2 Meetings of Key Figures Cited : Iran Panels Put Focus on Possible Cover-up

WASHINGTON —  On Nov. 25, 1986, just hours after the White House disclosed that money had been diverted to the Nicaraguan rebels from the Iran arms sales, the scandal’s key players huddled with an attorney in a Washington hotel room--their second session in as many days.

The discussion that afternoon was interrupted twice by separate telephone calls from President Reagan and Vice President George Bush to Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, who had been fired from the White House’s National Security Council staff earlier in the day.

Refuse to Discuss Meetings

These meetings, which all of the participants now refuse to discuss, lie at the heart of what congressional investigators strongly suspect was an orchestrated cover-up involving North and the two Iran- contra middlemen, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord and Albert A. Hakim, along with their lawyer, prominent Washington attorney Thomas C. Green.

While these figures in the Iran-contra scandal insist that they did nothing in violation of the law, the Senate and House committees have uncovered evidence that North and his associates went to considerable lengths to hide the details of their activities once it became clear to them that the whole operation was about to be exposed to public view and investigated by the Justice Department.

And the possibility of such a cover-up is one of the central points now being pursued by the congressional committees as they prepare to resume public hearings later this month.

Both North and Secord--as well as North’s secretary, Fawn Hall--are known to have shredded classified materials relating to the project in the days immediately preceding Nov. 25, and North instructed Hall to alter certain key documents showing that the White House had been involved in providing military assistance to the Nicaraguan resistance, despite a law prohibiting government aid.

Hall has also admitted that while in the company of North and Green, she smuggled potentially incriminating secret documents out of the White House complex inside her clothing to keep them from falling into the hands of FBI agents who had been sent to seal off North’s office.

Stunned by Hall Testimony

Members of the special House and Senate committees were stunned last week when Hall sought to justify her actions by saying that there are “times when you have to go above the written law.” Even though she quickly retracted her statement, Sen. George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) later noted that others involved in the affair have used a similar justification.

“It is clear that there is an effort under way to create the impression that patriotism, commitment to a cause, sincerity of belief, lack of venal motive somehow combined to justify evading the law,” he said.

So far, the evidence shows that Secord and Hakim--acting at North’s request--established a web of Swiss bank accounts and offshore companies through which they secretly sold U.S. arms to Iran and supplied military goods to the Nicaraguan resistance.

Although Secord insists that he was motivated solely by patriotism and a desire to assist the contras, records show that both he and Hakim reaped millions of dollars in personal profit from the deals--money that members of Congress believe rightfully belongs in the U.S. Treasury.

North himself stood to benefit personally as well, from the terms of a $2-million will written by Hakim and a $200,000 fund established for the education of North’s children.

Long before the Iran-contra affair was disclosed, North obviously had contemplated how he would react if the story ever became known. Robert C. Dutton, Secord’s assistant, recalled that North once told him that “if this thing ever got blown, he would end up taking the heat for the people he was running it for.”

By Friday, Nov. 21, 1986, the day that North and Hall shredded documents, the Iran arms sale initiative already had been public knowledge for about two weeks and North apparently had reason to suspect that his other secret--the diversion of arms sale funds to his contra-supply operation--was about to be exposed as well.

Admits to Diversion

His suspicions were well-founded. On Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 22 and 23, North was questioned by the Justice Department and acknowledged the diversion of funds. On Nov. 25, Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III announced the diversion and President Reagan fired North.

North conferred briefly with Green, Secord and former National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane shortly before he was questioned by Meese on Nov. 23, but it was not until the following day that North, Green, Secord and Hakim met in the first of two lengthy sessions that they now refuse to discuss. Their second meeting occurred at the Embassy Row Hotel on Nov. 25, shortly after North’s dismissal. Hakim did not attend the second session.

Mitchell, who views the meetings as “central” to the Iran-contra investigation, said in an interview that he assumes the four men got together on Nov. 24 and 25 to “coordinate their testimony”--an action he characterized as “a cover-up.”

“I would imagine the conversation would have been about what everyone was going to say,” agreed Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), who like Mitchell has been trying to learn what happened during the Nov. 24 and 25 meetings.

A well-known author and professor of legal ethics, who declined to be named, said that the committees have good reason to suspect a cover-up. “It sure looks like obstruction of justice to me, with an attorney right in the middle of it,” he said.

See Abuse of Right

Green, who contends that he was acting as attorney for North, Secord and Hakim at the time of the meetings, has refused to allow any participant to discuss the sessions on grounds that they are protected by attorney-client privilege. But Mitchell and Rudman, both former prosecutors, charged that the four men are abusing the right of attorney-client privilege.

