Walsh Cites November, 1986, Meeting as Start of Cover-Up : Inquiry: He believes Reagan, Bush and other top officials knew of illicit arms-for-hostages dealings.

Independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh charged on Thursday that “a pattern of deception and obstruction” at the top of the Bush and Reagan administrations concealed the nature of potential crimes committed by two Presidents and one Cabinet secretary.

On what evidence does Walsh base this extraordinary charge? How strong is the case Walsh could bring against Presidents Bush and Reagan and former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger?

In June, the independent prosecutor said he had discovered new documents--including the personal notes of top officials, CIA cables, tapes and other records--that led him to believe former President Reagan, then-Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Bush may have knowingly participated in an attempt to cover up illegal parts of the arms-for-hostages scheme.

Reagan, Bush and Shultz have all denied any such participation.

Walsh said in June that the new information “provided a significant shift in our understanding of which Administration officials had knowledge of Iran-Contra, who participated in its cover-up and which areas required far more scrutiny than we previously believed.”

It was not clear at the time exactly what Walsh meant by “a significant shift in our understanding.” Now it seems clear he thought he had come upon evidence that could prove Reagan guilty of impeachable offenses--and possibly Bush as well.

Walsh said in June that the Reagan and Bush Administration did not commit a crime by deceiving the American people about the nature of the Iran-Contra operation, in which arms were secretly sold to Iran and the illegal profits funneled to the U.S.-sponsored guerrilla army fighting the Sandinista government of Nicaragua.

But, Walsh said, “It is a crime to mislead, deceive and lie to Congress when, in fulfilling its legitimate oversight role, the Congress seeks to learn whether Administration officials are conducting the nation’s business in accordance with the law.”

This deception is the crime Walsh apparently believes Bush, Reagan and Weinberger were guilty of.

Here, as best it is known now, are the key links in the chain of evidence Walsh believes he has forged:

On Nov. 24, 1986, Reagan, Bush, Shultz, former Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, now-deceased CIA Director William J. Casey and then-National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter attended a meeting at the White House. The list of those attending has been known since Congress investigated the affair in 1987; no one has disputed the list.

Prosecutors say Meese told the assembled officials that a November, 1985, shipment of Hawk missiles by Israel to Iran may have been illegal. He asserted that Reagan had not previously known about the shipment.

But according to Walsh, Meese’s statement was inaccurate. In fact, he believes, Reagan and several of the other participants knew of the shipment before the meeting, and were deliberately keeping silent in order to build a misleading record about what had actually been going on: the secret trading of arms for hostages, using Israel as a middleman.

Moreover, they were keeping silent about a key shipment of antiaircraft missiles to Iran that Reagan ordered in November, 1985, without notifying Congress.

What was the evidence for believing that Meese’s statement was untrue and that Reagan already knew about the Hawk missile shipment?

Among other things, Shultz has revealed that he went to Reagan’s personal quarters in the White House and reminded the President that he (Reagan) had known about the shipment because the secretary of state, among others, had personally discussed it with him.

Shultz indicated that Reagan did not dispute this.

So far as is known, Walsh has no direct evidence that a deliberate conspiracy of silence existed at the Nov. 24 meeting; no participant is known to have made such an allegation.

The Nov. 24 meeting was only part of Walsh’s budding case against Bush. Walsh’s office in August released a document indicating that Bush had known far more about the secret arms sales than he has acknowledged. The document, a handwritten note made by an aide to Shultz, suggested that Bush supported the arms sales and pretended not to know of Shultz’s and Weinberger’s opposition.

Walsh also had been building a case against Donald Gregg, who was national security adviser to Vice President Bush. The contention is that Gregg had extensive knowledge of the Iran-Contra program, passed this information on to Bush, but later concealed it from investigators.

Gregg has not been charged.

In June, Walsh charged Weinberger with perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements during criminal and congressional investigations of the scandal.

Key to the charge was Weinberger’s alleged withholding and concealing the existence of notes he took regarding the arms sales. Walsh found the notes, contained on thousands of pages of small note pads, to be a mother lode of potentially incriminating evidence against Weinberger, Bush and Reagan.

One of those notes, released Oct. 30 by a federal grand jury, contradicted Bush’s longstanding claim that he had not known that arms sold to Iran were part of a possibly illicit arms-for-hostages deal.

The notes, contained in a huge amount of material Weinberger donated to the Library of Congress in 1990, came to public attention when he was indicted in June.

Walsh contends that Weinberger concealed the existence of the notes from both congressional committees and from Walsh’s investigators for several years, preventing investigators from using them at a crucial time. Walsh notes that Weinberger told Congress on the record that he had no relevant notes and was not in the habit of taking notes on meetings.

In fact, as the documents now show, he took detailed notes on many meetings he attended while defense secretary--including sessions of the National Security Council.

Since his indictment, Weinberger has argued that he gave Walsh access to the notes at the time he donated his records to the Library of Congress. This shows he had nothing to hide, he has said.

According to Walsh, he and his staff did not immediately learn that the material had gone to the Library of Congress. Weinberger gave prosecutors access only after they requested it, he said. In any case, the prosecutors contend, Weinberger not only told Congress no such notes existed but held them back for several years, with damaging consequences for their inquiries.

Walsh said Thursday that Weinberger’s concealment of his notes may have prevented the possible impeachment of Reagan and “other officials.”

There can be little doubt that Walsh meant Bush.