MCFARLANE SAYS CASEY OFTEN INSTRUCTED NORTH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605090006-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 21, 2013
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: May 14, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/02/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605090006-9
, A OM WASHINGTON POST
14 May 1987
McFarlane Says Casey
Often Instructed North
Hearing Is Tense, Occasionally Tempestuous
Walter-Pirkiwand Dan Morgan
-.Vashington Post Stall Writvrs
Former national security adviser
--to Robert C. McFarlane said yester-
day that Lt. Col. Oliver L. North,
his White House aide who was most
dee 1Ly jriyolyellin_tlie_secretAran-
contra o_peratignak_iegularly_re-
ceived instructions from the late
t9 Wflhiiiiij Casey, then CIA director.
AAed by Sen. William S. Cohen
(R-Maine) whether he "suspected
that North was taking instructions,
not from you, bulirom.the_DCLIdi-
rector of central intelligence,
Casey]," McFarlane concurred and
added": "I became aware in the fall of
1985 that 011ie [North] had more
contact than Thad realized with the
director. He mentioned?and I
think it was entirely offhand and
intended comically?at one point to
say that the director had volun-
teered $1 million. I think itprobably
wai- comic. Illut It__Was_eiipressive-of
a feiii?onsiiip that surprised me,"_ _ _
For the second day yesterday,
members of the Senate and House
committees investigating the Iran-
contra scandal dwelt on the role of
Casey, who died last week. Some
investigators believe that Casey, a
Cabinet member and close friend of
President Reagan, was the master-
mind of both the sale of U.S. arms
to Iran and the clandestine admin-
istration support for the contras
fighting the government of Nicara-
gua.
McFarlane's remarks came dur-
ing an afternoon of congressional
testimony that turned suddenly
tense and occasionally tempestuous
after 21/2 days in which an often re-
mote McFarlane had exhibited
steady composure and a tone that
he once referred to as "supplicato-
ry."
What triggered the biggest out-
burst in the committees' joint hear-
ing was a direct attack by Sen.
George J. Mitchell (D-Maine) on
McFarlane's forthrightness as a
witness.
Mitchell, a former federal judge,
began by saying that McFarlane
had often assumed an "eagerness,
an anxiousness to accept responsi-
bility . . . . But in each instance it
has been a general responsibility.
When the questioning has been on
specific events, you have been far
less willing to acknowledge respon-
siblity there."
Mitchell charged that McFarlane
and others last November "delib-
erately falsified" a White House
chronology of the U.S.-Iran arms
sales. McFarlane denied it.
Mitchell then said McFarlane had
"participated in the deliberate mis-
leading of Congress," when con-
gressional committees had ques-
tioned him in 1985 and 1986 about
the activities of North, who was his
deputy on the National Security
Council staff from 1982 to 1985.
McFarlane first said he had not
given as "full an answer as I should
have."
But when pressed by Mitchell for
a direct response, he said, "I just
don't see it in exactly the same
terms."
Mitchell charged that McFarlane
had solicited money for the contras
from "Country Two," the commit-
tees' designation for Saudi Arabia.
"None of what you said is accu-
rate," McFarlane snapped. An in-
formed Saudi source yesterday said
McFarlane was the U.S. official who
initially asked the Saudis to contrib-
ute to the contra cause in 1984.
Then Mitchell asserted that
McFarlane had "misled the attorney
general" concerning his knowledge
of the shipment of Israeli-based
Hawk antiaircraft missiles in No-
vember 1985.
"Sen. Mitchell, that is categor-
ically false," McFarlane angrily re-
plied. "May I please give a correct
answer?"
The former presidential adviser
then launched into a vehement com-
plaint that he had come before Con-
gress with the intention of consult-
ing and cooperating, but on Tues-
day had been put through an inter-
rogation by House committee coun-
sel John W. Nields Jr. that he said
left a "fundamentally false impres-
sion" because Nields had "deliber-
ately withheld information."
McFarlane appeared to be still
simmering a few minutes later at
the conclusion of a string of solici-
tous questions from Rep. William S.
Broomfield (R-Mich.).
After apologizing for his earlier
outburst, McFarlane said, "People
don't volunteer to come in here and
work for the government for these
wonderful wages and occasionally
get shot at and spend 30 years do-
ing that so they can be ridiculed by
someone who hasn't got the pa-
tience to study the facts."
Later, when Rep. Peter W. Ro-
din() Jr. (D-NJ.) reopened questions
raised by Mitchell about McFar-
lane's knowledge of North's possi-
ble obstruction of justice in the
shredding of key Iran-contra doc-
uments, McFarlane blurted out,
"That's right, and I deserve respon-
sibility and I ought to be prosecuted
to the full extent of the law and sent
away!"
The first emotional exchange of
the afternoon came after Sen. War-
ren B. Rudman (R-N.H.) questioned
him about a 1985 covert operation
run by North, in which Drug En-
forcement Administration opera-
tives were to pay bribes and a ran-
som totaling $2 million from Texas
industrialist H. Ross Perot to free
U.S. hostages held by extremists in
Lebanon.
