The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro JIM LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Monday, the Iran contra committees ended their public hearings. U. S. navy ships escorted a Kuwaiti tanker out of the Persian Gulf. And Iran announced naval maneuvers in the Gulf. We'll have the details in our news summary in a moment. Robin? ROBERT MacNEIL: After the news summary, we round out our special coverage of the Iran contra hearings. We have extended excerpts from the final testimony by Defense Secretary Weinberger, and from the closing statements of the four committee chairmen. Columnists Anthony Lewis and Pat Buchanan give us two views of what the hearings accomplished. And Michael Ledeen, the National Security Consultant, who initiated the contacts with Iran, links the scandal with today's events in the Persian Gulf. News Summary LEHRER: Today was it for the Iran contra hearings. The House and Senate committees held their 41st and final public session since they began in May. The final witness was Defense Secretary Weinberger. Then the four committee chairmen and vice chairmen made closing, and in some cases contrasting, speeches about their investigation.

Sen. DANIEL INOUYE, (D) Hawaii: Speaking for myself, I see it as a chilling story. A story of deceit and duplicity and the arrogant disregard of the rule of law. It is also a story of a flawed policy kept alive by a secret White House junta, despite repeated warnings and signs of failure. Rep. DICK CHENEY, (R) Wyoming: We've heard talk of a grave constitutional crisis, listened to expressions of moral indignation and outrage, and even been treated to talk about a coup in the White House, a junta run by a lieutenant colonel and an admiral. My own personal view is there has been far too much apocalyptic rhetoric about these events, most of it unjustified. LEHRER: Secretary Weinberger, in his second day of testimony, had told the committee the interests of the United States were damaged overall by President Reagan's decision to sell arms to Iran. Robin? MacNEIL: Iran announced naval maneuvers and warned ships out of its waters in the Persian Gulf, as U. S. warships escorted Kuwaiti tankers safely through the Strait of Hormuz. The tanker Gas Prince, flying the American flag with a cargo of liquid petroleum for Japan, and its two U. S. warships were said by the Pentagon to be beyond the range of Iran's Silkworm missiles. Iran warned all ships and aircraft to stay out of her territorial waters in the Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman. It said the three days of exercises, called Martyrdom, would show readiness of thousands of volunteers for suicide attacks on the U. S. navy, which Iran says is helping Iraq in the Gulf war. In New York, Iran's United Nations ambassador, Said Rajaie Khorassani, was asked about the U. S. presence in the Gulf.

REPORTER: Ambassador Walters this morning insisted that the fleet that the U. S. is supporting is to keep navigation free, freedom of the seas. How do you feel about that action? Mr. KHORASSANI: I think he is lying to (unintelligible) just to help the Iraqis. The Persian Gulf is open definitely. There is also a war of migration imposed on us. Those who attack us, we will attack them, both in the Persian Gulf, in the air, in the sea, on land, everywhere. Now if Mr. Walters wants to fish in the Persian Gulf, I think he has to find a different boat, because for the timebeing there is a very big hole in one of the tankers. MacNEIL: Iran's supreme leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, said today that Iran held the United States responsible for the deaths at the riots in Mecca on Friday. Saudi Arabia says 402 people died, including 275 Iranians, in clashes with police after Iranians staged demonstration forbidden in the Holy City. Iran claims the toll was higher, saying 600 Iranians alone were dead or missing in the disturbances. Mecca was calm today, but in a message to Iranians in Saudia Arabia for the annual Moslem pilgrimage, Khomeini said his country would deal with the United States at the opportune time. He denounced Saudi Arabia's royal family as unfit to be the guardians of Moslem holy places, and called on Moslem leaders to seek an alternative. LEHRER: U. S. officials responded today to the Iranian maneuvers and to their charges about what happened at Mecca. Here's what State Department spokesman Charles Redman said.

CHARLES REDMAN, State Department Spokesman: Iranian charges that the United States is responsible for the violence against pilgrims in Mecca on July 31, are totally baseless, and the government in Teheran knows it. The United States has not been involved in any way in the recent violence in Mecca. Iran's false charges are designed to inflame passions and escalate tension in support of Iran's political aims to destabilize their region. Their holding of naval maneuvers could be taken as another example of what I refer to as this continuing effort to increase tension, to try to intimidate international shipping, and in particular to try to intimidate regional states. LEHRER: On another subject, the United States and Vietnam announced agreement today on trying to account for Americans still missing from the Vietnam War. Retired U. S. Army general John Vesey headed a U. S. delegation to Hanoi on that issue. A joint statement issued there this morning said specific measures were agreed upon to accelerate the missing in action accounting. MacNEIL: President Reagan kept a full work schedule today, and the White House said he was feeling fine after Friday's surgery to remove skin cancer from his nose. Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Mr. Reagan would wear a bandage until his 20 sutures were removed later in the week. His face appeared a little puffy and discolored at a morning speech as he joked about the cancer caused by exposure to the sun.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: I know you're all admiring my suntan. You too can look like this -- just sit out in the sun as long as I did. MacNEIL: A White House spokesman said that President Reagan will give his general views on the Iran contra hearings in a speech next week, but will not go into every detail. Fitzwater added, ''A lot of people have different ideas about what should be said in the speech. '' LEHRER: And that's it for the news summary tonight. Now it's on to the 41st and last day of the Iran contra hearings, with analysis by Patrick Buchanan, Anthony Lewis and Michael Ledeen. Iran-contra Hearings Final Day MacNEIL: After 41 days of testimony by 29 witnesses, the public hearings of the Iran contra committees ended today. We'll examine the hearing with two columnists and a participant in the initial overtures to Iran. But first, Judy Woodruff takes us through the concluding testimony and statements by the committee chairmen. Judy? JUDY WOODRUFF: Members of the committees wrapped up the public phase of the hearings, denouncing the lying and deceit they said had permeated the highest levels of the Reagan administration. The committee chairman noted that while the President Reagan had not known of the diversion of Iran arms profits to the Nicaraguan contras, it was he who ordered arms to be sold to Iran. And it was the people immediately under him who carried out his policy in secret. Again and again, the theme brought out was that a foreign policy won't be successful unless it's supported by the American people. Today began with a continuation of testimony by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who was criticized in the Tower Commission report for not doing enough to dissuade President Reagan from the Iran arms sales. Republic Senator Warren Rudman cited some of the criticisms in the report.

