The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro JIM LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Thursday, John Poindexter said he intentionally withheld information from Congress about resupplying the contras. The White House said President Reagan will make a speech about the Iran contra affair after the hearings and Congress took the afternoon off to commemorate the Constitution in Philadelphia. We'll have the details in our news summary in a moment. Robin? ROBERT MacNEIL: After the news summary, we continue our special coverage of the Iran contra hearings. We have some excerpts from Admiral Poindexter's testimony. Then former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, former CIA official George Carver, former congressman Robert Drinan and a sample of the public discuss issues the hearings are raising. News Summary LEHRER: Former National Security Advisor John Poindexter said today he did not want Congress to know about the secret operation to resupply the contras in Nicaragua. For that reason he deliberately withheld information about it when the House Intelligence Committee asked for a briefing on Oliver North's activities. The Navy Rear Admiral spoke for a second day before the Iran contra committee.

Adm. JOHN POINDEXTER, former National Security Advisor: Our objective here all along was to withhold information. There's no question about that. And that was my intent all along. I had talked to Col. North after talking to Chairman Hamilton and asked him if he could meet with the committee, and he said that he could and he could handle it. I expected him to withhold information. In fact, I'm still not sure to this day if you looked at the questions and the answers that he gave whether you would conclude that there were false statements. LEHRER: President Reagan was asked again today for comments on Poindexter's testimony, but he told reporters during a White House photo opportunity he would make a statement at the conclusion of the hearings. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said later a presidential speech on the matter was in the works. Robin? MacNEIL: There were no hearings this afternoon because a large delegation from Congress went to Philadelphia for the 200th anniversary celebration of the compromise that produced the Legislative Branch of government. In that city on this day in 1787, an agreement was reached that led to Congress's bicameral arrangements of House and Senate. It was done as part of the system of checks and balances which Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd related to current controversies.

Sen. ROBERT BYRD, (D) West Virginia: -- must be clear to all Americans who have followed the course of our nation and these periods of concern and turbulence, our system of balances still stands. But it must never be taken for granted. If our system of government is left unattended, we place it in danger to habits of power that are inherently undemocratic and unconstitutional. LEHRER: Ambassador Vernon Walters had some encouraging words today about the U. S. hostages in Lebanon. The U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations told reporters in Washington about his recent visit with Syrian President Assad in Damascus. He said Assad told him he will try to see what he could do about securing the release of the Americans and other Westerners being held by terrorist groups in Lebanon. Walters said he hoped something might happen within a few weeks. MacNEIL: The second in command of the U. S. military group in El Salvador was among six American servicemen killed in a helicopter crash there today. Lt. Col. James Basile died, along with two Army doctors, according to the U. S. Embassy in San Salvador. The seventh American survived the crash, which was attributed to bad weather or a mechanical failure. They were on their way to pick up the U. S. Advisor who had been shot and wounded. In South Korea, more than a hundred people were killed when a typhoon hit the southern coast with floods, mudslides and high seas. Fifty three people were confirmed dead and 81 were missing. LEHRER: Back in this country, the perjury trial of Michael Deaver was put off today until October 19. The presiding federal judge in Washington granted the postponement so Deaver's lawyers could appeal a jury selection decision. Jury selection in the trial had begun Monday behind closed doors at Deaver's request. But yesterday a Federal Appeals Court ordered the proceedings open. Deaver attorneys will now take the closed door matter to the U. S. Supreme Court. Deaver is charged with five counts of lying to Congress and a Federal Grand Jury about his lobbying activities after serving as a White House aide to President Reagan. MacNEIL: That's the news summary. Ahead, Admiral Poindexter's second day, with analysis and comments. Iran-contra Hearings LEHRER: Former National Security Advisor John Poindexter's testimony before the Iran contra committees continued today. It was an abbreviated session so the members of Congress could go to special Constitution ceremonies in Philadelphia. We begin again tonight with an excerpt from the hearings and once again our report is by Judy Woodruff. JUDY WOODRUFF: In his three and a half hours at the witness table this morning, Poindexter provided more details of an elaborate effort to mislead Congress about what the White House was doing to assist the Nicaraguan contras at a time when the Boland Amendment banned governmental support. There were many questions he responded to by saying he couldn't recall. Among the points he made were: that the NSC's objective all along was to withhold information from Congress; that he told one of his aides to destroy documents that described Oliver North's activities on behalf of the contras; and that the White House grossly overreacted when the story broke last November; that he, Poindexter, should not have resigned then, and Oliver North should not have been fired. Chief Senate Counsel Arthur Liman spent several minutes trying to pin down why Poindexter had misled House Committee Chairman Lee Hamilton when he responded to a request by Hamilton and other committee chairmen last year for more information about NSC activities to aid the contras.

Adm. POINDEXTER: I intended to withhold information from Chairman Hamilton, which I did, and which I admitted to yesterday. I wanted to withhold information on the NSC operational activities in support of the contras from most everybody. Mr. Liman, as I've testified yesterday and today, I have always felt that the Boland Amendment did not apply to the NSC staff. And that the NSC staff was complying with the letter and spirit of the law. WOODRUFF: Counsel Liman next pressed Poindexter on whether the National Security Council had ever been given any authority to carry out its covert activities on behalf of the contras.

