth,” Beckler declared.

That description contrasted sharply with prosecutor Dan K. Webb’s charge that the former national security adviser “covered up, concealed and misrepresented facts” to leaders of Congress.

Poindexter is charged with five counts of conspiracy, false statements and obstruction of Congress in connection with inquiries into the conduct of the National Security Council in assisting the Contras while a congressional ban on such assistance was in place.

Poindexter gave false statements to members of Congress both orally and in writing to try to “brainwash” them into believing that North’s secret support for the Contras was within the limits of the Boland Amendment, Webb said.

“Poindexter and North literally tried to rewrite and change history but they got caught,” he said.

THE CHARGES AGAINST POINDEXTER

The Iran-Contra trial of John M. Poindexter got under way Thursday with the prosecution telling the jury that the case involves “coverup, deception and concealment.” Poindexter, a retired Navy rear admiral who served as President Ronald Reagan’s top adviser on national security matters from late 1985 to late 1986, faces five charges in connection with the effort to cover up a shipment of U.S. arms to Iran and to divert profits to the Nicaraguan rebels. Count One: Conspiring to obstruct Congress and falsify and destroy documents. The alleged purpose was to keep Congress from learning that Oliver L. North, a Poindexter aide, had set up a clandestine network to funnel weapons to the rebels in Nicaragua, contrary to a congressional ban known as the Boland Amendment. Count Two: Obstructing Congress. In July of 1986, the indictment charges, Poindexter wrote letters to the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees and the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee to assure them, inaccurately, that North’s activities were in compliance with “both the spirit and letter” of the Boland Amendment. Poindexter later directed North to meet personally with congressmen to reinforce that assurance. Count Three: Obstructing Congress. In November, 1986, Poindexter allegedly furnished a false chronology of events stating that U.S. officials did not know about any U.S. Hawk missile shipment to Iran until after the transaction had occurred in November, 1985. Count Four: Submitting a false statement to the House Intelligence Committee. On Nov. 21, 1986, the indictment charges, Poindexter told the committee that he had no prior knowledge of the Hawk missile shipment to Iran. Count Five: Submitting the same false statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee. HIGHLIGHTS OF HIS CAREER Graduated at the head of his class at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958; earned a doctorate degree in nuclear physics from Caltech in 1964.

Became assistant to the national security adviser at the White House in 1981, serving successively under Richard Allen, William P. Clark and Robert C. McFarlane.

As deputy national security adviser in October, 1985, was credited with successfully managing the air-to-air interception of an Egyptian airliner carrying Palestinian hijackers who had killed an American citizen aboard the cruise ship Achille Lauro.

Became the national security adviser succeeding McFarlane in December, 1985, but resigned 11 months later when his involvement in the Iranian arms sale debacle was disclosed.