Sen. WARREN RUDMAN, (R) New Hampshire: As one who I'm sure shares your view that our cabinet form of government only works when you have competent, strong cabinet members who are allowed to do their jobs, and listening to all the testimony, including yours and Secretary Shultz's, I believe that is a very unfair characterization, both as to you and Secretary Shultz. I wonder if you would like to respond a bit more than you have as to this particular part of that quote, ''Instead, they simply distanced themselves from the program, and they protected the record, and they were not energetic --'' etc. I wonder if you would like to comment on that, Mr. Secretary. CASPAR WEINBERGER, Secretary of Defense: Well, I would like to comment on it, Senator. And I think that's the kind of remark, or the kind of conclusion that can only be drawn by people who don't have any knowledge of the facts. There was no evidence to sustain that kind of conclusion at all that I am familiar with -- nothing that the commission talked with me about. Nothing that as far as I know they heard. Nothing that has come out in any of these hearings would sustain that conclusion. I agree with you. I think it's a very unfair characterization. It's not based on any evidence that I know of at all, and indeed it could not be if anybody had taken the trouble to explore the facts. And indeed that is the view of -- the President in his very generous and very fair spirit told the American public that conclusion was exactly wrong. Sen. RUDMAN: Indeed, Mr. Secretary, the record, I think, shows that on each and every occasion where you were part of a group discussing this with the President, you and Secretary Shultz -- and I would use the word, from what I know of this -- vehemently opposed the policy. Sec. WEINBERGER: I think that is a fair characterization. Some would even use stronger language. The President might. But in any event, we did oppose it. We opposed it at every step of the way and if the charge of distancing one's self were true, I would not have ever made any further inquiries when I first began getting the intelligence reports that led me in to what the facts actually were. Sen. RUDMAN: Since you've been in the cabinet with Secretary of State Schultz, would you recollect for us how many other times you and Secretary Shultz strongly agreed on anything and the President went the opposite way? Sec. WEINBERGER: Well, Secretary Shultz told me the other day that we should never agree on anything again, because look what happened when we did (laughter). But we have agreed on many, many things. But I don't recall very many in which the President has also gone the other way. We have usually -- we see eye to eye on a great many issues. Rep. ED JENKINS, (D) Georgia: With your forceful opposition to the proposal, as well as that of Sec. Shultz, who was the most persuasive person -- I keep -- during all of these hearings, we have not heard the person that persuaded the President -- was it Casey, or was it McFarlane? Sec. WEINBERGER: Two things, sir. First of all, I heard Mr. McFarlane and Mr. Poindexter push the program from time to time at its beginning and later. But the assumption, sir, seems to be that somebody has to persuade the President of something one way or the other. The President is a man with very definite ideas. He is a superb leader in my opinion, and he has his own judgments and his own ideas. And he's going to listen to advice, and he's going to listen to recommendations. But he's not always going to follow them. I've had the great privilege of working with him for many, many years, and have made recommendations to him before that he has not agreed to, and made recommendations that he has agreed to. And made recommendations that he personally agreed with. He has his own mind that he makes up after listening to a number of different views. And so I don't -- I think, as I say, there were two or three things that were very persuasive to him here, and one of them was certainly that it would be a good idea to get a better relationship with Iran. And I argued strenuously that we couldn't do that with the group that's there now. He also obviously was motivated by the hope of getting the hostages back. And I think all of these things were things that he was -- that were persuasive to him. But I don't think he requires any one person to be for something, or any one person to be against it and then to follow that slavishly. He doesn't operate that way. He never has. WOODRUFF: Finally, it was the turn of the four committee chairmen and vice chairmen, two Democrats and two Republicans, to sum up the seven months of investigation that has now almost come to an end.

