President demurs

Press, 2 October 1987, Page 6

President demurs

NZPA-Reuter Washington President Reagan said he did not believe the claim of the "Washington Post” reporter, Bob Woodward, that the C.IA. director, William Casey, admitted on his deathbed knowing of the diversion of funds from Iran arms sales to Nicaraguan rebels. Mr Reagan, asked by reporters to comment on the claim contained in a new Woodward book, told reporters: “I think there is an awful lot of fiction about a man who was unable to communicate at all and Is now being quoted as if he was doing nothing but talk his head off.” Mr Reagan also

disputed another claim in the book, "Veil: The Secret Wars of the C.1.A.,” that Mr Casey enlisted Saudi Arabia in a bomb plot to assassinate the Lebanese Hezbollah faction leader, Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. He survived the 1985 Beirut blast but 80 were killed. .?. The President said he had once signed an order approving a plan for the United States to help Lebanon establish its counter-terror capabilities, but never approved a murder. “Never would I sign anything that would authorise assassinations,” Mr Reagan said.