THE IRAN--CONTRA HEARINGS : Excerpts: (Decision to) Get All Facts Out . . . Was Battle Royal

WASHINGTON —  Following are excerpts from testimony Thursday by Secretary of State George P. Shultz before the congressional committees investigating the Iran-contra affair:

In the Dark

Mark Belnick, a staff lawyer with the Senate committee, asks Shultz what he knew when about arms sales to Iran.

Question: When were you first informed that the President of the United States had signed a covert action finding authorizing the sale of U.S. arms to Iran?

Answer: On Nov. 10, 1986, at a meeting in the Oval Office with the President’s principal advisers during a briefing by Adm. Poindexter (Rear Adm. John M. Poindexter, former national security adviser) on what had transpired over the past year or so.

Q: Mr. Secretary, when were you informed that there was more than one such covert action finding signed by the President?

A: When I was testifying before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I believe it was Sen. (William S.) Cohen (R-Me.), during the question period, asked me about a Jan. 6 finding. And I said to him: “Senator, I think you must be thinking of the Jan. 17 finding.” I believe that was you that--and you said: “No, Jan. 6.” I said: “Well, that’s the first I’ve heard of the Jan. 6 finding.” So that’s when I heard about it.

Q: And when were you first informed, Mr. Secretary, that the President had signed also a third finding on Dec. 5, 1985?

A: When it emerged during the course of these hearings.

Q: Mr. Secretary, when were you first informed that this nation had sold weapons directly to Iran?

A: Well, it depends on what you consider being informed. But, when this all started to break in very early November, 1986, there were press reports of arms sales that seemed authoritative. . . .

Q: Prior to those reports in the press, had any member of the United States government informed you that the United States had sold weapons directly from the United States to Iran?

A: No.

(Belnick asks Shultz when he learned that Robert C. McFarlane, Poindexter’s predecessor as national security adviser, traveled to Iran in May, 1986, to negotiate an arms-for-hostages swap.)

A: It was after the mission, but I think shortly after it was completed.

Q: And were you given the details of the mission at that time?

A: I was told that it had fizzled and that with those events in mind, the fizzling of that initiative, that the whole project had been told to stand down.

Q: Were you told at the time that Mr. McFarlane had brought U.S. weapons with him to Tehran?

A: No.

Didn’t Want to Know?

Belnick asks Shultz to comment on Poindexter’s testimony that Shultz had not been informed about the Iran arms sales because Shultz had asked not to know.

Q: In particular, Adm. Poindexter testified that he did not withhold anything from you that you did not want withheld from you. With this in mind, Mr. Secretary, this testimony in mind, let me ask you first whether you ever told Adm. Poindexter or any other member of the Administration that you did not want to be kept informed of the Iran initiative.

A: I never made such a statement. What I did say to Adm. Poindexter was that I wanted to be informed of the things I needed to know to do my job as secretary of state, but he didn’t need to keep me posted on the details, the operational details, of what he was doing. . . . The reason for that was that there had been a great amount of discussion of leaks in the Administration, and justifiably so. . . .

Q: But the main events, you wanted to be kept informed of?

A: Yes.

Q: And that was true not only with respect to Iran, but with respect to all areas of foreign relations activity, including activities engaged in by the NSC (National Security Council) staff in Central America.

A: Not only did I want to be informed, but when I found out things, sometimes by chance, I did my best to act on those things.

Reagan Misled?

Belnick asks Shultz about his impression that Reagan’s advisers were misleading the President about the Iran initiative.

Q: And did you begin developing the view, particularly as of Nov. 10--we’ll talk about the press guidance that you got on that day--that the President’s advisers were misleading him in not giving him the facts concerning what had actually transpired in the Iran initiative?

A: I developed a very clear opinion that the President was not being given accurate information, and I was very alarmed about it. And it became the preoccupying thing that I was working on through this period. And I felt that it was tremendously important for the President to get accurate information so he could see and make a judgment.

His judgment is excellent when he’s given the right information, and he was not being given the right information, and I felt as this went on that the people who were giving him the information were, in a sense . . . had a conflict of interest with the President. And they were trying to use his undoubted skills as a communicator to have him give a speech and give a press conference and say these things, and in doing so, he would bail them out.

At least that’s the way it was--I don’t want to attribute motives to other people too much, although I realize I have, but that’s the way it shaped up to me. So I was in a battle to try to get what I saw as the facts to the President and see that he understood them.

Now, this was a very traumatic period for me because everybody was saying I’m disloyal to the President. I’m not speaking up for the policy. And I’m battling away here, and I could see people were calling for me to resign if I can’t be loyal to the President, even including some of my friends and people who had held high office and should know that maybe there’s more involved than they’re seeing, and I frankly felt that I was the one who was trying to get him the facts so he could make a decision.

And, I must say he absorbed this, he did. He made the decision that we must get all these facts out, but it was a battle royal.

Q: Mr. Secretary, in that battle royal to get out all the facts, which you waged, and which the record reflects that you waged, who was on the other side?