Rep. CHENEY: President Reagan has enjoyed many successes during his more than six years in office. Clearly, this was not one of them. As the President himself has said, mistakes were made. Mistakes in selling arms to Iran and allowing the transaction to become focused on releasing of American hostages, diverting funds from the arms sales to support for the contras, misleading the congress about the extent of NSC staff involvement with the contras, delaying notification of anyone in congress of the transactions until after the story broke in Lebanese newspapers, and tolerating the decision making process within the upper reaches of the Administration that lacked integrity and accountability for key elements of the process. But there are some mitigating factors. Factors which, while they don't justify Administration mistake, go a long way to helping explain and make them understandable. The need, still evident today, to find some way to alter our current relationships with Iran. The President's compassionate concern over the fate of Americans held hostage in Lebanon, especially the fate of Mr. William Buckley, our CIA station chief in Beirut. The vital importance of keeping the Nicaraguan Democratic Resistance alive until congress could reverse itself and repeal the Boland Amendment. The fact that for the President and most of his key advisors, these events did not loom as large at the time they occurred as they do now. Congressional vacillation and uncertainty about our policies in Central American. And finally, a Congressional track record of leaks of sensitive information sufficient to worry even the most apologetic advocate of an expansive role for congress in foreign policymaking. It's also important to point out what these hearing did not show. There is no evidence that the President had any knowledge of the diversion of profits from the arms sales to the Nicaraguan Democratic Resistance. In fact, all of the evidence indicates that he had no knowledge whatsoever of the diversion. There is also no evidence of any effort by the President or his senior advisors to cover up these events. On the contrary, the evidence clearly shows that the President and the Attorney General were the ones primarily responsible for bringing these events and matter to the attention of the nation. In other words, these hearings have demonstrated conclusively in my opinion that the President has indeed been telling the truth. What does it all mean? What does it signify? These events have been characterized by some pretty strong statements by some of my colleagues on the committees and by some of the press over the past eight months. We've heard talk of a grave constitutional crisis, listened to expressions of moral indignation and outrage, and even been treated to talk about a coup in the White House, a junta run by a lieutenant colonel and an admiral. My own personal view is there has been far too much apocalyptic rhetoric about these events, most of it unjustified. If there ever was a crisis, which I doubt, it ended before these committees were established. And to the extent that corrective action was required, the President took it unilaterally before our committees had taken a single word of public testimony. Saying that the investigators have sometimes gotten carried away in an effort to outdo one another's colorful phrasemaking in no way justifies the mistakes that were made. But what's required here, it seems to me, is a little calm, dispassionate analysis if we're going to learn from our study of events. Clearly, there is plenty of work to be done, and if congress is going to equip itself to play a constructive role in the conduct of U. S. foreign policy in the years ahead -- and I fervently hope that future presidents will take away from these hearings one important lesson -- that no foreign policy can be effected for long without the wholehearted support of congress and the American people. It is often easier to develop a policy to be pursued overseas than it is to muster the political support here at home to sustain it. Covert action has its place in the kind of world we live in. But it is no substitute for the kind of effective political leadership that brings around a recalcitrant congress and persuades the American people of the importance of supporting those who share our faith in democracy. Sen. RUDMAN: The purpose of these hearings has not been to cast blame or point fingers. It has been to learn from our mistakes by examining them in the open daylight. To hold them under the magnifying eye of television so that we can see where the Executive Branch and the Congress went wrong -- and make such recommendations for change, if any, in federal law or the foreign policy process. To ensure that we never face an episode like this again. And since it is impossible to write laws against all human frailty, our purpose of these hearings has been to educate the American people, especially the future leaders of our great country. To dispute the observation that the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing. so that they might learn from mistakes of others and avoid some of the pitfalls that face those who are in power. Neither I nor any of my colleague are ready at this point to definitively state all of our factual conclusions, much less our policy recommendations. Speaking for myself, I am going to need the month of August to review, digest and reflect on the massive information we have collected. However, there are some things that stand out after these weeks of testimony. Certain NSC staff showed total disrespect for the laws of the United States and our system of government. In effect, adopting a position that the end justifies the means. Adm. Poindexter made major decisions without consulting the President, misled or lied to cabinet officers and the congress, congratulated Col. North for lying to congress, and shredded official government documents, including those reflecting presidential decisions. Col. North lied to congress and the attorney general, shredded government documents, thereby frustrating a fact finding inquiry undertaken at the specific request of the President, and engaged in a number of questionable activities, admittedly with a superior approval. He may have accepted a gift from a private individual knowing that it was illegal, albeit for understandable motives. And saw nothing wrong with commingling official and personal funds. On this last point, while Col. North persuasively testified that he gained no personal benefit from the commingling, he destroyed the only records which would corroborate that. Both of them flouted virtually every standard operating procedure that exists within the national security establishment for the development of government policy. These actions, and the attitudes they represent are antithetical to our democratic system of government. They cannot be justified by passion, patriotism, appropriate concern over the expansion of communism in Central America or legitimate dismay over the policies enacted by the congress. The Tower Board