What He Needs to Know

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The messages keep coming at Ronald Reagan, from friends, senior leaders of both parties, veteran public officials belatedly summoned to provide outside counsel, even his wife. Their essence can be put in one word: act. Fire Chief of Staff Donald Regan or CIA Director William Casey, or both, as proof that the Administration intends to make a fresh start. Call the key figures in the Iran arms-contra funds scandal, Oliver North and John Poindexter, into the Oval Office and demand from them an accounting of their activities. But above all, do something. Don't just wait for inquisitive journalists, congressional investigators or, eventually, an independent counsel to force out all the facts about North's sticky web of arms and money dealings. That will only intensify the drip, drip, drip of daily revelations that is wearing away the White House's credibility at an alarming rate.

The President, appearing befuddled by the growing scandal that in one bizarre month has poleaxed public confidence in his leadership, seemed willing to listen but not hear. As former aides cloaked themselves in the Fifth Amendment, and new revelations poured forth, Reagan kept repeating that he wanted all the facts to emerge. Yet he did nothing on his own to break open the mysteries. Revealing an insouciance that is the dark side of his charm, he told a friend, "I watch every day like everybody else to find out what will come out. I'm as puzzled and interested as anybody."

Each week brings new twists on the old Watergate question, the latest being: What else does the President claim not to know, and when will he realize he should know it? He doesn't seem sure whether he authorized the first Israeli shipments of arms to Iran in August 1985; he doesn't seem to know what his former National Security Council point man North did with the profits from the arms deals.

Amid the turmoil, accusations began to surface that there may be yet another shock to come: that some of the profits of the arms-for-hostages deal may have ended up financing pro-contra political advertisements and perhaps even the campaigns of pro-contra congressional candidates. That charge is being made publicly by Democrats who have little evidence and obvious axes to grind, but it is a suspicion that is being voiced within the Executive Branch as well. According to one Government source, the Iranian arms profits were diverted into a political slush fund. According to another source close to the FBI, the bureau is "looking into the possibility of a connection" between money that was supposed to have gone to the contras and "Republican campaign contributions."

Spokesmen at the White House and the FBI say they have no knowledge of that particular inquiry, and those people who have been cited as potential conduits for the funding of political campaigns deny any involvement. But officials note that the investigation into all aspects of the matter is still wide open.

Among the other revelations last week in the murky affair: