Arms sale revelations greet Reagan

Press, 12 January 1987, Page 8

Arms sale revelations greet Reagan

NZPA-Reuter Washington President Ronald Reagan, recovering from prostate surgery, has returned to the White House amid a fresh series of revelations over the Irananns scandal. • The “New York Times” reported yesterday that LieutenantColonel Oliver North, who was fired from the National Security Council (N.S.C.) last November, had co-ordinated arms shipments to Nicaraguan contra rebels through Portugal. Colonel North was fired and his N.S.C. boss, Admiral John Poindexter, resigned after the disclosure that proceeds from the Iran arms sales had been diverted to the contras. The Times said the shipments through Portugal threw doubt on White House denials that it had defied a Congressional ban on aid for the contras.

• The “Times” also said that a retired United States intelligence official has confirmed that the former National Security Adviser, Robert McFarlane, took a key-shaped cake and a bible inscribed by President Ronald Reagan on a covert mis-

sion to Teheran last May. The newspaper, quoting a person who had read the Senate Intelligence Committee’s draft report on the Iran affair, said George Cave, who as a Central Intelligence Agency Iran expert was part of the mission, confirmed these details. Mr Cave also told the committee that the group had used 10 falsified passports, believed to be Irish, the paper said. 9 The “Washington Post” reported yesterday that the Intelligence Committee had been told that an envoy to the then Israeli Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, initiated the idea of diverting funds to the contras.

The newspaper said a secret Intelligence Committee report attributed the proposal to Mr Peres’ special assistant for coun-ter-terrorism, Amiran Nir. It did not suggest a motive for the Israeli proposal. But the present Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, later denied the allegation. ’

“It seems that most of the things that were said are wrong, and all that was said in connection with Israel has no basis in

reality,” Israel Television quoted Mr Shamir as saying.

The new revelations followed the release on Saturday by the White House of top secret documents in which Mr Reagan formally approved the arms sales.

Their release was intended to bolster Mr Reagan’s assertion that the sales were part of a broad effort to develop ties with moderate political factions and were not a ransom for five American hostages in Lebanon.

But one of the documents, a memo prepared by Colonel North in January, 1986, implied a link between the proposed sale of 4000 TOW anti-tank missiles to Iran and the release of the hostages. “.. .This approach through the Government of Iran may well be our only way to achieve the release of the Americans held in Beirut,” it said. The memo was presented to Mr Reagan verbally by Admiral Poindexter at the time Mr Reagan approved the sales. About 2000 tow missiles and spare parts for more than 500 Hawk antiaircraft missiles were sent to Iran.

Three American hostages were released from Lebanon last year but two others, abducted before January, 1986, are still in captivity and three more were kidnapped later.

The documents were released after the Senate Intelligence Committee refused White House requests to publish a preliminary report on its investigation into the Iran arms scandal and the diversion of profits to contras.

Committee leaders said yesterday that the report, which the White House had hoped would put Mr Reagan in a better light, was inaccurate and incomplete.

N.B.C. television reported last Thursday that it had obtained a copy of the report and quoted .it as concluding that the arms sales were intended as a direct swap for hostages.

Mr Reagan returned to the White House last Friday after a prostate operation and tests which found no return of the colon cancer for which he received surgery in July, 1985.

Doctors have advised him to refrain from strenuous activity for at least six weeks.