Pardon by Bush Conceals Facts, Walsh Asserts

Accusing former President George Bush of “an absolute disdain for the rule of law,” independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh said Monday that Bush’s pardon of former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger blocked public airing of “new and disturbing facts” about the Iran-Contra scandal.

Walsh, in an interim report to Congress prompted by Bush’s Christmas Eve pardon, said that former Secretary of State George P. Shultz would have testified reluctantly at Weinberger’s trial that the White House was trying to “rearrange the record” to hide former President Ronald Reagan’s knowledge of a 1985 missile shipment to Iran that officials feared was illegal.

“Although the evidence at Weinberger’s trial would have focused on Weinberger and his motives, the trial would have exposed new evidence of the (Reagan) Administration’s efforts to conceal the facts of the Iran arms sales from the public and from Congress,” Walsh said.

Witnesses called by the defense, including former Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and “perhaps” Bush, “would on public cross-examination have been subject to searching questions about the Administration’s conduct and their own in November, 1986,” when the Iran-Contra scandal began to unravel, Walsh said.

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), a sharp critic of Walsh and his six-year investigation, said: “A frustrated and bitter Lawrence Walsh is using his report to Congress for a last-ditch effort to justify his extravagant $35-million partisan crusade.”

Weinberger’s lawyer, Robert S. Bennett, contended that the report to Congress “is a work of fiction. Mr. Walsh obviously is obsessed with this case and is simply trying to rehabilitate his reputation and trying to justify his generally consistent losses in court. . . . “

Andy Maner, a spokesman for Bush in Houston, declined comment. Bush has denied any role in the arms-for-hostages deal or the diversion of proceeds from the arms sales to secretly fund the Contras in Nicaragua.

Much of Walsh’s report focused on the Nov. 24, 1986, White House meeting of top Reagan Administration officials as the Iran-Contra scandal was about to become public knowledge. Those attending included Reagan, Bush, Weinberger, Shultz, White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan, CIA Director William J. Casey and White House National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter.

According to Weinberger’s notes of the session, which were to have been key evidence at his trial, Meese told the group that the 1985 shipment of Hawk missiles to Iran was not legal because there was no national security “finding” by Reagan justifying it but that Reagan did not know about it.

Walsh said that Weinberger’s own notes “suggest that Meese was warning the President’s advisers that to disclose the President’s knowledge of the Hawk shipment would expose him to a charge of illegal activity.” If Reagan had signed a written presidential finding, he could have given the shipment of 18 missiles legal cover but he also would have been required to report the secret policy to Congress.

“No one (at the meeting) corrected Meese’s assertion that the President didn’t know about the possibly illegal November, 1985, Hawk missile shipment to Iran,” Walsh said in the report.

Walsh’s report said that Regan “would have testified that he was concerned about the possibility of impeachment” of Reagan if his knowledge of the 1985 missile shipment to Iran had been disclosed.

Reagan Administration officials feared that the missile shipment--from Israel to Iran, with the United States replenishing Israel’s stock of Hawks--was in violation of the Arms Export Control Act without a specific presidential finding.

Regan had been present with Reagan in Geneva in November, 1985, when then-National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane told Reagan about the shipment and the President indicated his approval, Walsh’s report said.

Thus, Regan knew that Meese’s statement at the White House meeting “was untrue” when the then-attorney general declared Reagan “did not have contemporaneous knowledge” of the missile shipment, Walsh claimed.

“Shultz knew Meese’s statement was false because the President told him only four days earlier that he knew about the November, 1985, shipment,” Walsh said.

Walsh said that Shultz would have testified about the contents of notes made by Charles Hill, his executive assistant, based on Shultz’s reporting of these events.

On the eve of a Nov. 24, 1986, meeting, Hill’s notes show that Shultz remarked that “they may lay all this off on Bud (McFarlane). That won’t be enough,” according to the report.

Walsh also told Congress that Bush had disregarded Justice Department pardon regulations that provide for no pretrial pardons and “cannot escape the appearance” that he wanted to avoid disclosure of facts at Weinberger’s trial.

“There was overwhelming evidence that Weinberger committed serious crimes in making false statements and concealing evidence from congressional investigators and federal prosecutors,” Walsh said in challenging Bush’s statement that the prosecutions were improper and politically motivated.