essentially concluded that the problem in this so called Iran contra affair was that the normal processes had been ignored and that is largely true. What the Tower Board missed, however, and this is through no fault of theirs, since they lacked immunity power, subpoena authorities, staff and time, was the extent to which power was abused by a very small group of individuals. Senator Nunn opened these hearings with a remark, and I quote him, that ''we cannot promote democracy abroad by undermining it at home. '' That is what these individuals did, and in my view it is the most important revelation of these hearings. This abuse of power is dangerous to, and fundamentally unacceptable in our constitutional system of government, and the most important message that must come out of these hearings is that there is no room for such behavior in this country. There are many different perspectives represented on this committee. I have yet to hear anyone defend the diversion and the way it came about. The Administration obviously shares that view. The Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the former White House Chief of Staff all condemned the diversion. No matter how well intentioned the actions were, the officials responsible did a great disservice to our president, and the country that they had sworn to serve. The philosopher Nietzsche said, ''Democratic contrivances are quarantine measures against that ancient plague, the lust for power. As such, they are very necessary and very boring. '' When those safeguards are abused, as they were in this instance, it threatens the liberty of us all. There is no place for that kind of behavior, or even the attitude it represents among high officials in our government. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Rep. LEE HAMILTON, (D) Indiana: In its joint report, the committees should focus on several areas. First, accountability. Greater accountability to elected officials, and ultimately to the American people, will require rigorous oversight for the congress, more openness and less secrecy, more consultation, a more thorough review of legal review, better record keeping, use of appropriated funds rather than private, or third country donations, to carry out policy, supervision and acceptance of responsibility up the chain of command and decision by elected officials rather than staff. Second, intelligence analysis should be separated from policy formulation. Substantial testimony before these committees show great confusion between intelligence and policy functions. Questionable intelligence was used to bolster poor decisions. Good intelligence is essential to good foreign policy. But intelligence should drive policy, not vice versa. Too often, intelligence is seen as a tool to make policy look good, rather than a tool for making good policy. Covert actions which are not really intelligence operations can be an important instrument of foreign policy. These hearings show that we must reassess how we conduct them. To be effective, covert actions must be based on statutory authority, including a written finding and notice to the congress, they must meet a standard of accountability, including legal review by the Attorney General and policy review by the Secretaries of State and Defense. They must be determined by an intelligence assessment based on facts, not on preconceived notions of policymaking. They must be used to supplement policy, not to become the policy itself. And they must meet a standard of acceptability. That standard includes consistency with public policies, and a reasonable assurance that the American people would support a covert action if they knew about it. Third, the President and the congress need to exhibit a greater sensitivity to their respective roles. The President is the preeminent foreign policy maker. Only he can make the hard decisions. The buck does not stop anywhere else. The president's decisions must be clean and crisp. Otherwise, as we have seen in these hearings, confusion follows. And those who work for him cannot carry out his policies successfully. The President must understand that our system works better if he engages in consultation before, not after, policy has been formulated. The Congress also needs to get its house in order. It must strengthen its ability to protect secrets. It must show a willingness to engage in consultation, avoid interference in day to day policy implementation, and take its share of responsibility for shared decision on tough issues. The Congress must strike a balance between responsible criticism and necessary cooperation with the President. Fourth, the Constitution and the rule of law work if we make them work. They are not self executing. We must strengthen our allegiance to the concept that this is a nation of laws and of checks and balances. Solution to the problems of decision making revealed in these hearings lies less in new structures or new laws than in proper attitudes. Secretary Shultz reminded us that trust is the coin of the realm. He insisted on honesty in public life. Without trust in those who hold office, democratic government is not possible. Sometimes that trust is misplaced. And the system falters. But to reject the system because it occasionally falters and to rely instead on shortcuts and excessive secrecy, as was done in the events that these committees have examined is a prescription for disaster. Sen. INOUYE: The story has not been told. Speaking for myself, I see it as a chilling story. A story of deceit and duplicity and the arrogant disregard of the rule of law. It is also a story of withholding vital information from the American people, from the congress, from the Secretary of State, from the Secretary of Defense, and according to Admiral Poindexter's testimony, from the President himself. It is also a story of a flawed policy kept alive by a secret White House junta, despite repeated warnings and signs of failure, with concession filed upon concession, culminating even in a promise to help secure the release of the imprisoned Dawa terrorists who bombed the United States embassy in Kuwait. It is a story of the National Security Council staff becoming a dominant organ of foreign policy, shutting out those who disagreed with its views. It is a story of how a great nation betrayed the principles that made it great, and thereby became hostage to hostage takers. And certainly once the unsound policies began to unravel, it became a story of a cover up. Of shredding and altering of historical record, and of a fall guy plan suitable for agrade B movie, not a great power. Whatever the motives of some of the participants, I can only echo the reaction of Chairman Fascell upon hearing the story of self proclaimed patriotism. ''How come I don't feel good?'' I believe these hearings will be remembered longest not for the facts they elicited. But for the extraordinary and extraordinarily frightening views of government they exposed. Fortunately, our hearings were able to present another vision of government. One that is accountable to the people, of