Early Notes Sought in Weinberger Case : Iran-Contra: The defense calls the move ‘plain harassment.’ At issue are entries from his years under Nixon and as a California official.

Federal prosecutors are seeking thousands of pages of decades-old notes taken by former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger in an attempt to show he took notes routinely throughout his career, contrary to statements he made to Iran-Contra investigators.

Some of the handwritten notes being sought date to Weinberger’s government service in the Richard M. Nixon Administration and some go back even longer--to his political career in California, according to federal court filings.

Prosecutors want the early notes to show that Weinberger misled Iran-Contra investigators two years ago when he said he was not in the habit of making notes. Investigators had asked him about whether he made notes of certain meetings while serving as secretary of defense under former President Ronald Reagan.

Weinberger’s defense attorneys are fighting the move as “a fishing expedition” that goes far beyond the time period and issues related to his trial on perjury charges, which is scheduled to begin Jan. 5. It is considered rare for lawyers to be permitted to introduce evidence that is considerably outside the scope and time frame of offenses being tried before a jury.

In a letter of protest to independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh, defense lawyers are claiming the move amounts to “plain harassment” by Walsh’s staff members.

Both sides appear to be maneuvering in the wake of a federal judge’s order last week throwing out part of Weinberger’s indictment--an action that could badly damage the prosecution’s case.

U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan dismissed a perjury charge filed Oct. 30 that included detailed allegations that Weinberger lied to Congress in June, 1987, when he denied that he took notes of key White House meetings he attended on the subject of arms sales to Iran.

Hogan ruled that the charge, which was added to four earlier counts against Weinberger, was flawed because it exceeded the five-year statute of limitations. Robert S. Bennett, Weinberger’s chief attorney, said the dismissal “knocks the heart and soul out of the government’s case.”

However, in recent days prosecutors have been seeking the old notes to flesh out one of the remaining counts in Weinberger’s indictment, court filings show. Prosecutor James J. Brosnahan said these early jottings “are important evidence of defendant’s state of mind” when he allegedly lied about his note-taking.

“It is apparent that the early diary notes are evidence that Mr. Weinberger consistently kept notes in substantially the same style and form throughout his career,” Brosnahan said in his motion to subpoena them. All the notes involved were donated by Weinberger in 1988 to the Library of Congress, but he controls access to them.

The prosecutor said Weinberger kept daily notes when he served in the Nixon Administration as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, as budget director and as health secretary. The library also has some of Weinberger’s jottings dating back to his California service in the 1950s and 1960s.

Weinberger was a state assemblyman from 1952 to 1958 and served during the 1960s as state finance director under then-Gov. Reagan.

But Bennett wrote Walsh that such a request “amply exceeds the scope” of this case, which deals only with Weinberger’s years as the Pentagon’s chief. Hogan is expected to rule on the request in the next few days.