Mr. LIMAN: You've testified that one of your duties was to implement Presidential policies on national security. Adm. POINDEXTER: That's correct. Mr. LIMAN: Did that include the National Security Directive 159? Adm. POINDEXTER: Would you refresh my memory on the subject of that? Mr. LIMAN: ''In accordance with Executive Order 1233, the Central Intelligence Agency shall conduct covert actions unless the President specifically designates another agency of government. '' Were you familiar with that provision? Adm. POINDEXTER: Yes. In fact, as I recall, I participated in the drafting of that NSDD. One of the features of it I think is this sets up a group that I chaired which is covered I guess in another part of it you don't have here. Mr. LIMAN: Did the President of the United States ever designate the NSC to undertake the activities in support of the contras that you have testified the NSC was doing? Adm. POINDEXTER: Let me make this clear. As I testified yesterday, the word ''covert action'' is not a statutory term. I would not necessarily characterize the NSC's support for the contra activity as a covert action. The covert actions used in most cases is a shorthand term for the statutory language in the Hughes Ryan Act of special activities of the intelligence community. Those activities that are not involved in intelligence collection and analysis. Mr. LIMAN: Can you answer the question now? Did the President designate the NSC to conduct the activities in support of the contras that you have described in your testimony yesterday? Adm. POINDEXTER: In effect, he did, Mr. Liman. But not through a finding. A finding is not required. Mr. LIMAN: I'm not talking about a finding -- Adm. POINDEXTER: I said I want to make it clear -- as I said yesterday and as Mr. McFarlane has testified, the President in effect wanted the National Security Council staff to make sure that the contras remained alive until we could turn the vote around in the Congress and return to a program that was supported with appropriated funds. Mr. LIMAN: When we're talking about the President of the United States, I think we would both agree that we shouldn't talk about what he did ''in effect. '' Did the president ever designate in words, in substance -- words, the NSC to conduct the activities in support of the contras that you described yesterday? Adm. POINDEXTER: I would not characterize it that way at all. As I said, if you take the totality of the President's actions, that was clearly his intent. Mr. LIMAN: Page 24 -- 324 of the Tower Report -- referring to the President, they say, ''The President told the Board on January 26, 1987, that he did not know that the NSC staff was engaged in helping the contras. '' Can you shed any light on the statement that the President did not know that the NSC staff was engaged in helping the contras, based on your briefing, sir? Adm. POINDEXTER: I don't -- I have not talked to the President, Mr. Liman, since I left the White House on the 25th of November. I have not discussed this issue with him. I don't know exactly how the question was phrased, or exactly what the President had in mind when he provided that answer. My understanding is that since that time he has modified that position a little bit. Mr. LIMAN: And one of your duties as National Security Advisor you said was to brief the President. Did you brief the President about the fact that the NSC staff was -- to use the words of the Tower Report -- ''helping the contras. ''? Adm. POINDEXTER: Again, as I testified yesterday, I want to be very careful, and I want to recall a specific conversation with the President before I would answer that in an affirmative way. I do not recall a specific conversation in that regard. But I don't think that's unusual because I would not get into the details with the President as to who was doing what. The President knew that there was a Boland Amendment. He knew there were restrictions on the government. As he has said, I think, since November of 1986, that he did not feel that the Boland Amendment applied to his personal staff, and that was his feeling all along. I knew that. He knew that the contras were being supported, and we simply didn't get into the details of exactly who was doing what. He understood that Col. North was the chief action officer on Central America. Col. North was always there when there were briefings in detail as to what was happening in Central America. Col. North was there when various foreign officials that were involved, and so the President I think clearly associated with it. Now, you know, the President doesn't recall apparently a specific briefing in which I laid out in great detail all of the ways that we were going about implementing the President's policy. And I frankly don't find that surprising. It would not frankly at that time have been a matter of great interest as to exactly how we were implementing the president's policy. WOODRUFF: Liman turned finally to the events of last November when the whole affair began to unravel. The White House was accused of a cover up as it tried to reconstruct what had taken place. Mr. LIMAN: Let me just summarize that the chronologies went from early ones which Col. North has testified to -- which were essentially accurate, saying that the United States had approved or acquiesced in the Israeli shipment of TOWS, described the Hawk transaction -- to the last ones which said that the United States had objected to the Israeli TOW shipment and indicated that the November shipment to the United States's knowledge involved oil drilling equipment. On the 21st, did Oliver North come into your office with his spiral notebook? Adm. POINDEXTER: That's correct. On the afternoon of the 21st. Mr. LIMAN: And did he tell you that he had in that spiral notebook some notes that indicated that you knew that it was Hawk shipments, that the President had approved it? Adm. POINDEXTER: That is correct. He came in some time middle to late afternoon with one of his old spiral notebooks and said that he had just pulled these out of his files and gone back through to try to reconstruct what had happened in November of '85, and he reported that conversation with me at the time. I told him that I didn't recall it, but I didn't question that it'd happened. I'm sure it did happen. Mr. LIMAN: Did you reach a conclusion as to what Oliver North was going to do with his notebook? Adm. POINDEXTER: Yes. From either -- well, something he said, and I don't recall exactly what it was, but I recall as he left the room that I had the impression that he was going to destroy that notebook. Mr. LIMAN: Did you tell him not to? Adm. POINDEXTER: I didn't tell him not to? Mr. LIMAN: For what purpose did you think he was going to destroy those notebooks? Adm. POINDEXTER: I don't think I really particularly focused on that at the time. The working notebooks and the working files I have never considered as official documents, and it was perfectly all right with me if Col. North destroyed his personal notebooks and working files that he had. I had no problem with that. WOODRUFF: Liman concluded his interrogation with questions about Poindexter's final days in the White House, triggered by the discovery of the diversion memo in Col. North's files.

