New Papers Tie Bush Closer to Iran-Contra

Documents released by Iran-Contra prosecutors Tuesday indicated that, as vice president, George Bush may have had more knowledge about the secret sale of arms to Iran than he acknowledged at the time.

One document, a handwritten note taken by an aide to then-Secretary of State George P. Shultz, suggested that Bush strongly supported the arms sales. An account of a telephone conversation between Shultz and then-Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, the note quoted Weinberger as expressing dismay at Bush’s public assertion, made a day earlier, that he was not aware of Shultz’s and Weinberger’s opposition to the arms sales.

The note, written by M. Charles Hill, Shultz’s executive assistant, was included in papers submitted in federal district court by Iran-Contra prosecutors in preparation for Weinberger’s upcoming trial on charges of perjury and withholding information from congressional investigators who were investigating the Iran-Contra scandal.

Indicted in June on five criminal charges stemming from the scandal, Weinberger is accused of withholding his notes from congressional investigators and subsequently lying about their existence to the office of the Iran-Contra independent special prosecutor. His trial is scheduled to start on Jan. 5.

The Hill note was submitted as part of the evidence because it helped to tip prosecutors off to the existence of more than 1,700 pages of notes that Weinberger took between 1985 and 1986. The notes, found among Weinberger’s papers at the Library of Congress, contain detailed information about the high-level debate in the Ronald Reagan Administration over the secret sale of arms to Iran, which Weinberger and Shultz both opposed.

The indictment charges that Weinberger lied to prosecutors when he told them that he took no notes during the 1985-86 period that had not already been turned over to Iran-Contra investigators.

The note from Hill was dated Aug. 7, 1987, and described a telephone call Shultz received earlier in the day from Weinberger, who apparently was disturbed by remarks that Bush had made to reporters the previous day.

Bush, asserting his truthfulness in the Iran-Contra affair, said that he never knew profits from the secret sale of arms to Iran were being illegally diverted to help the Contras in Nicaragua. He also said that, while he did have limited knowledge of the arms sales, he did not object because no one else in the Cabinet was advising him or President Reagan against them.