legitimate, not secret government, in which trust is the coin of the realm, as Secretary of State George Shultz said. This is the balanced government that our founding fathers contemplated in our Constitution. In describing their motives for riding rough shed over the constitutional restraints built into our form of government, Adm. Poindexter and Lt. Col. North used almost the identical words. ''This is a dangerous world,'' they said. That, my fellow citizens, is an excuse for autocracy, not for policy. Because no times were more dangerous than when our country was born, when revolution was our midwife. Our system of government has withstood the tests and tensions of civil conflict, the depression and two world wars, times hardly less challenging than our own present. Indeed, as our greatest military leaders, such as Washington, Marshall and Eisenhower have recognized, our form of government is what gives us strength. It must be safeguarded, particularly when times are dangerous and the temptation to arrogant power is the greatest. Vigilance abroad does not require us to abandon our ideals or rule of law at home. On the contrary, without our principles and without our ideals we have little that is special or worthy to defend. History records that almost 200 years ago in September of 1787, as the Constitutional Convention was finishing its business, a bystander asked Benjamin Franklin, ''Well, doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?'' And Dr. Franklin replied, ''A republic, if you can keep it. '' By allowing the sunlight on this unseemly affair and by showing what happens when foreign policy is conceived and executed by cabal and not by lawful consensus, we have tried to make our contribution to keeping it. My fellow Americans, out of this experience, may we all better understand and appreciate our Constitution, strive harder to preserve it, and make a fresh start at restoring the trust between the branches of government. For in America, as 200 years ago, the people will rule. With that, these hearings stand recessed until further call. WOODRUFF: The committees will actually hold several more days of closed hearings to take the testimony of some CIA officials before the committee staff starts the work of drafting a final report. The committees aim to have the report, which will be issued jointly, ready by the end of September. Some of the attention will now shift to the independent counsel appointed to investigate the affair, Lawrence Walsh. He is expected to seek criminal prosecutions of some of the figures involved. Robin? Lessons Learned MacNEIL: Now, two observers tell us what they think the hearings accomplished. Pat Buchanan, former White House Communications Director, is now a syndicated columnist. New York Times columnist, Anthony Lewis, joins us from Public Station WGBH in Boston. Tony Lewis, what did that accomplish? ANTHONY LEWIS, New York Times: I hope they accomplished some education in the ways we've just been hearing. I thought Senator Rudment was eloquent on the importance of respect for law. Senator Inouye on our history. I must say, during this strange last month, I thought often of the coincidence of this being the 200th anniversary of the Constitution, and without meaning to be pompous about it, after all, the people who put us where we are bet on law, bet on a system of checks and balances, and it's worked rather well. We're the richest country the earth has ever seen, the most powerful. And what we've observed in these hearing is that just as the forefathers predicted, there are always going to be people who want to arrogate power unto themselves, who are impatient with law and with democracy. And they hoped that their system would prevent those people from taking power, and it did. Although I think in some respects, it was as the Duke of Wellington said, a damned close run thing. MacNEIL: Pat Buchanan, what do you think they accomplished, the hearings? PAT BUCHANAN, former White House communications director: Well, I don't think the hearings really accomplished a great deal at all. I think we knew the basic story that the President approved the sale of weapons last November. We knew last November about the diversion of funds to the contras. We knew from the Tower report about what had gone on at the White House. So I don't think they accomplished anything. I do think the hanging out of America's dirty linen, the exposure of all our foreign policy processes, revelations about Brunei and the Saudis was damaging. Damaging to the country, and I'm not sure who can trust us again. But politically, Robin, I think the hearings have backfired very badly on the people who conducted them and who brought them on. Their motivation, I think, was bad. It was to injure and damage the President, and perhaps expose him as a liar. I think Ollie North, who was a nebulous figure last February, is now a national hero. John Poindexter now has tremendous support. The President has been exonerated. And by a 4 to 3 vote now in the country -- excuse me, a survey -- the American people believe the Congress itself is responsible for the Iran contra affair. So I think you had a political backfire, and in 1988, I think the future of this is congress has made itself something of an issue itself to be attacked and targeted in the politics of 1988. MacNEIL: A political backfire with congress the loser? Tony Lewis? Mr. LEWIS: Well, it's funny how that seems to be on Pat Buchanan's mind. And now the last I heard of Pat's views, he was urging a kind of elected dictatorship for this country, in which the President should ignore the views of congress, and if it refuses to vote funds for things the President wants, the President should just go ahead and spend the money anyway. I don't think the American public's going to go for that. I don't think it's going to go for a President who tolerated petty caudillos, like the people on his staff. There are always in this country, there have been in history, periods in which the public has become infatuated with some psychopath or demagogue. But we have a system to prevent that from distorting our fate as a country. And I think in time it will work. MacNEIL: Pat Buchanan? Mr. BUCHANAN: It's really an outrage. It really is, to call John Poindexter and Col. North psychopaths and demagogues. I think what the American people looked at, Robin, was motivation. The President made a mistake, but his motivation was get back the hostages, opening to Iran. Poindexter and North's motivation was to get weapons down to an embattled democratic resistance in Nicaragua when the Democratic party, four fifths of it in both houses, had voted to deliver up our ally in the field to the communist enemy in Nicaragua. The American people looked at what Ollie North did -- he shredded this, he didn't tell the truth. Poindexter tore up this. And they said, ''By God, those men were well motivated. They were working for this country. And the people that belong in the dock are the ones sitting right up there on those two -- well, sitting up there doing the questioning. '' MacNEIL: