'CLEAN HOUSE,' KEY REPUBLICANS URGE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000201120009-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 6, 2010
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: December 1, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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LOS ANGELES TIMES.
1 December 1986
`Clean House,' Key
Republicans Urge
Dole Wants Watergate-'I~pe In9uiry;
Lugar Asks ReaIIan to Chan>Qe Staff
By JACK NELSOI~j, Times Washington Bureau Chief
WASHINGTON-Senate Re-
publican leaders warned President
Reagan on Sunday that he must
immediately "clean house" and
make a full disclosure of the Irani-
anarms-and-hostages scandal if he
is to retain control of his presiden-
cy.
Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole
(R-Kan.) urged Reagan to call a
special session of Congress so that a
joint House-Senate committee
could be appointed to conduct a
Watergate-type investigation. And
Senate Foreign Relations Commit-
tee Chairman Richard G. Lugar
(R-Ind.), declaring that Reagan's
foreign policy is in "shambles," said
the President needs a new White
House staff and may need new
Cabinet members.
Staffers Agree on Urgency
Resp-ondin to an interviewer's
uestion ar i -.put
dismissmA a ense Secretary Cas-
par W Weinberger and C!TA T)iran_
for William J. Casey. as well as two
officials whom some of Rea an's
ongtime associates reportedly
Have targeted or removal-White
House Chief of Staff Donald T.
eta-n an Secretary of State
_eor~ge P. Shultz.
And two senior White House
aides, speaking on condition they
not be identified, said they agreed
that the crisis gripping the Reagan
presidency is so severe that he
must immediately order a full dis-
closure and the appointment of an
independent counsel to investigate
the possibility that laws may have
been broken.
So far, only two officials have
been removed because of the scan ~
dal. Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter,
who as Reagan's national security
adviser directed the Iranian opera-
tion out of the White House, re-
signed last Tuesday, and Marine Lt.
Col. Oliver L. North, a Poindexter
aide on the White House National
warned that if Reagan waits until
January, "we're going to have 15 or
20 committees investigating this
problem."
Asked about Dole's proposal,
Reagan declined to commit him-
self. As he boarded a plane to
return to Washington from. his
California ranch, Reagan said,
"We'll do everything necessary to
get at the truth, and then we'll
Security Council staff, was fired. make the truth known."
North has been identified as the Dan Howard, a White House
principal field operator of a pro- .~kesman, said of Dole's sugges-
gram of selling arms to Iran in It's a novel idea. We simply
return for the release of American Caen t had time to consider it."
hostages held in Lebanon by Irani- Congress has adjourned until
an-backed terrorists, and then di- neat month, when a new Congress
verting up to $30 million of the Fill be sworn in. Only Reagan
arms sale profits to the contras could call Congress back into ses-
fighting to overthrow the Marx= Sion before then.
ist-led government of Nicaragua.. `Crisis Atmosphere'
At least three investigations Q~f Senate Democratic Leader Rob-
the mushrooming controversy ert C. Byrd of West Virginia oppos-
have already been launched: -
which has brought the FBI into th,~
case, about 10 days ago began "the
inquiry that revealed the link tae{
tween the Iranian arms sales and
the contras.
-A special review board named
by Reagan will meet with tfie
President and the other members
of the National Security Council
today as it begins its study of the
NSC's operations. The panel is
headed by former Sen. John Tower
(R-Tex.) and includes former Sen
Edmund S. Muskie (D-Maine) and
former national security adviser
Brent Scowcroft.
-The Senate Intelligence Com-
mittee is expected to begin hearing
testimony today.
Fears 15-YA Committees
Dole urged Reagan to call Con-
gress into session next week to
form a special committee that,
apart from having members from
both the House and the Senate,
would function as the Senate Select
Committee did during the Water-
gate scandal. That committee,
chaired by the late Sen. Sam Ervin
(D-N.C. ), turned up the White
House taping system and other
evidence that implicated President
Richard M. Nixon inacover-up and
forced him to resign.
