North joked about going to jail, says witness

Press, 21 May 1987, Page 10

North joked about going to jail, says witness

By

JIM WOLF

of Reuters NZPA Washington The dismissed White House aide, LieutenantColonel Oliver North, said he expected to become “the fall guy” in the Irancontra scandal and joked about going to jail, according to a close associate.

Robert Owen, who served as a link between Colonel North and the rebels in Nicaragua, said that Colonel North knew he would take the blame for putting together a secret contrasupport network even though he was taking orders.

Mr Owen was testifying at Congressional hearings into the secret sale of United States arms to Iran and the diversion of profits to the Nicaraguan contra rebels. Colonel North was dismissed and his boss, the National Security Council adviser, Admiral John

Poindexter, ' resigned when news of the affair emerged last November. In testimony at the hearings on Tuesday, Mr Owen also said he believed the late Central Intelligence Agency chief, William Casey, knew all about Colonel North’s role in sending profits of the arms sales to the contras, despite a United States ban at time on such aid. Asked if he and Colonel North ever thought about going to jail for their contra supply effort, Mr Owen said: “There were a couple of occasions that we would laugh about it and joke, yes.” But Mr Owen, aged 34, said he was not overly concerned because Colonel North had told him he was taking orders from unidentified superiors.

One key issue in the Congressional probe, which began on May 5, is who authorised Colonel North’s covert deals, which may have been il-

legal under United States law.

Mr Casey resigned as director of the C.I.A. in February for health reasons and died this month. He had denied to investigators any knowledge of Colonel North’s operation. Mr Owen was the second witness to suggest that Colonel North may have been taking orders from Mr Casey. Last week, President Reagan’s former national security adviser, Mr Robert McFarlane, said in reply to a question that he had become aware that Colonel North had more contacts with Mr Casey

than he originally realised.

The investigating committees will today begin hearing testimony from Adolfo Calero, who heads the contras’ largest military force, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force. From Mr Calero, the committees want to hear what happened to an estimated SUS 37 million (5NZ64.75 million) in contra-support funds secretly raised abroad. Mr Calero, aged 62, had primary responsibility for distributing the funds, including about SUS 32 million (SNZS6 million) contributed by Saudi Arabia.