Iran-Contra Figure Seeks Secret Data for His Defense

The Iran-Contra criminal case against retired CIA official Clair E. George erupted Friday into a battle over access to some of the most closely held secrets at the CIA.

George’s lawyers demanded more than 750,000 pages of classified documents from the Iran-Contra prosecutions of former White House aide Oliver L. North and former CIA station chief Joseph Fernandez.

The defense also wants highly classified documents from the spy agency that have never been revealed to defense attorneys in any of the other Iran-Contra cases, prosecutor Samuel Wilkins said.

George wants “some of the most sensitive secrets of the CIA,” Wilkins told U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in a pretrial session.

Wilkins suggested that George is pressing for the material in a bid to torpedo the criminal case with a tactic known as “graymail”--pressuring the government to back off the case rather than release confidential information.

The heart of the North case was scuttled because the Ronald Reagan Administration refused to allow disclosure of certain classified information. The Fernandez case never came to trial, largely because the Bush Administration barred disclosure of the fact that the CIA had facilities in El Salvador and Honduras.

Classified information from the North trial and the Fernandez prosecution “is entwined with this case,” Richard Hibey, one of George’s lawyers, told the judge.

The CIA’s former deputy director for operations was charged in September with obstruction and lying to Congress and a federal grand jury about the scandal. The 10-count felony indictment says that in October, 1986, George covered up from Congress the role of North in running a secret network to keep the Nicaraguan Contras supplied with guns.

“The government has produced 120,000 pages” of classified information to George and “more is coming every day,” Wilkins said. Hibey said it wasn’t nearly enough.

Lamberth didn’t discount Wilkins’ concerns, but the judge seemed inclined to give George the full 900,000 pages of classified material from the North and Fernandez cases.

The judge pointed out that if George wants to disclose some of it at his trial, it will be the judge who has the final say on whether it is necessary to do so.

Once Lamberth finds that classified information is necessary for George to get a fair trial, the Bush Administration would have the power to step in and bar its disclosure on grounds of protecting national security.