Dole, interviewed on ABC's
"This Week With David Brinkley."
es a special congressional session,
saying he favors waiting until
January, when the Democrats will
control the Senate. A special ses-
siop of Congress, Byrd said on
CAS's "Face the Nation," would
only "contribute to a crisis atmos-
phere and would .not necessarily
move us toward a timely resolution
of this crisis."
Byrd urged Reagan instead to
itTStruct Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III
to seek an independent counsel to
investigate whether any laws had
been broken. "The President is in
trouble," Byrd said. "The presiden-
cy itself is being weakened. This
thing is not going to go away by
itself, and the quicker the Presi-
dent can take action himself and
appear to be in control, the better
off he will be and we will all be."
White House spokesman How-
and refused to comment on the
appointment of an independent
counsel. "Anything we say on
that," he told reporters, "will come
through the Justice Department."
The attorney general can ask the
federal courts to appoint an inde-
pendent counsel to investigate a
probable violation of law by a high
Administration official or to take
over an internal investigation that
might raise even the appearance of
a political or financial conflict of
interest.
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Although a Reagan confidant
and longtime Meese associate has
told The Times that a decision has
already been made to seek an
independent counsel, Meese has
not yet announced the decision.
The Justice Department's official
position is that it is still in charge of
[he investigation and that a deci-
sion to appoint outside counsel has
not yet been reached.
Lugar, appearing on NBC's
"Meet the Press," insisted that
Reagan must promptly "clean
house of all the malefactors" in his
Administration.
"I think he needs a new staff at
the White House," Lugar said. "He
may need new Cabinet members.
He clearly needs a new National
Security Council."
Asked if Casey, Shultz and
Weinberger should be removed,
the generally softspoken Lugar
declared: "I won't get into each and
every Cabinet member, but I
wouldn't rule out replacing any of
those. It seems to me at this point
the President has to have a true
new beginning, a new Administra-
tion."
Only then, Lugar said, can the
Administration address its "serious
foreign policy problems-in Cen-
tral America, in the Middle East,
terrorism across the board. We are
in danger from the Soviets when
they see us this vulnerble."
`Old Men' vs.'Young Bulls'
Lugar said the White House is
split between "the old men who are
all defending each other and the
young bulls who want to get on
with it.... I'm with the young in
this case. We'd better get on with
it.'
Rep. Richard Ch._ er~gy (R-Wyo.) ,
a member o the House Intelligence
Coirimittee who was White House
chief of staff under President Ger-
ald R. Ford, said he did not have
enough information to know
whether Regan should resign as
chief of staff. But Shultz, he said in
a Cable News Network interview,
probably is secure.
"I think it has reached the point
now where he is likely to stay,"
Cheney said, "partly because his
reputation on Capitol Hill is a good
one, partly because he's perceived
...around the country as a fairly
strong figure and did at least object
to the policy that's now come under
so much criticism."
Senate Intelli ence Committee
Chairman Dave urenberaer ( -
Minn.) said his committee, which
begins its investigation into t e
scand~aT~to3-ay; is concerned about
news repor- i,s that oind~ exter and
North shredded documents before
leavin~_ "ffieir__,)oTs:vHe said tIi-e
committee wrote the President a
le ter askin;~ that he ensure that_
"all of the records in control of his
Administration e preserved for
future iiivest~aiions ei-~- t e~ our
committee or anZ other."
The committee, Durenberger
said, will spend two weeks collect-
ing information from a variety of
officials and former officials in-
cluding Robert C. McFarlane,
Poindexter's predecessor as the
President's national security advis-
er. It was under McFarlane, who
left office last December, that the
Iranian arms sales began..
Only then, Durenber er said
wi t e committee decide whether
to ca1T IA ? Director Casey and.
other Cabinet-level offiriale
Times staff writers James Ger-
stenzang and Don Irwin contribut-
ed to this story.
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