Mr. LIMAN: When was it that you learned that the Attorney General had found the so called diversion memo? Adm. POINDEXTER: On Sunday night, the 23rd, Col. North called me at home. Mr. LIMAN: And you were surprised? Adm. POINDEXTER: Yes, I was surprised. But by that time I was -- I guess my mood was one of resignation in that I was getting awfully tired of the issue at that point. Mr. LIMAN: And why were you surprised? Adm. POINDEXTER: Because as I have said, I didn't think any memos existed on this subject. Mr. LIMAN: When did the Attorney General speak to you about the diversion? Adm. POINDEXTER: On Monday, the 24th. He had come by the office early in the morning. I was tied up doing something else. I understand my secretaries asked him if he wanted them to interrupt. He said, no, he'd be back later. My recollection is that he came in to see me for about five minutes early afternoon. Mr. LIMAN: Did he ask you what you knew about this diversion? Adm. POINDEXTER: It was a very brief conversation -- my recollection is he started out by saying, ''I assume you are aware of the memo that we found in Ollie's files. '' And I said, ''Yes. '' He said, ''Were you aware of this?'' And I said that I was generally aware of the transfer of funds, or the plan to transfer funds, and that I told him that I was prepared to resign and that I trusted him to recommend to me the timing of my resignation. And that was essentially the end of the conversation. Mr. LIMAN: Did you tell the Attorney General that you had approved the diversion by Col. North? Adm. POINDEXTER: I did not use those words. I told him that I was generally aware of the transfer or the planned transfers of the funds. I was being very cautious at that point. The following day I was enroute to the White House office in my car, and Ed Meese called me on the car phone just about the time we were going through the southwest gate, and he asked if I would meet him over at his office. He said he was enroute to the office, said he'd be there about five minutes. I told him that I would. We diverted, went over to his office. Ed came in. He said that he thought the time had come that I should submit my letter of resignation. I said fine, I was prepared to do that as I told him yesterday. He indicated a sense of regret. He said that he did not feel at that point that Col. North had done anything illegal. We talked about Col. North also being transferred back to the Defense Department. Mr. LIMAN: On the 25th of November you submitted your resignation to the President. Adm. POINDEXTER: I did. Mr. LIMAN: And do you recall what the President said? Adm. POINDEXTER: It was a very short conversation. As I recall, when I came into the Oval Office at 9:30 for my normal morning meeting, the Vice President was there, the Chief of Staff Don Regan, Ed Meese was there, and of course the President. I sat down and my best recollection of the conversation was that I said, ''Mr. President, I assume that you are aware of the paper that Ed Meese has found that reveals a plan to transfer funds to the contras. I was generally aware of that plan, and I would like to submitmy resignation to give you the necessary latitude to do whatever you need to do. '' And the President responded and said that he had great regret and that this was in the tradition of a naval officer accepting responsibility. And I shook hands with everybody and left the office. That was the last time I saw the President. Mr. LIMAN: Now, you then -- did you hear the press conference of the President and Attorney General Meese? Adm. POINDEXTER: I did. Mr. LIMAN: And was it then that you learned that Col. North was being removed, not just reassigned. Adm. POINDEXTER: Yes, and that was a great surprise to me. That had not been discussed with me. To this day, I don't know how that came about. I think it was a mistake. I realize that the -- frankly -- and I intend to be very frank here -- that the media and newspapers were blowing this all out of proportion. And there was significant pressure from the Congress to -- for the Administration to appoint an Independent Counsel. And I thought and still think that it was a gross overreaction to an issue. I think with hindsight some mistakes were made in terms of handling the issue in November and I think that in the effort to make sure that the White House was not accused of cover up that we moved too fast. And I accept some of that responsibility in that I don't think -- with hindsight -- that I should have resigned when I did. We should have stayed around to get to a full explanation as to what we were trying to do and the reasons. Mr. LIMAN: Did you make any contemporaneous record in your notes, or any other place, at the time that you decided to give the President deniability that you were not going to tell the President? Adm. POINDEXTER: No, I did not write that down. Mr. LIMAN: So that you created a situation where it would be only your word to corroborate that of our commander in chief. Adm. POINDEXTER: That is correct. Mr. LIMAN: I have no further questions. LEHRER: Admiral Poindexter's testimony will resume in the morning. John Poindexter was one of five National Security Advisors President Reagan employed. Mr. Reagan's predecessor had only one, Zbigniew Brzezinski. He is now counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and is with us now to discuss some of the issues raised by the Poindexter testimony thus far. First, Dr. Brzezinski, was your view of your job as National Security Advisor the same as Admiral Poindexter's? ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI, former National Security Advisor: No, having listened to Admiral Poindexter, I have to say that it was rather different. I have sympathy for what he was trying to do, namely protect the President. I respect his perspective. I think it's justified with great dignity. But my view was that the President was entitled to know all that was important, because it was his responsibility to make the decisions regarding the important issues. LEHRER: Does that mean literally everything? That there is nothing that a National Security Advisor should say, ''Wait a minute, this is too hot to tell the President. '' Mr. BRZEZINSKI: If it's important, I don't think an individual -- any individual -- including someone as close to the President as the National Security Advisor -- really has the right to withhold it. If it's important. Now, there are a lot of things I didn't tell the President, because that's only so much he can absorb and there's so much he can handle. But I tried to make the best judgment that I could as to what was truly important. If I had any doubts about withholding something -- namely, was it important, was it sensitive or not -- I am quite confident in my own judgment that I would have consulted the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Defense as to whether it should be withheld from the President. It actually didn't happen during the four years that I served in the White House. But I think this is the way I would have responded to it. LEHRER: But what about the idea of plausible deniability -- to protect the President in case some sensitive operation goes awry that the President can say, ''I didn't know anything about it. '' He can turn around and fire Brzezinski. Mr. BRZEZINSKI: Well, that was a possibility prior to the changes that were made in the '70s. Until the '70s, covert activity could be undertaken on the basis of a somewhat informal decision making process. But after somewhere in the mid '70s -- LEHRER: After Watergate -- Mr. BRZEZINSKI: Yes, exactly. -- every major decision pertaining to covert activities had to be subject to so called presidential finding. The President had to sign off on it. So you would really be violating the established procedures mandated and approved by the President in order to withhold information from him. And I would say that the Administration which I served -- that simply didn't occur to us. There was an -- if you will -- legalistic and ethical mindset which simply precluded that as a possibility. It literally never occurred to us. LEHRER: But did it also preclude getting things done that you wanted done, or that you felt should have been done? Mr. BRZEZINSKI: It's been alleged by some people recently that we started more covert activities than the Administration since us. And the Administration before us. LEHRER: Now, how did -- what were the problems that you encountered in getting covert operations done? Mr. BRZEZINSKI: Well, we didn't have problems in getting them done, except perhaps operational problems. There was the problem of recovering the capacity of the CIA to undertake covert activity after the Church Hearings, after the disarray that transpired in the '70s. But the procedures were established. Every covert activity that was pursued by us was discussed between the Director of CIA and myself. A proposal would be submitted to a special coordination committee, which I chaired. In attendance were the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of Central Intelligence, if need be, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and always, the Attorney General. So that the legal aspect would be considered. If we all felt -- or most of us felt -- that the activity was desirable, I would so report to the President, and a finding would be submitted to him, he would sign it, it would be forwarded to the Hill. LEHRER: And in your four years, did anything leak either from the Hill -- or for instance, Admiral Poindexter said today he was even reluctant to keep paper records of some of these things because he was afraid that anything that was put in writing was eventually going to fall into the wrong hands. Did you have that fear? Mr. BRZEZINSKI: Yes. Things did leak. And they're regrettable, and that is a serious problem. Now, I'm not going to point the finger on the one branch of government and say that only they are responsible for the leaks. Because I'm sure that Executive Branch is responsible for leaks as well. But there's no doubt that there were leaks also from the congressional side. In many cases we didn't know where the leaks originated. I do know for example that shortly after we took office, we had a very embarrassing situation in which a particular covert activity, sensitive activity in the Mid East, conducted in collaboration with a certain government was fully exposed to the press just as the Secretary of State was about to visit that country. I do not know where (unintelligible) originated. I do know that we tried to talk to the editor of the paper that had the information and ask him for the sake of the national interest and with (unintelligible) activity, to withhold that. But he refused. LEHRER: Dr. Brzezinski, we'll be back. Robin? MacNEIL: The hearings have also raised questions about the role of Congress in formulating foreign policy and monitoring covert operations. We now turn to two people with different perspectives on that. George Carver served as Special Assistant to three CIA Directors. He's now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Father Robert Drinan was a Democratic member of Congress from Massachusetts from 1971 to '81. He authored the first article of impeachment against President Nixon in 1973, and served on the committee which voted impeachment a year later. Father Drinan now teaches constitutional law at Georgetown University in Washington. Mr. Carver, despite the new procedures Mr. Brzezinski just referred to, should there still be plausible deniability for a president? GEORGE CARVER, former CIA official: I think to an extent, Robin, there should be. We have a unique system in which we can join the offices of Chief Executive Officer who's an elected politician, and the ceremonial Chief of State who's the symbol of national unity. Prime Ministers are expendable. Symbols of national unity are not. And I think we ought to be very careful about the ways and the times and manners in which we lay a paper trail into the Oval Office, embarrassing the President, whoever he may be, in his symbol of national unity role, in order to score a political point against him as the Chief Executive Officer. MacNEIL: Would you define that plausible deniability as actually keeping the president ignorant of something? Mr. CARVER: To be absolutely blunt, no. I admire Admiral Poindexter. I think that he was walking a very windy tightrope stretched over a very high gorge. And he negotiated it admirably. I would find it very difficult to envisage not telling the President certain things that were important. But if I were a National Security Advisor -- which is never likely to happen -- I would also be perfectly prepared if things blew up to claim that I had not advised the President and take full responsibility for the decision and offer my resignation. MacNEIL: Father Drinan, do you think for the reasons