Hints Of Conspiracy

It is a uniquely American ritual. A concerned and curious citizenry gathers in an electronic version of a Colonial town meeting to watch their elected representatives grill Government officials, high and low, about a sorry episode in contemporary history. The viewing can be painful yet mysteriously exhilarating, boring at times yet somehow fascinating. It is an odd self- flagellation, but out of it can emerge a catharsis. The Government's secrets are exposed, its actions explained, condoned or condemned. The issue is faced. The nation moves on.

The process begins again this week as klieg lights illuminate the solemn faces of 15 Congressmen and eleven Senators seated on a two-tiered dais draped in burgundy bunting, at the opening of a four-month public exploration of the Iran-contra affair. This is the same Senate Caucus Room where television cameras revealed Senator Joseph McCarthy as a snarling bully. It is where Richard Nixon's closest aides told lies in a vain effort to support the President's Watergate crimes.

Are the stakes as high this time? Probably not, but the unpredictable lurks. Said a White House aide last week: "You can never tell in what direction a hearing like this may go." Panel Member Peter Rodino, the New Jersey Congressman whose steady hand in 1974 dignified the impeachment proceedings against Nixon, hears echoes. "We have a situation again where we have much of the Executive Branch misunderstanding the rule of law," he says. "We just can't let that go unchallenged and unaddressed."

The alleged "misunderstanding" of the "rule of law" that Congress plans to probe goes far beyond the unhinged arms-for-hostages deals with Iran and the siphoning of profits to the Nicaraguan contras, which formed the focus of the Tower board's report in February. Instead, a central issue this time will be the role Administration officials played in pursuing a secret and possibly illegal foreign policy by using a shady cadre of private and semiprivate operatives to supply military aid to the contras when such aid was restricted by Congress.

How explosive this investigation could be was revealed last week, when Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh secured the scandal's first guilty plea, one that led uncomfortably close to the Oval Office. Conservative Fund Raiser Carl ("Spitz") Channell admitted he had conspired to defraud the Government by using a tax-exempt "charitable" foundation to send military supplies to the contras. He named former National Security Council Aide Lieut. Colonel Oliver North as his "co-conspirator." North had not only helped persuade donors to give to Channell but had also successfully urged Ronald Reagan to thank many who did so.

White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater reiterated Reagan's earlier claim that he thought the money was used only to buy TV ads to persuade Congress to support the contras. But Fitzwater's response was carefully hedged. Said he: "In the legal view of the White House, the President is not a part of this conspiracy." Another aide fretted about what might be next in the chain of criminal charges: "These pleas tend to set up a domino effect, with one target leading to others. We have no real idea where it's going."

Even if Channell or others reveal that Reagan knew some of the private donations were being used for military supplies, it would not necessarily mean Reagan was a conspirator in breaking the tax-exemption laws. But at the very least it would show his earlier denials to be false. And if the conspiracy to use private donations for arming the contras turns out to have violated other ; laws, such as the Neutrality Act and the Boland Amendment, questions of White House involvement could become far more serious.

Before its hearings begin this Tuesday, the joint congressional committee staff will have interviewed 300 witnesses, reviewed more than 100,000 documents and issued 140 subpoenas. The investigation is prying loose what promises to be a spate of intriguing revelations about the Iran-contra affair.

By focusing on the covert policies the Administration pursued in Nicaragua, as well as Iran, the members plan to depict what many feel amounted to a dangerous privatization of foreign policy. The lesson of the hearings, predicts New Hampshire Republican Warren Rudman, will be that the Administration "cannot have a stated foreign policy aggressively pursued and a private foreign policy that is 180 degrees opposite to it."

The role North and the CIA played in setting up this rogue network is already well documented. A central question will be the degree to which the President gave his knowing approval to the secret contra-funding efforts. The Tower board portrayed Reagan as incredibly uninformed about the specific activities of his National Security Council staff. But some Congressmen say the evidence indicates Reagan was well aware of the basic policies pursued. "The President was very knowledgeable; he was involved very deeply," insists Hawaii Democrat Daniel Inouye, chairman of the Senate panel. Oklahoma's David Boren posed the committee's key question in phrases that carry a Watergate-era ring: "Did the President faithfully carry out the spirit of the law, or was he ignoring it? Did he subvert the process himself by trying to raise funds to get money to the contras?"

The panel selected as its first witness one who is likely to engage the public's attention. After taking the Fifth Amendment in earlier hearings and even risking a contempt citation for refusing to turn over financial records, retired Air Force Major General Richard Secord agreed to testify -- without immunity from prosecution. Why? "He's convinced he did nothing wrong and wants to tell his story," explained Maine Senator George Mitchell. Considering his involvement in both the gunrunning to the contras and the logistics of sending arms to Iran, Secord could credibly hold such a view only if he believed he had been given clear authority for what he did. Declared Inouye: "Few people can tell this story from beginning to end, and General Secord is one of those people."

/ In addition to describing the network of private operatives North used in both the Iran arms deals and the contra-supply operations, Secord is expected to help untangle one of the scandal's chief remaining mysteries: Where did the money go? An arms dealer ever since he left the Pentagon in 1983, Secord joined a company run by Albert Hakim, an Iranian American who recently gave committee investigators thick notebooks containing details of the firm's various bank accounts. Proceeds from the Iranian arms sales as well as covert money for contra military supplies are believed to have moved through these accounts.