Tony Lewis? Mr. LEWIS: Well motivated -- or to put it -- forgive me, Pat. To put it as Senator Rudman put it very accurately, well motivated in the sense of the end justifies the means. And that is a doctrine that I thought this country was devoted to opposing. I thought that was the communist doctrine, and I thought we were against it, and I hope we still are. Mr. BUCHANAN: The end here was saving the Democratic Resistance. The means used -- shredding documents -- are not inherently immoral. What congress has done is put this country, this President, North and Poindexter, in a moral dilemma -- to choose between cutting off their friends or violating something, maybe, a Boland Amendment which is not even a criminal statute. If there were crimes committed, why has it taken Mr. Walsh, who's been sitting on his duff for eight months, that long even to come up with an offense against the law? MacNEIL: Tony Lewis, President Reagan is going to respond to the hearings next week in a televised speech to the nation. What can he say? What would you expect him to say? Mr. LEWIS: Well, I think he has a good deal of explaining to do himself. You remember that last November his previous speech on this, the one that Pat Buchanan says was full disclosure -- of course it wasn't -- he said then, the President, ''We did not --'' repeat '' -- did not trade weapons for hostages, nor will we. '' Well, we know now the President did not speak the truth, and there was every effort to trade weapons for hostages. He has that to explain. And he has, I think, mainly to explain the existence of a, what Senator Nunn and others have called in effect, an internal coup. The President allowing people, appointed people on the staff to lie to, to deceive, to defy, all the elected officials and the higher appointed officials of this government. It's extraordinary. That's a lot of explaining. MacNEIL: What do you think the President should say, Pat Buchanan? Mr. BUCHANAN: Well, I think the President should say again that while well motivated, what he did in the Iran initiative, sending of weapons, which contradicted policy -- covert operations should never do that -- I think that was a mistake. But I also think the President should say, Now that we've removed the mote from our eye, the congress of the United States should remove the beam from its own eye and realize that the problem behind the diversion is the fact that the congress will not address the Soviet military beachhead on the mainland of North America. They're not down there because they don't like Ronald Reagan or the conservative movement with the Republican party and Congress has got to confront that. MacNEIL: Pat Buchanan, you argued ten days, two weeks, ago for a presidential pardon for North and Poindexter. Do you still feel that way after having heard the -- a lot of their testimony contradicted by George Shultz and Weinberger and Meese? Mr. BUCHANAN: Yes. Let me clarify it. I didn't say a pardon right now. That would be a mistake, because it would give an appearance of adeal. What the President should do is light a fire under his employee, Mr. Walsh, and tell him, get his indictments -- MacNEIL: That's the special prosecutor -- Mr. BUCHANAN: Special -- independent counsel -- MacNEIL: Independent counsel -- Mr. BUCHANAN: Let's get the indictments out, let's see what they say, and if he comes in with some Mickey Mouse thing like conspiracy to violate the Boland Amendment, the President should tell him, ''Lay out your case. These people don't belong at Ft. Leavenworth. The American people have heard them. They have made a decision. '' However, I don't know if the independent counsel has something which would be venal that we haven't heard. So I would tell the President, if I were talking to him, ''Sir, let's wait until he comes out with what he's got. He's got a weak hand, let's make him play it. '' MacNEIL: Tony Lewis, on the pardon question? Mr. LEWIS: Well, I have to say first, Robin, that it's with a certain amount of amusement I hear all the advice to Judge Walsh, the independent prosecutor. Right wing radicals like Pat Buchanan and others have been trying for months to put him out of business, because they thought he might be serious, he might actually do something. Now they want him to hurry. I think he has acted correctly in taking his time and trying to do the job while Congress was making it more difficult for him, in fact. Of course a pardon would be devastatingly bad politically for the President. We learned that with Gerald Ford and the pardon of Richard Nixon. I can't believe that such a political mistake would -- MacNEIL: Well, gentlemen, let's move on. Jim? JIM LEHRER: There are those who say there is a connection between this Iran contra affair and the new and rising tensions with Iran in and over the Persian Gulf. Someone who believes that is Michael Ledeen. He was involved in the Reagan Administration's ill fated Iranian initiative from the very beginning. He was a consultant to the National Security Council then and played a key role in bringing U. S. and Iranian officials together. The Iran contra committees will soon be hearing from Mr. Ledeen in private session. Explain the connection between what's happened here, the Iran contra affair, and what's happening there now in the Persian Gulf. MICHAEL LEDEEN, former NSC consultant: Well, there's a radical disjunction between what we'd been doing for the preceding 18 months and what we've done for the last several months. Up until the time that the story broke in the world press, we have been cuddling up to Iran, we had an initial stage where we talked about some kind of key political change there. Then we settled into an arms for hostage mode. We sold them lots of arms, we got out three hostages. There was a relationship that was going forward. When the story exploded, the Iranians made it as clear as they possibly could, in every possible way, that they wanted to continue this relationship in some way or another. We dropped it. And then we've gone through a series of spasms in the Persian Gulf that are really very hard to explain. We were attacked by Iraq. And we responded by declaring war against Iran. Which is surely one of the more bizarre foreign policy responses in recent history. And the Iranians right now are in a position where all those people who were working for some kind or relationship with the United States have been hung out to dry. They've been abandoned, and they must now radicalize. LEHRER: You still believe that there are people in positions of leadership in Iran who want to have a real -- to use your term -- cuddly relationship with the United States? Mr. LEDEEN: There's no doubt that there's all kinds of people in Iran who desperately want a better relationship with the United States. It's a question of what they're prepared to pay for it, or what they're prepared to do to get it. And whether they can pull it off. But that they want it, there isn't any shadow of doubt. LEHRER: Well, as you know, Sec. Weinberger among others told congressional committees that that was