The operation was first disclosed
last week, but what touched off
McFarlane was Rudman's line of
questions about the legality of the
operation and whether Congress
should have been informed.
"Should they [the congressional
committees] have been?"
"No, sir," McFarlane shot back,
his face flushing.
When Rudman persisted, McFar-
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/02/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605090006-9
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/02/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605090006-9
a.
lane delivered an impassioned state-
ment regarding his frustration over
terrorism and his respect for the Is-
raeli approach: "They are good be-
cause terrorists know that when-
ever they commit terrorism against
Israel, something, somehow, some-
where is going to happen. It may
not be arms. It may not be preemp-
tive attack. It may be negotiation. It
may be bribing. But you can be god-
damn sure if any Israeli's caught,
he's going to have his government
going after the people who did it!"
In response to later questions,
McFarlane said thereason the DEA
operation did not require a presi-
dential authorization -1nown as a
"finding," was thil it was not done
by the Central intelligence Agency.
"Current law does not bar it," he
said. Moreover, he added that "the
kind of activities the DEA people
undertook" would also cover oper-
ations undertaken by the "the FBI,
or the Army on occasion, the spe-
cial trained units. None of those
others operate to report to the Con-
gress, either."
After the hearing, Sen. David L.
Boren (D-Okla.), chairman of the
Senate Select Committee on Intel-
ligence, disputed that contention.
"If they conduct covert operations,
it doesn't matter if it's the Agricul-
ture Department?there has to be
a finding. Otherwise, they [the in-
telligence agencies] could just
transfer all their operations to Ag-
riculture!"
He said his committee plans to
investigate this episode and any
more like it. Presidential spokes-
man Marlin Fitzwater said yester-
day, in response to a query, that
Reagan "did not know there was
ever a plan for ransoming hostages"
by Perot, and that Reagan said he
never had any conversation about
such a plan.
On Monday McFarlane testified
that the operation had been ap-
proved by the president.
Yesterday's hearings brought out
sharply for the first time in nearly
two weeks the differences in ap-
proach to the inquiry among Repub-
licans on the panels.
Sen. James A. McClure (R-Idaho)
focused on Israeli influence on the
United States in the initiation of the
secret arms sales to Iran and made
no secret of his displeasure with the
arms-for-hostages deal.
Rudman has been outspokenly
critical of the operations of the Na-
tional Security Council and the net-
work of private operators.
But four Republicans, Sen. Orrin
G. Hatch (Utah), Rep. Dick Cheney
(Wyo.), Rep. James A. Courter (R-
NJ.) and Broomfield, adopted a line
of questioning that suggested Con-
gress was as responsible as the
White House for some aspects of
Iran-contra affair. They cited shift-
ing laws governing aid to the con-
? tras, and leaks of intelligence infor-
mation by members of Congress.
In passing yesterday, McFarlane
referred to an "outrageous example
of irresponsibility" after a senior
member of the Senate intelligence
committee was briefed on the 1985
hijacking of Italian cruise ship
Achille Lauro. McFarlane said the
member during the television inter-
view revealed how the United
States had gathered sensitive infor-
mation.
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.),
who at the time was vice chairman
of the committee, said in a state-
ment issued by his office yesterday
that McFarlane was "blackening my
reputation and libeling Congress"
with the charge.
Leahy noted that a Reader's Di-
gest article had made the same
charge on the eve of his reelection
last fall. He said he only told a CBS
interviewer what was in that morn-
ing's newspapers.
Rudman made clear his frustra-
tion in trying to pin McFarlane
down on specific points.
McFarlane indicated to the New
Hampshire Republican that he
sometimes had difficulty getting in
to see the president. But when, af-
ter phrasing the question several
ways, Rudman asked the witness
directly whether former White
House chief of staff Donald T.
Regan had made difficulties,
McFarlane replied, "I wouldn't say
that that is a general practice, no."
Among other disclosures this
week about Casey's role, one mem-
ber disclosed that Casey was the
first CIA director to have had an
office in the White House. McFar-
lane said he became aware in 1985
that Nh appeared to be "under
the aegir of the director.
Cohen noted evidence previously
disclosed that North communicated
directly with the CIA station chief
in Costa Rica. One orGiey'a two
top aides resigned in 1985 and told
friends he waukl raite rnoney for
North's _private network, it has
been reported.
In another matter, McFarlane
responded to a question by Courter
by saying that he had taken precau-
tions on his May 1986 trip to Teh-
ran in case he was seized as a hos-
tage and faced with torture.
"I had the means to foreclose my
being exploited for intelligence by
the Iranians," he said, without fu-
ther explanation.
McFarlane returns today to the
hearings, where Boren said he plans
to question him about the DEA ran-
som operation and Attorney Gen-
eral Edwin Meese III's role in giv-
ing legal approval to what Boren
called a questionable operation.
Staff writers Charles R. Babcock, Joe
Pichirallo and David Hoffman and
staff researcher Michelle Hall
contributed to this report.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/02/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605090006-9