Bush to Release His Testimony on Contra Affair

President Bush will release excerpts from his diary, as well as testimony he gave to Iran-Contra prosecutors five years ago, in a move intended to demonstrate that he played no illegal role in the affair, the White House said Tuesday.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said the disclosure, which could come by the end of the week, “will be good for the President because it clearly shows that he doesn’t have any involvement here that’s questionable in a legal sense.”

Release of the sworn testimony has been a central element in the President’s effort to clear up questions about whether he knew more than has been revealed about the Iran-Contra matter.

The intensity of the questions grew after his pardon last month of former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and five other Iran-Contra figures. The pardons eliminated the possibility that additional details about Bush’s possible knowledge of the plan would be revealed in court.

Weinberger had been scheduled to go to trial Jan. 5 on four felony counts, among them the charge that he lied to prosecutors about the notes he kept on discussions about the plan. Under it, U.S. arms were sold to Iran in an effort to win the release of U.S. hostages held in Lebanon, and proceeds of the sales were diverted to fund anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua.

A source familiar with Bush’s questioning agreed that release of the testimony would give him no legal problems. But the source said: “It goes further than anything he said publicly.”

The five hours of testimony was videotaped. The White House did not specify, however, whether it would release copies of the videotape, a transcript of the testimony or both.

The testimony, sources close to the investigation have noted, was taken before independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh and his investigators had gathered key information, particularly on alleged efforts to cover up what key figures knew about the secret arms-for-hostages swap and the diversion of proceeds to the Contras.

For those reasons, the prosecutors’ questioning of then-Vice President George Bush in 1988 was restricted by the limits of their own knowledge of murky details.

When he pardoned the six Iran-Contra figures, Bush called for Walsh to release transcripts of his testimony, which at the time was being treated like secret testimony given to a grand jury.

Walsh, clearly angered, reacted to the pardons by disclosing that he had learned only 13 days earlier, on Dec. 11, 1992, that Bush had kept diary notes, beginning in 1986 and running through 1988, that included his observations on Iran-Contra matters.

The prosecutor, citing grand jury secrecy and a pending inquiry into the failure to produce the notes, said he could not immediately release the testimony. But Walsh is understood to have obtained permission subsequently from Chief U.S. District Judge John G. Penn to return the testimony to the White House.

Sources familiar with the investigation said they regard the dispute over the testimony as diversionary. They have pointed out, for example, that two note-takers from the White House were in the room during Bush’s questioning and that their notes presumably were available for Bush to release at any time.

Fitzwater’s announcement that the testimony and the diary notes would be made public came one day after the five-year statute of limitations expired on Bush’s 1988 questioning, which means that he no longer can be prosecuted for wrongdoing the testimony might have brought to light.

After the diary material is assembled and studied, the next step would appear to be further questioning of Bush by prosecutors. But that step may not occur until after he leaves office a week from today. The questioning would be voluntary and not by subpoena, it is believed.

The diary would appear to have little value as evidence. It is not in Bush’s own hand or written in a notebook with consecutive pages. It is typewritten on loose pages, one source said. Because of its limited value as evidence, it is highly unlikely that Walsh would try to bring charges based on the failure to produce it earlier.