The committee's plan is to conduct its hearings in three stages: 1) the contra funding and military-resupply operation, which may take about four weeks; 2) the Iran arms deals and who may have been responsible for the diversion of profits to the contras, running into August; 3) a wrap-up period exploring the lessons learned and what legislation, if any, might be needed to prevent a similar breakdown in the orderly and accountable conduct of foreign policy. The committee should be finished by Labor Day.

The joint committee has compiled an interesting list of 26 witnesses for the first phase, which some staffers refer to as an exploration of "Contra, Inc." Secord will be followed by Robert McFarlane, the former National Security Adviser, who has testified extensively about his unfortunate dealings with Iran but not about the secret contra resupply. He was at NSC when the Boland Amendment banned direct military aid to the rebels.

Filling out the picture will be some lesser-known field agents who helped create the private network that kept the contras fighting despite the official cutoff. Among them: Robert Owen, who as North's roving envoy in Central America allegedly arranged weapons shipments, and Contra Leader Adolfo Calero, who will be asked about what help the rebels actually received.

Next will come the fund raisers who made the private military aid possible. They will include retired Army General John Singlaub, who solicited money openly for the contras on a worldwide basis; Barbara Studley, a rather mysterious friend of Singlaub's; Ellen Garwood, the Texas multimillionaire who donated lavishly to Channell's groups; and Jane McLaughlin, a former Channell aide who has spoken freely about his White House ties. Hakim, expected to return from living abroad, will flesh out the details of secret money transfers through Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.

The role of the NSC staff in setting up this contra-supply network will be explored through the testimony of such Secord associates as Robert Dutton and Richard Gadd, both of whom are believed to have worked closely with North. Then Felix Rodriguez, identified as a CIA agent who uses the moniker Max Gomez, will be asked to explain his job as liaison between El Salvador's air force and private pilots, some of whom wound up air-dropping supplies to the contras from Salvador's Ilopango Air Base. Recommended for his role by Donald Gregg, a top aide to Vice President George Bush, Rodriguez will be questioned about meetings he has had with Bush.

The official ties may be tightened as Lewis Tambs, former U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica, is asked about working with North to get Costa Rica to keep a secret contra airstrip operating. The CIA station chief in Costa Rica, recently identified as Joseph Fernandez, will be quizzed about the contras and which of his CIA superiors was aware of his activities.

Some of the toughest grilling may be inflicted on Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, who had insisted publicly that "nobody in this building had any idea of any contributions coming from a foreign government" just days before it was disclosed he had solicited $10 million for the contras from the Sultan of Brunei. Worse yet, the money deposited into a Swiss account provided by North has disappeared. Says an Administration official: "Aside from the question of whether he did anything indictable, he will at the very least be sacrificed. Elliott knew most of the essential details of what Ollie and his boys were up to."

After starting Phase 1 with a potential bomb thrower, Secord, the committee expects to end it with the scandal's bombshell: North's secretary, Fawn Hall. Charges of a possible obstruction of justice could hinge in part on how she describes the documents she shredded, altered or spirited off to North after Attorney General Edwin Meese carelessly interviewed him about the Iran-contra diversion but failed to call in the FBI or lock up North's files.

Meese, who will not be called until Phase 2, can expect rough handling over his sloppy initial investigation as well as his dubious legal advice to the President that it was proper to withhold notification of the Iran deals from Congress. But as to whether there was a cover-up, Maine Republican Senator William Cohen notes, "You cannot prove that Meese's ineptitude was calculated."

By agreement with Independent Counsel Walsh, who has voiced deep concern about protecting possible indictments, the two key figures in the entire affair will not be heard until at least mid-June. Former National Security Adviser John Poindexter, who was kept informed by North about almost everything he did, poses the most direct peril to the President. Cool and at least outwardly serene at the center of the scandal, the pipe-puffing admiral has told friends he intends to lay his story out candidly and will not be shaken by others. He has privately said he feels that he kept the President informed of the Iran and contra-funding operations, including telling him in general terms on at least two occasions that the Iranian operations were benefiting the contras. Some committee members were irked last week when Reagan seemed to be sending Poindexter a signal. Asked whether he was worried about the admiral's testimony, Reagan replied, "No. John Poindexter's an honorable man . . . I was not informed."

As for North, no one can be sure of what the erratic officer will say. But the big question for North will be one that has the ring of Watergate: What did the President know?

This schedule of witnesses is daunting and certain to include hours of tedious testimony about secret bank accounts and weapons shipments. As one White House aide predicts, viewers (and the networks) are sure to switch back to the soap operas except when some of the major witnesses are on camera. "Our responsibility is not to entertain, but to inform," says Cohen, whose eloquence in the House Judiciary Committee impeachment debate helped propel him into the Senate.

But even if the hearings produce few explosions or smoking guns that can topple high officials, they could have a powerful historic impact. With the emotional force that often emerges from the accumulation of dry details, the nation will be shown how some in the Administration used a shady network to undermine America's policy of not trading for hostages and to circumvent laws prohibiting the Government from supplying military aid to the contras. The critical lesson, Cohen predicts, will be the discovery that "you can't formulate policy in some dark corner without heading toward anarchy."