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The story of how this came about leaked out in bits and pieces all last week from bewilderingly varied sources: an account published by a pro-Syrian weekly magazine in Beirut, a public speech by the speaker of the Iranian parliament, guarded private comments by government officials in Washington and Jerusalem, even a Danish sailor's revelations about a voyage through the Persian Gulf. Some of the more mind-boggling versions of the tale had touches of melodrama that might have come from the most lurid spy fiction: a presidential envoy slipping into Tehran bearing (so the Iranians claimed) presents of pistols, a Bible and a key-shaped cake; an American cargo plane disappearing from radar screens over Turkey; a Danish ship changing the name painted on its hull prior to reaching an Israeli port.
The Administration's distress at being caught out in such an improbable and embarrassing situation was evident in the scramble of the White House to put a lid on the rapidly expanding story. Whereas only a few weeks ago the Administration had rallied its forces to defend the President's actions at the Iceland summit, virtually blitzing the media with press conferences, interviews and briefings, now there was a chorus of no comments, off-the- record observations, obfuscations and pointed suggestions of self- restraint, even repression of the emerging facts. President Reagan declared that the | disclosures "are making it more difficult for us" to win the release of the Americans still held captive in Lebanon. The just-released Jacobsen, in a moving appeal at his welcoming ceremony at the White House, warned reporters that "unreasonable speculation on your part can endanger their lives." Cried Jacobsen: "In the name of God, would you please just be responsible and back off!"
The pleas raised once more the perennial question of the responsibility of the press, as well as the undisputed need of the Government to carry on sensitive negotiations in secret. In this instance, the story of the clandestine negotiations with Iran was broken not by the American press but by a Lebanese magazine and the speaker of the Iranian parliament. Together they provided the major outlines of the secret dealings. Even as President Reagan pleaded for a halt to speculation, sources within his own Government confirmed much of the speculation and added important details. While some congressional leaders questioned the wisdom of making such a deal in the first place, other critics blamed the disclosure on the Administration's failure to take into account the danger of leakage and on its tendency toward improvisation and swashbuckling. Moreover, none of the information that emerged last week included potentially dangerous details about the whereabouts of the hostages, their movements or their captors.
Many of the details are still either murky or disputed, and some may never be known. But this much seems clear: sometime around August 1985, the White House got word that at least one of the many quarreling factions in the Iranian government was interested in re-establishing contact with the U.S. The first message apparently came to American officials in Beirut. In addition, Iranians who meet regularly with U.S. representatives at the Hague, where Iran is pursuing a case against the U.S. before the International Court of Justice, indicated that some Tehran leaders wanted to talk.