Lawyer Says Ex-CIA Officer Is Innocent of Perjury

Clair E. George, the highest-ranking former CIA official charged in the Iran-Contra scandal, should be judged innocent of perjury on grounds he “did not knowingly lie” to Congress six years ago, George’s defense attorney told a federal court jury Friday.

Defense attorney Richard A. Hibey made the claim as opposing lawyers presented opening statements in George’s second trial on seven counts of perjury. His first trial ended in a hung jury Aug. 26.

Prosecutor Craig Gillen told jurors that the “case isn’t about Iran-Contra itself, but about lying under oath to Congress and a grand jury.”

In response, Hibey said George “had no motive and did not knowingly lie.”

The retrial before U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth is expected to last about four weeks, with most of the original witnesses being called again. Neither attorney was permitted to tell jurors that the first trial ended with a jury unable to agree upon any of the charges.

George originally was tried on nine counts of misleading Congress and grand jurors about his knowledge of secret U.S. arms-for-hostages sales to Iran, and the illegal diversion of the proceeds to guerrillas fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua. But independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh dropped two counts charging obstruction of Congress to simplify the case and because proof of criminal intent was likely to be difficult.

Hibey told jurors George “made an honest mistake,” and was not trying to mislead congressional investigators when he denied he had met former Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord, a leading figure in the Contra resupply operation.

Summoned by Senate and House committees as Iran-Contra secrets were about to surface in late 1986, George “did the best he could under extraordinary circumstances,” Hibey said.

“He was trying to get his arms around the problem which had exploded on the American government,” the lawyer said. “People were scrambling to find out what had happened in an operation that was not run by the CIA but by President Ronald Reagan’s national security staff member Oliver North.”

“This man gave his career to the nation--33 years, many of them in personal danger to himself and his family,” Hibey said. Some members of George’s first jury have said they regard him as a patriot who had nothing to gain personally from lying.

As chief of CIA overseas operations from 1984 to 1987, George was in charge of up to 55 covert action operations involving thousands of people, he added.

Gillen insisted that George had tried to hide behind the false assertion to Congress that “all he knew about Oliver North was what he read in the papers.” But Alan D. Fiers, a former subordinate of George’s, will testify for the government about extensive briefing papers which George had in his possession but refused to disclose to Congress, the prosecutor said.

Fiers, the prosecution’s star witness, pleaded guilty to two criminal charges last year, was sentenced to 100 hours of community service and agreed to cooperate with the government. If convicted, George, 62, could receive a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count.