absurd. That there is nobody in the leadership who feels that way. On what do you base your statement. Mr. LEDEEN: It's interesting that you should raise that. Because when I briefed Sec. Weinberger last summer -- summer of '86 -- and told him what I had actually done, and that in the five months I was involved in the spring of '85 to November '85, we had actually established relationships with important and powerful people in Iran who were quite unequivocal about wanting to change the policies of the country and to get a better relationship with the United States. And I told him that we had walked away from a lot of those contacts. And he was shocked by that and said, ''How come nobody ever told me about that?'' LEHRER: ''We walked away --'' What do you mean? Who's ''we?'' Mr. LEDEEN: We, the United States. One of these contacts was simply dropped as we went over into an arms and hostage business. LEHRER: We meaning the National Security staff? We meaning the State Department? We meaning the President? There's an awful lot of ''wes'' here. Can you be more specific? Mr. LEDEEN: Well, my ''we'' is just the government of the United States. There were no further contacts with the people so far as I know. And the contacts that were followed were in a fairly narrow channel leading to the arms for hostage business. But the point is whether you like it or whether you don't -- and I was personally quite opposed to the arms for hostages negotiation -- LEHRER: You favored contact -- trying to re cuddle the relationship. But you did not want to sell those arms for hostages. Is that correct? Mr. LEDEEN: That's correct. I didn't want to sell them arms under any circumstances, because I thought that if they continued to get American arms, we would never be able to evaluate how serious they were about major issues. The strategic questions. LEHRER: But weren't the very people you were talking to, Ghorbanifar and others, weren't they arms dealers? Wasn't that all they wanted from the very beginning? Mr. LEDEEN: No. Ghorbanifar was not an arms dealer. He had never dealt in arms before this matter began. This is the first time in his career, so far as anybody can prove, that I know -- and he adamantly says he never dealt in it before. And the people that I met with from Iran were opposed to the arms for hostage business. And they berated me violently the first time that we met, saying, ''Why are you selling weapons to these people?'' So it was quite a different story. LEHRER: So your position is that if we had not sold Iran arms, and had not tried to make a hostage deal out of it, we might be in a much better situation now with Iran and might not have this problem in the Persian Gulf. Mr. LEDEEN: I have to say two different things. First, I don't know what would have happened. I'm not a prophet. All I can is the hostage thing was a mistake for reasons quite different from the one that's normally given. The real tragedy of dealing for hostages in sending arms to Iran is that the basic questions regarding Iran remained unanswered. We don't know the answers to those questions -- those are the real questions. The strategic questions. The second point is the United States has to have an Iran policy. We cannot carry on in the Persian Gulf pretending that one can base policy on some kind of abstract, moralistic system of values and ignore the existence of the biggest, most powerful buffer between the Soviet Union and the Persian Gulf. You have to come to grips with it. If you want to declare war on them, that's a policy. If you want to cuddle up to them, that's a policy. If you want to try to subvert them, that's a policy. But you have to define your objective and go after it. LEHRER: And your position is we don't have a policy? Mr. LEDEEN: Any country that responds to an attack by Iraq by declaring war on Iran is fundamentally confused. LEHRER: That make sense to you, Tony Lewis? Mr. LEWIS: It makes a good deal of sense. I found Mr. Ledeen's comments extremely interesting. And what's striking is that when you step back from what he says, what the government of the United States, as he calls it -- whoever the ''they'' were -- actually did was in contrast to that. It was to deal with people who only wanted more and more arm and who behaved in a way, as we now see in relation to Saudi Arabia or in the Gulf and so on. The same kind of extremist regime that we dislike. LEHRER: Pat Buchanan, what's your view of Michael Ledeen's theories? Mr. BUCHANAN: I agree with him to the extent that you've got to try to establish some kind of relationship with Iran. And Iran, with 42 million people and a decisive position on the Gulf and natural antipathy toward the Soviet Union of any Iranian nationalist, I think you ought to look to that. But I don't see in the current situation -- I really don't see how we can conceivably do it, given the present government in power. To me, that government that's in control and running the show over there is exactly what Cap Weinberger said. And the President's terrible mistake, I think, is again the covert policy contradicted the stated policy. And the covert policy was not something he could defend to his own people -- selling arms to terrorists. I mean, the problem -- excuse me -- with Tony Lewis is not Ronald Reagan's problem. It's with people that agree with Pat Buchanan and Ronald Reagan, who are both shocked by the sale of arms, where the hurt came and where the drop came. I think that's the President's problem. I don't know now, with those ships going up there, though, if the United States' credibility is on the line -- we've made our position known. And I think if Iran does something to those vessels, I think the United States doesn't have any other choice now but respond. LEHRER: Is that your reading of the situation, Michael Ledeen? That we are out there on some kind of (unintelligible)? Mr. LEDEEN: Yes. I think so. I agree with Pat. Everybody I know agree that if we're attacked, we're now compelled to respond. And I doubt that we've thought out how we're going to respond and what are the political consequences of a response. Because there's no question that we can attack Iran at will and inflict as much damage on them as we want. But what do we want the political outcome of that attack to be? That's the -- LEHRER: Do you think -- is it your thesis, Mr. Ledeen, that in reaction to the Iran contra affair the Administration has come up with a policy that doesn't quite work? Mr. LEDEEN: No, I don't think that that's what happened. I know a lot of people believe that we've now overreacted to be mean to Iran to show that we didn't mean it all along. I think that this is just a normal kind of mistake of the sort that we make all the time. It's -- look, this is a very tough area. Iran is a very tough country to deal with. There is no simple, wonderful thing that you can do with regard to Iran. And as both Tony and Pat have said, Iran is the single most unpopular country in the United States. If you do the poll rankings, Americans hate Iranians more than anybody else. LEHRER: Pat Buchanan, you