Mr. Carver just outlined that a modern American president should be able to claim plausible deniability? Rev. ROBERT DRINAN, Georgetown University: Well, the Congress certainly tried to make that impossible. They insisted that he sign off and that he inform both intelligence committees of the House and Senate. The Congress was angry for a long time after Vietnam, after the demise in Chile, after all the Church hearings. And they felt that they had been lied to and they were humiliated. And as a result, Congressman Boland, highly regarded in the House, was particularly annoyed in the summer of '83 when the Administration invaded (unintelligible) harbors in Managua and never told the House Intelligence Committee, as they're required to do, along with the Senate. And as a result, the Boland Amendment passed. And it wasclear that they intended that to be no aid to the contras. And obviously the House and Senate are miffed now as to how they can enforce this particular rule. They consider it a part of their supervisory powers over the Administration. And that it's not going to go away and that they are now probably going to tighten up. They'll put penalties on, and some people are beginning to say, ''Is the President impeachable that he did not carry out and execute the laws as he's required to by the Constitution?'' MacNEIL: Mr. Carver, do you think some covert operations should still be kept secret from the Congress? Mr. CARVER: Well, I think they should. This goes back to the beginning of the republic or before. We wouldn't exist if it hadn't been for the activities of our first covert action directorate, the committee of secret correspondence in 1775. And in arranging the covert action from France, without which we couldn't have won the revolution, Benjamin Franklin said to Robert Morris, ''We must of course keep this secret from Congress, because we know by fatal experience that Congress consists of too many members to keep secret. '' And nothing has changed in that respect in 200 years. Robin, we've got to remember that the first sentence of Article II of our Constitution says, ''The Executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States'' period, no qualifications. Now, when Jefferson was President, with minimal congressional knowledge and even less input, he negotiated and consummated the Louisiana Purchase. His successor Madison, with similar congressional noninvolvement, handled the covert operations which brought Florida into the union and including West Florida, which extends all the way to Baton Rouge, and encompasses now what includes Mississippi and Alabama are much of it. If these Presidents -- the drafters of our Declaration of Independence and the principal architect of our Constitution, had shown the deference to congressional sentiment that people are now saying our President is constitutionally required to show, we wouldn't exist today as the nation we have, and we would not have survived our early perilous decade. MacNEIL: Father Drinan, over to you, and just add to it the claim that Lt. Col. North and Admiral Poindexter have been making the last 10 days or so that Congress has been interfering inappropriately in foreign policy. Rev. DRINAN: Well, presidents have been saying that for a long, long time. The fact is that under the Constitution, the Congress has a power, and a duty to appropriate funds and that they are not entirely opposed to covert activity. They appropriated at least $300 million that we know about to help the rebels against Afghanistan, and that they just want somehow people to be accountable. And I think the situation is obviously entirely different now than it was in the founding days of the Republic, and the Congress tried to meet the allegation that there would be leaks and that there have been virtually no leaks from the House and the Senate Intelligence Committees, as Senator Inouye said the other day. I think they have been very responsible, and that they feel that the expenditure of money and that the formulation of foreign policy is a part of their essential duty. They're not exactly partners, but they feel that they're accountable. And furthermore, the abuses are so bad by the CIA and other agencies that the Congress is not about to walk away. And the people all during the '70s when I was in Congress were demanding that the CIA be made accountable. MacNEIL: Father Drinan, coming to the present case, do you think that the President is now exonerated because Mr. Poindexter -- Admiral Poindexter -- has said he didn't tell him about this. Rev. DRINAN: No, I believe there's a lot of things yet to be asked. And we're going to have the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State and a lot of other things can come up. And the credibility I think of the Admiral, with all due respect, is open to some question -- that he would tear up that finding and lie to the Congress, or almost lie. So I think that a lot of facts have to still come out, and I don't think that the American people are prepared to say that yes, the President has been vindicated. Just last week 57% of the American people said that he's lying. MacNEIL: What do you think of this, Mr. Carver? Mr. CARVER: Well, I think a great deal has to come out. And certainly a lot was done that was very stupid and ill advised. And I don't want to defend inept stupidity. But I do think the Constitution as I read it, does not give Congress the right to try to deal itself into the day to day conduct of foreign affairs. The conduct of foreign affairs has to be primarily an Executive Branch responsibility. And only disaster is liable to result if that is not remembered on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Rev. DRINAN: (unintelligible) saying the Boland Amendment is unconstitutional. I would say clearly that it is not. And they can say that no money may be expended directly or indirectly or collected from other nations for the purpose of helping the contras. And I think that's clearly within the mandate of Congress to say. Mr. CARVER: Father Drinan, I think the Boland Amendment was ill advised and unwise. I think probably constitutional, and you've touched on something else implicitly. I greatly regret the extent to which people are prone to try to criminalize differences of political opinion and criminalize judgmental calls with which they disagree. I wish we could even stridently differ without suggesting, ''Well, what you did is illegal, and