Former Aide Describes Poindexter’s Mistrust of Congress Members : Iran-Contra: The trial testimony comes as the prosecution begins to wrap up its case against the former national security adviser.

Former National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter, on trial in federal court on charges of obstructing and lying to Congress during the Iran-Contra affair, was described by a former aide Friday as a bureaucrat who did not trust congressmen and did not like to deal with them.

“Adm. Poindexter was skeptical of the Congress,” testified Ronald Sable, the official on Poindexter’s staff who handled the National Security Council’s relations with Congress. “He had not had anything to do with them, and that remained his preference. He would just as soon not deal with them. He indicated he did not trust them.”

Under cross examination, the witness acknowledged, as defense attorney Richard Beckler put it, that Sable “had to tug him (Poindexter) along and get him a little bit more interested in Congress.” But this did not soften the image very much of a security official in the White House who did not believe Congress ought to pry into his secrets.

The description came as the prosecution began wrapping up its case. Prosecutor Dan K. Webb said he plans to conclude Monday, with final witnesses called to supply a few final touches.

The members of the jury, who listened to a hesitant and leaden Oliver L. North testify for four straight days at the start of the trial, received a different, far more kinetic picture of North from Sable. North organized both the sale of arms to Iran and the diversion of profits from these sales to the Contras fighting in Nicaragua.

Sable described North as “someone who, when he wanted to get something done, would get it done but might not care about how he did it.”

“I once told Ollie,” Sable went on, “if we wanted to get to the other side of a wall, you would get there first but you might not check to see if there is a door.”

In reply to questions from defense attorney Beckler, Sable also described North as someone “who occasionally misled me.” As one instance, a vital part of the case against Poindexter, Sable cited North’s meeting with members of the House Intelligence Committee in the White House Situation Room in August, 1986. Sable and Robert Pearson, then deputy general counsel of the National Security Council, attended the meeting.

Pearson, who also testified Friday, said North told the congressmen at the meeting that, while he had met with leaders of the Contras in Central America, he had nothing to do with arming them--an act prohibited by Congress. “All that he did,” Pearson quoted North as telling the congressmen, “was for the purpose of gathering information for the benefit of the President of the United States in carrying out foreign policy.”

The meeting has been brought up repeatedly at the trial because North testified that he lied to the congressmen at the request of Poindexter.

The congressmen accepted North’s account without challenging it. In fact, they were so seduced by North’s false tale that they quashed a proposed resolution for an investigation into the activities of North. North seemed confident at the meeting, both Sable and Pearson testified, and Poindexter appeared pleased with the results.

Beckler drew many details from Pearson about the setting for North’s lies. Pearson said that the congressmen and officials had sat around the walls of the room and around a table in the center of the White House Situation Room and that North had occupied the seat usually reserved for the President.

Judge Harold H. Greene smiled at Beckler’s accumulation of these details and then remarked: “I take it Oliver North did not issue any proclamations while he was sitting in the President’s chair.”