said that on this program many times that that's where the President missed it. Mr. BUCHANAN: The only problem came -- is with the Iranians -- selling weapons to them. (unintelligible), that's right. If the Iranians right now, Jim, look, if they're behind what's going on in Saudi Arabia, if they're forcing it, if they want a confrontation with us, for whatever reason, we don't have any other choice, I think, but to go into it, whatever the political consequences, because the political consequences here would be disastrous if we didn't. Mr. LEWIS: I just want to say how I think it's important that Pat and I really agree solidly on this question of the mistake in dealing with the current regime, and the wrongness, the evil of that regime in Iran. I'm a little more worried about the consequences at the moment than I think Mr. Ledeen and Pat Buchanan are, because I'm not sure we have not only our political ducks in a row, but our military ones. So far, our performance militarily has not been very effective. And I'm just not sure we haven't rushed into something without being prepared, even militarily. LEHRER: Well, do you -- the military thing we'll get to in a minute. But do you smell war coming? I mean, do you smell -- are we in a position where the United States has to react if Iran -- for instance, today, Robin reported at the top that there are now martyr squads aboard some Iranian ships ready to go on suicide missions against the United States. If one of those things happens, do we have to -- what do we have to do, Tony? Mr. LEWIS: I think we do have to do something. I agree with what I think Mr. Ledeen said a moment ago -- or Pat. I -- just -- I don't say we have to do it, but I think it's in the nature of the logic of our policy that we do. And let's remember something about this Iran. Important as it is -- and we've all said you have to understand it, try to deal with it, accept that there is this revolution, sure. But look at what they do. Their policy is to provoke. That's exactly what they've done in Mecca. They've provoked something and are gaining by the death of their people. And it would -- in a sense if they provoked us to retaliation, it might again do them good. And that's the danger. Their tendency to provoke. Mr. LEDEEN: Again, I think if we come back to where this whole thing started. I existed in this story because our intelligence in Iran was so terrible. We didn't know anything really about Iran in the spring of 1985 when I was sent out on a research project. My guess -- LEHRER: You were (unintelligible) by Bud McFarlane, who was then the National Security Advisor -- Mr. LEDEEN: Right. And in the midst of it all, Mr. Ghorbanifar and the rest, as they say, is history. But I suspect they are in a similar position today. I doubt that we have a clear picture of the internal situation in Iran. I don't think we know really what the internal balance of power is. I think it is a certainty that huge numbers of people inside Iran are sick to death of this regime. It has destroyed the country. It is a ruination. I was frankly astonished to hear Sec. Weinberger say that throughout this whole period he thought that Iran was the stronger power in the war, and then add with a kind of casualness insouciance at the end, ''Well, of course, Iraq had total control of the skies. '' Iraq can bomb Iran any time they want to. A lot of people don't know that. LEHRER: Well, what about Tony Lewis's point, though, that politics aside, the United States may not have its military ducks in a row to even react in a responsible and upbeat way? Mr. LEDEEN: Listen, Iran is a country with no night radar, whose air force does not fly, and our basic weapon of attack is through the skies. So they cannot defend themselves against us, ducks or no ducks. We can do it with pigeons or seagulls, I suppose. Mr. BUCHANAN: I'm glad to see Tony Lewis agreeing with a radical right wing columnist here for a change. LEHRER: He might term you very differently, but go ahead. Mr. BUCHANAN: It is up to the Iranians. They turn over the next card. Now, if it is the larder boats and all the rest of it, I think if the United States makes a small, punitive strike, it will suit the Iranian's purposes, which is to rally all their people around against the (unintelligible). LEHRER: That's Tony's point. Mr. BUCHANAN: That means to me -- I think this country is ready for whatever the President would do to Iran -- and I agree with Michael's point -- we have the capacity to do a lot more than sink a couple of motorboats in the Gulf. And I'm not sure that the United States, say, taking out the Iranian Air Force or something like that -- which we could do, even if it took us some time -- I'm not sure that's in the interest of the people who are trying to provoke us. They gotta be thinking that over as well. That Mr. Reagan might not just do some small response. Mr. LEWIS: The question -- if I may say this, Jim -- the question is what you do after you take something out. You take out an airfield, or you take an installation. But we're still there in the Gulf, and we may still be vulnerable to those suicide squads. And I think -- we know from a lot of recent history that the American public may not be so enthusiastic when it comes to long term, grinding, debilitating things. Mr. LEDEEN: That's what brings us back to basics, which is politics. The question that has to be answered is with Iran. What do you want to do with it? What kind of relationship do you want to have? And with whom. And you cannot evaluate this question as a purely military question. It is -- LEHRER: Gentlemen, are the three of you not caught by the irony that here after there's been U. S. sale of arms to Iran, here we're talking a few months later about going to war with these people? Mr. BUCHANAN: We shouldn't have been selling them the weapons. Mr. LEWIS: We all agree on that. Mr. BUCHANAN: Look, there was a problem there -- we're getting right to it, Jim -- is what about the political situation in the United States? What kill -- hurt the President badly was what happened politically here. A strike on Iran -- I don't care what it does to Iran -- LEHRER: Everybody would cheer that? Mr. BUCHANAN: Reagan would go back up to 80%. Mr. LEDEEN: Yes, people would love it, even if it turned out to be a terrible disaster for us? LEHRER: Do you agree, Tony Lewis? Mr. LEWIS: No, I'm not so sure. There'd be a momentary rush of enthusiasm, yes. But I think then people would begin to worry about the consequences of entanglement out there. LEHRER: All right. We have to do our entanglement tonight. Which I've enjoyed all three of you. Thank you very much. MacNEIL: And finally, the main points in the news once again. The public phase of the Iran contra hearings ended, and the White House said President Reagan would comment in a speech next week. U. S. warships escorted a Kuwaiti tanker safely out of the Persian Gulf, as Iran warned all ships and aircraft to stay out of its waters for three days of naval maneuvers. Good night, Jim. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.