what you did is unconstitutional. '' Because I think that is corrosive to the kind of political debate we have to have in our kind of society. MacNEIL: Father Drinan, in a case where the Congress was so nearly on the knife edge of approval/disapproval of support for the contras, is it then appropriate for it to attempt to inhibit the Executive, which makes a strong argument for a case? Rev. DRINAN: No, they can keep arguing, but I don't think the Executive can say, ''We still believe in this, and we're going to go and do it regardless of the Congress. '' No, I think that open defiance of the Boland Amendment is somehow just against the very essence of the rule of law. And that -- Mr. McFarlane said it was binding on the National Security Council. Apparently the Admiral says differently. But I don't think there's any case really to say that they can go and take the law into their own hands. They can go into court and challenge the Boland Amendment as unconstitutional, and they didn't do that. MacNEIL: Okay, let's move on. Jim? LEHRER: Yes, now to public opinion and the impact of the Iran contra hearings on it. Our statistics come from a Los Angeles Times poll conducted last weekend. Conclusion number one was on Lt. Col. Oliver North. Sixty six percent said they were favorably impressed by the former NSC aide. Seventy four percent said his testimony was convincing. On President Reagan, a majority believed the president has lied about the Iran contra affair. On what President Reagan knew, on this survey which was conducted before Admiral Poindexter's testimony, sixty two percent said the President knew about the use of funds from the Iran arms sales for the contras. On support for the contras, in this week's poll, the results were evenly divided. Forty two percent to forty two percent on providing the aid. Last February, a survey found 54% opposed to contra aid, with 31% in favor. We asked Correspondent Elizabeth Brackett to go to Indianapolis to meet some of the people surveyed by the Los Angeles Times, and she asked them why there was more support for the contras now.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Why do you think that number changed so dramatically? Do you think it was Oliver North's presentation? Do you think it was the people became more aware of the Nicaraguan situation through the hearings? Why did that number switch so much? JOHN GAYLOR, electrical contractor: I think the dramatic change in the public opinion, a lot of it is people were looking at this whole hearing situation as a contest. And what this has done is I think that people have felt that same kind of competition and they're pulling for Oliver North, and they're pulling for his side, and his side is for the contra. BRACKETT: Did the hearings change your mind about support for the contras? LORRAINE FILIPOW, housewife: No, not really. I mean, I felt, you know, that communism is our greatest enemy, and you know, if they're getting the stronghold that it appears in Nicaragua and in Central America, we really need to wake up before there is another (unintelligible). MATTHEW COLLINS, state employee: -- Vietnam. I mean, a lot of people have already said this. And the analogy is pretty close. When we went to fight Vietnam we did not have the support primarily of the people we were fighting for. And that's the problem with Central America right now. We come across as the villains. And until they can change the perceptions of the United States -- how people view us down there -- we're not going to be doing much good. BRACKETT: Well, how much of this foreign policy should be kept secret? Mr. GAYLOR: Well, certainly this affair -- the Iran contra arms deal I think should have been kept a secret. I -- as far as total policy, I think any covert action has to be totally secret. And that means from Congress. They can't keep their mouth shut. MARY SAPP, nurse: I would agree with that. Covert operations will always exist. And like John -- there will be things that have to be silent. And I certainly agree with him that in that particular group of people, in any group of people, most any workplace, something will leak if too many people know about it. JAMES GORDON, construction worker: I think that it just would have been a lot simpler if they'd tried to be honest about the whole thing. And said, ''We're gonna do this,'' and ask the people if that's what they wanted to do. And if they wanted to do it, and they said, ''Yes,'' go for it, and if they said, ''No,'' don't go for it. But the problem is when you're having -- getting heart and back to the secret operation deal, you can't hold an election on something like a foreign policy and keep it secret at the same time. So you're caught betwixt and between. How do you decide? I don't have an answer to that. I don't know. I don't know if I ever will. RONALD HUTCHINSON, farmer: If you got all the hostages back, how would the public have taken that, secret or no secret. They'd have thought that was probably all right. There'd have been no question about it. Am I right or wrong on that? I feel like if they'd have gotten the hostages back, that's the main thing. They'd kind of forgotten about the secret deal. BRACKETT: How do you think it affected the President's leadership capabilities? The poll says 52% of the people believe his leadership capabilities were diminished but not destroyed. CAROLINE BEAM, student: The President's power is diminished. And the fact that -- how much of what he tells the American people now can we really believe wholeheartedly? That maybe what he's telling us there is sort of like half truths. He's not giving us the whole story. He's trying to protect us like we're small children. So we just -- I don't think that I can really believe in him completely like I did at one time. Mr. GAYLOR: It hasn't been proven to me yet that he's lied to us. I don't think President Reagan has lied to us yet. Mr. HUTCHINSON: He just hasn't told everything, right? Mr. GAYLOR: He hasn't lied to us (laughter). WOMAN off screen : Lies of omission. MAN off screen : Yes. Mr. GORDON: But I believe if you don't mind the word -- his credibility has suffered a lot I think, and that's going to take a while to repair. BRACKETT: Is it reparable? Mr. GORDON: I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. I can't say. Mr. COLLINS: It will depend a great deal on what comes out of these hearings -- what is revealed. I would say his credibility