“We always seem to have problems getting conversations when Mr. Green is in a room with Mr. Secord, Mr. Hakim and Col. North,” Rudman said. “I happen to think that it’s been orchestrated by someone, I don’t know who, to keep this congressional committee from getting information.”

In an effort to undermine the claim of attorney-client privilege, Rudman recently made public the transcript of a committee interview with a top Justice Department official, who said that Green told him on Nov. 24 that Hakim was “to blame” for the diversion of Iran arms sale funds to the contras.

“I find it remarkable that a lawyer who tells a man in good faith that he is representing him on that same day is telling high Justice Department officials that he is the only one that is ‘to blame’ for the alleged diversion,” Rudman said.

Moreover, Mitchell noted that neither North nor Hakim was ever billed by Green for his representation. Both men retained other attorneys shortly after Nov. 25, and Secord is the only one of the three still being represented by Green.

Panels to Rule

Ultimately, it will be up to the committees to determine whether the four men can legitimately use the claim of attorney-client privilege to continue to hide their discussions of Nov. 24 and 25. Rudman indicated that the decision will be made before North is called to testify in mid-July.

If it is decided that Hakim was not being represented by Green, according to Rudman, he could be compelled to describe what happened at the meeting he attended on Nov. 24, or run the risk of being held in contempt of Congress.

Green’s claim of attorney-client privilege also could be undermined, according to Rudman and Mitchell, by new evidence that the attorney himself played a minor but apparently lucrative role in the Iran-contra operation. Hakim testified that Green received a $45,000 loan from the Iran-contra funds as well as several substantial fees before the operation was uncovered.

“Mr. Green emerges increasingly as a figure himself and not just a lawyer,” Sen. David L. Boren (D-Okla.) said. “The question is: Was he a lawyer or was he a participant?”

Green, who made a reputation in the late 1970s as attorney for one of the co-defendants of former Maryland Gov. Marvin Mandel, has declined to answer these charges publicly or to testify before a grand jury investigating the Iran-contra affair. A lawyer representing him says that Green has consistently adhered to the legal code of ethics.

Representation at Issue

Stephen Gillers, professor of ethics at New York University Law School, said in an interview that Green should not have been representing any of the Iran-contra participants if he had reason to believe that he might be a potential target of the investigation himself. “The ethical code prohibits a lawyer in that situation from being counsel to another target of an investigation,” he said.

In addition, Gillers emphasized that not all attorney-client conversations are privileged.

“Even if he was their attorney, which strains the imagination, statements uttered in the presence of counsel aren’t automatically privileged,” Gillers said. “They’re only privileged if they’re made for the purpose of obtaining legal advice. They’re not privileged if there’s probable cause that the conversations happened in furtherance of a criminal activity.”

Secord, in his testimony before the committees six weeks ago, sought to minimize the importance of his Nov. 25 meeting with North and Green. He indicated that his most vivid memory of it was receiving calls from Reagan and Bush, who wanted to console North for being fired.

“My recollection is that the discussion talked only about the events of that day; how terrible it was,” he said. “It was punctuated by the two phone calls, and that’s all that was discussed. It didn’t discuss anything of substance. It was just a hand-wringing session; we were terribly, terribly sad and unhappy and alternatively mad and so on.”

sh Frantic Call From Hall

The Nov. 25 meeting apparently ended when North received a frantic call from his secretary, Hall, urging him to return to his White House office. By her own testimony, Hall summoned North because investigators had entered the office and she realized they were going to discover documents relating to the Iran-contra affair that had not been destroyed.

By the time North returned to the office, again accompanied by Green, Hall already had stuffed the documents into her clothing with the intention of smuggling them out of the White House complex. Once outside North’s office, Hall testified, she tried to hand the documents over to North, who told her to keep them hidden until they were outside the building.

On the street, she again tried to hand over the papers. This time, she told the congressional committees, it was Green who stopped her, telling her to wait until they reached the seclusion of his nearby car.

She said that Green never advised her that she should not take the documents out of the office, even though he understood that she was violating the law.

After Hall gave the stolen documents to North outside the White House complex, she said, Green asked what she would say if asked about her role in the shredding of documents on the previous Friday.

‘We Shred Every Day’

She testified that she replied, “We shred every day”--to which Green replied “good.”

In questioning Hall, Boren suggested that her story had further complicated Green’s claim of attorney-client privilege in meetings with North, Secord and Hakim.

“Mr. Green is a lawyer and a sworn officer of the court,” Boren said, “and he at no time tried to dissuade you or make strong statements to you about not taking documents or being truthful about the shredding? He didn’t in any way attempt to urge you to preserve evidence?”

That, Hall agreed, was true.

By the next day, Nov. 26, according to Green, North and Hakim were no longer being represented by him.

Staff writer Josh Getlin contributed to this story.