A: Well, I can’t say for sure. I feel that Adm. Poindexter was certainly on the other side of it. I felt that (former CIA) Director (William J.) Casey was on the other side of it. And, I don’t know who else, but they were the principals.

Confronting the President

Belnick asks Shultz what he told Reagan when he telephoned the President after his press conference on Nov. 19, 1986.

A: . . . I knew that he had been urged to have this press conference, and I told him that I thought it was a personally very courageous thing to do and take on these subjects, but that I felt that there were many statements made that were wrong or misleading. So I thought it was a very unfortunate press conference from that standpoint. And I said: “If you would like, I would welcome a chance to come around and go through it with you, and I’ll go through these points and tell you what I think is wrong with them and why.”

Q: And what did the President say?

A: He said: “Well, I’ll welcome seeing you.” So the next day I met with him in the family quarters. It’s a little more good setting for that kind of discussion than in the office and I asked (White House Chief of Staff) Don Regan to be with me. I went through the things that I thought were wrong in the press conference with him. And it was a long, tough discussion, not the kind of discussion I ever thought I’d have with the President of the United States. But it was back off all the way.

Q: Did the President say he disagreed with you?

A: The President--he didn’t disagree with me. . . . It was very open, strong discussion, but he had in his mind that what he authorized and what he expected to have carried out was an effort to get an opening of a different kind to Iran and the arms and the hostages were ancillary to that. That was not his objective, and that--I’m sure that is what the President felt. He wasn’t just saying that.

Shultz’s Resignations

Senate Committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii asks Shultz whether he gave a letter of resignation to the President in August, 1986.

A: . . . That is true, and I have asked the President to let me leave this office on a couple of occasions earlier. . . .

Q: Was that in any way related to the Iran-contra affair?

A: Well, in August of 1986, I thought that it was over. . . . I didn’t know anything about the contra side of it anyway, but on the effort with Iran, I thought was basically on a proper track. But it was because I felt a sense of estrangement. I knew the White House was very uncomfortable with what I was getting from the intelligence community, and I knew they were very uncomfortable with me, perhaps going back to the lie-detector test business. What I have learned about the various things that were being done, I suppose explains why I was not in good odor with the NSC staff and some of the others in the White House. I had a terrible time. There was a kind of guerrilla warfare going on on all kinds of little things. . . .

Shultz explains how, because of lack of funds appropriated for the State Department, he had to get the President’s approval for all his trip s.

. . . And that’s no business for the secretary of state to be taking up to the President of the United States.

But I found out there was a character in the White House that was in charge of doing this, his name was Johnathan Miller (former director for Administration) and you’ve seen him here, and he was knocking me out--trying to knock me out of trips, which--I took the trips. But this was an atmosphere that I found--I felt that I was no longer on the wavelength that I should be on.

(Shultz says the President put his letter of resignation in his drawer and said they would discuss it when Shultz returned from vacation. He says he also resigned in mid-1983 when he discovered that McFarlane, who was then deputy national security adviser, had been sent on a secret trip to the Middle East.)

And also, I found some things happened with respect to actions on Central America that I didn’t know about beforehand. So I went to the President and I said: “Mr. President, you don’t need a guy like me as secretary of state, if this is the way things are going to be done. Because when you send somebody out like that McFarlane trip, I’m done.”

When the President hangs out his shingle and says: “You don’t have to go through the State Department, just come right into the White House,” he’ll get all the business. That’s a big signal to countries out there about how to deal with the U.S. government. And it may have had something to do with how events transpired, for all I know.

But it’s wrong. You can’t do it that way. And on that occasion, we had a very strong discussion. And that is the--how these regular meetings that I have with the President got started. And they have been very, very helpful.

(Shultz then explains that he also resigned in late 1985 after “my great lie-detector flap.” But that was shortly after McFarlane had resigned, and Shultz says he felt it was unfair to the President to leave at the same time.)

But I do think that in jobs, like the job I have, where it is a real privilege to serve in this kind of job, or the others that you’ve recounted, that you can’t do the job well if you want it too much. You have to be willing to say goodby. And I am.

Reagan Furious

Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.) asks Shultz whether Reagan knew about the plan by Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, the fired NSC staff member, to have the Iranians persuade the Kuwaitis to release 17 Muslim terrorist prisoners from the Iran-supported Al Dawaa movement in return for the release of American hostages in Lebanon. Poindexter has testified that he had cleared the plan with the President.

A: I am positive from the way the President reacted to what I told him (about the plan) that he was totally surprised, astonished, furious--just no question about it. I don’t have any knowledge about--I don’t know about his discussions with Adm. Poindexter, but the President certainly was surprised by what I told him.

Q: As a matter of fact--

A: And he reacted like he’d been kicked in the belly, so I didn’t have to tell him what the Dawaa prisoners were. He knew very well what they were, and he knew what that stood for. . . .

Q: . . . The President was outraged. Am I correct?

A: Yes.

Rudman asks whether Shultz believes that Poindexter’s recollection of Reagan’s approval of the plan was incorrect.

A: I am sure of it. I have known Ronald Reagan for almost 20 years, and I have worked closely with him before he was President and during his presidency. . . . I know that I have not misjudged his reaction.