has diminished. I mean, it's kind of hard to believe a man who all along was telling you, ''There are no secret deals,'' and look, here's a memo! Guess what! There is a secret deal! So, I mean, ''How did that get in there?'' So, I mean, it kind of clearly comes across that you're getting a song and dance, and not the meat of the matter. Mr. GORDON: I'd like to believe that Reagan can really handle things. Because that's the impression I used to have -- is that he seems to -- the commercials in the '60s that used to come in on the radio -- every week, you know -- he used to sound so strong and so common sense. And he still does. But that's been shattered a little bit by this thing with Oliver North. Now when he says something that makes total common sense, if you will, you say, ''Wait a minute. '' In the back of your mind, here's North doing all these other things that don't work. And that's -- that casts a lot of doubt on what he's talking about. Mr. GAYLOR: I had the tendency to believe that President Reagan probably knew all along about this before the hearings. I don't know why, but my mental image was that Oliver North was -- had access to the President all the time, just like one of the guys -- and through the hearings I've learned that that's not the case. That there are several people between Oliver North and the President -- Poindexter and McFarlane, obviously Casey. That I'm not sure the President really even knew Oliver North -- he might not have known his name prior to all of this coming out. LEHRER: That conversation took place Tuesday night at Public Station WFYI in Indianapolis. Now back to Dr. Brzezinski, Father Drinan and George Carver. Dr. Brzezinski, has President Reagan been the issue in this for these whole eight months when this thing first broke in November last year? Dr. BRZEZINSKI: Oh, sure. Ultimately he is the issue. Because ultimately the issue is presidential leadership -- how effective is it? How trustworthy is it? But I do feel that some of the debate, both in the mass media and Congress, has shifted from what ought to be the important aspects of the central issue -- which is, ''Was his policy towards Iran in the national interest? Was it strategically sound?'' That should have been debated. I don't believe it has. Was the policy regarding the contras the right policy? Or is there some other way of dealing with the problem? And then last but not least, what really is the proper balance between the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch in the formulation of foreign policy? LEHRER: But George Carver, those folks in Indianapolis seem to reflect also what the Congress and the press was reflecting, Dr. Brzezinski, which was, ''Did the President know about the diversion of funds, has the President been telling the truth, has he been telling half truths?'' or whatever. Does that surprise you? Mr. CARVER: It doesn't surprise me, because that is still a very murky area. The President -- this president -- has been a superlative Chief of State. He has not been a particularly effective Chief Executive. And therein lies the root of a lot of his problems. But I think that one of the things that has come out -- a principal lesson that I draw from the hearings, or a principal concern I get from them, is they highlight a very important question -- Can a democracy such as ours, with our fetishistic obsession with openness, effectively handle the role and responsibilities of a superpower and effectively lead a world alliance? And I don't know the answer to that question. But I think that that's the kind of thing that people should be focusing on, not some of the trivial issues. LEHRER: You don't know the answer, but what is your answer? Mr. CARVER: My answer is that unless we are willing to make certain modifications and unless there can be a greater sense of discipline and responsibility in both the Legislative and Executive Branches, the answer is probably no. Father Drinan very astutely put his finger on a major difficulty when he spoke about Congress reacting out of pique. National interests should not be subject to the pique of anybody in Congress or anybody sitting in the White House. LEHRER: But Father Drinan, you also heard those folks in Indianapolis. And they seem to be saying, ''It's okay to have a few secrets, and it's okay not to tell the Congress. Because if you're going to get anything done -- '' essentially what George -- they must have been listening to George here -- ''if you're going to get something done in a covert way, you've got to do it in secret. '' But that's not what you're saying? Rev. DRINAN: Well, no. But what we're saying -- the Congress has said over the last 10 years is a compromise that I think is a good idea. Namely that the President, if he has this idea, he can do it. He doesn't need the consent of the Congress. All he has to do is inform six or eight key people. And they may not tell anyone, and he may go forward. And they could have done that with the diversion of funds from Iran. And they might have objected, but they had no right to stop the whole thing. So then Admiral Poindexter says, ''Well, I don't even trust them,'' and I think that's really in defiance of the system. Is this a happy compromise? To only tell the leaders, and that they can't tell anybody else, and there's very severe sanctions if they violate it at all. This is a -- it seems to me -- a middle way by which we say, ''We want to know. '' Somebody in the country has a right to know about these covert activities, because there has been so much abuse over the last 30 or 40 years. And that the people all during he '70s were saying, ''Something has to happen. We're tired of what they did in Chile -- what they did way back in 1954 in Guatemala. They want to somehow checkmate the CIA and the compromise that the Congress put through, you tell 8 people, and that will allow you to go forward legally. Mr. CARVER: Excuse me, father, that's not quite accurate. In extreme cases of urgency, the government can go to the so called Gang of Eight. But in most cases it has to inform all 17 members of the House Committee, all 15 members of the Senate, the four ex officio members, which is 36 congressmen, plus approximately 60 staff. So you're talking about informing 100 people, any one of whom can leak and kill a covert action of which he or she personally disapproves by leaking to the press. LEHRER: Is that the problem, Dr. Brzezinski, of informing that many people? It's not that the people leak just because -- for no reason -- they leak for a reason because they may not agree with a covert action? Dr. BRZEZINSKI: You know, I think, really think, the problem is a little different. Father Drinan talked about the abuses of the past, and he created the impression that these abuses were widespread. I really think they were the exceptions. The American public in the '50s and '60s were quite prepared to accept the system as it was then operated. I think in the course of the '70s, because of the collapse of bipartisanship, there developed a sharper cleavage between the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch. To correct the situation, I think the President has to work very hard at the reestablishment of bipartisanship. Because if we do move back to some bipartisan consensus on what foreign policy's about, the kind of leakage which is used essentially for political contest is going to be much more infrequent. The problem is there aren't too many people who have to know, but if there were bipartisanship, that can be contained by a sense of shared consensus. And I think the Administration -- LEHRER: In other words, if everybody's in on the formulation of the policy, then they have a vested interest in keeping the secrets -- Dr. BRZEZINSKI: Exactly. And this was done informally in the '60s and '50s. We now have formal instruments and procedures. But they will not work by themselves either. If the contest -- partisan contest -- dominates our discussion of foreign policy. But if we can move towards some degree of consensus -- and the President has to take the lead -- we can minimize these difficulties. But I don't think we can go back to a system in which we no longer inform Congress. That's over and done with. Mr. CARVER: We can't do that, and we have to build consensus. But consensus has got to be -- one thing that troubles me is that people are unwilling to go along with an agreement or policy unless they approve of every detail of it. And unless we're willing to have more give and take at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue than we've had in the past decade, then we're not going to be able to discharge our functions of world power. Rev. DRINAN: Except that it's very uncertain in my mind whether this consensus can ever come together again after Vietnam and now after the contras. I think there's a profound division in the country as to whether we should contain communism and if so, how. I don't think that's going to be papered over. And you can't dream that we're going to come back to some form of a nice/nice consensus. The consensus is not there, and I don't think you can create it by saying that we're making it again. Dr. BRZEZINSKI: I suspect the consensus is potentially there. Actually, the Republican party is moving towards the center. If you look at the likely candidates in 1988, most of them are not rightwing extremists. They're essentially centrists. My guess is that the only Democrat that can win in 1988 is also a centrist. If the Democratic Party nominates a leftwinger, the party will lose. And I think that illustrates the basic preposition that there is some movement toward center. And I think there's enough consensus in Congress on the fundamental strategic interests of the United States that the President who is determined to restore some degree of bipartisanship could collaborate with. LEHRER: Let me come back finally to the specific smoking gun question about President Reagan. Do you three gentlemen find it strange that we, the American people, have sat, twisting in the wind for eight months to hear John Poindexter, what he said yesterday, that he did not inform the President -- two or three sentences. And the question has come to mind, ''Why did we have to wait eight months, Dr. Brzezinski, to hear this?'' Dr. BRZEZINSKI: Because the Congress, the mass media, are preoccupied with acting like Sherlock Holmeses rather than Schopenhauers. In other words, they want to find the criminal rather than discuss the central foreign policy issues. Rev. DRINAN: I think the admiral himself said he talked to his lawyer and then he shut up. And I think frankly in my own opinion that the admiral is quite reprehensible to keep the whole country in torment over this central fact which he announced yesterday that he never told the President. And I think that the President himself should have forced him at that moment to say, come out and say that I never knew. And that history will correct -- will either praise or damn the admiral for doing this. Dr. BRZEZINSKI: He shouldn't have been threatened with criminal prosecution. Mr. CARVER: We don't have criminal -- Dr. BRZEZINSKI: Prosecution in this case is political persecution. If we hadn't had that, we would have had this issue behind us in two weeks. Mr. CARVER: That is the point. This is not a criminal issue. And disagreement on policy is not criminal. Disagreeing with many members of Congress about our vital interests in Central America isn't of itself unconstitutional or criminal. Rev. DRINAN: But this was more than a disagreement. This was Admiral Poindexter openly defying what the law said. And he never consulted with the Attorney General or with the counsel in the White House as to whether or not the Boland Amendment was applicable. He just said, ''It's not applicable,'' and acted on that assumption. Mr. CARVER: The thing is a lot murkier than we want, father, with all due respect, there were five Boland Amendments -- none of them a model of precise draftsmanship. And there are no two of them totally consistent with each other. And we should not try to parse this as constitutional lawyers. You cannot run a government in a dangerous world by a committee of lawyers. You have to run it as an effective leader, and as they said an effective leader has to develop bipartisan support of his congress. LEHRER: Well, Dr. Brzezinski, Father Drinan, Mr. Carver, thank you all for being with us. MacNEIL: Again, the main points in the news. Admiral Poindexter testified that his objective all through the contra resupply operation was to withhold information from Congress. Poindexter also said he now thought he shouldn't have resigned when it became public, but stayed to tell the story. Congress took the afternoon off in order to commemorate the Constitution in Philadelphia. Good night, Jim. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.