Not Much Wiser Than Before

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The meeting, according to Robert McFarlane, occurred on Aug. 6 or 7, 1985, upstairs in the White House living quarters, where Ronald Reagan was recuperating from his operation for colon cancer. Among the others present were Secretary of State George Shultz, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and John Poindexter, who would later replace McFarlane as National Security Adviser. The question: Would the President approve shipment by Israel of American-made arms to Iran as part of a shaky scheme to free U.S. hostages in Lebanon? Reagan was aware of the dangers, McFarlane told a congressional committee last week, but in the end gave his go-ahead. "If Israel chooses to do that and then seeks to replace (the arms) with weapons from us," he quoted the President as saying, "then we will sell them."

By conveying that decision to Israel, McFarlane began Washington's official involvement in the dubious arms-for-hostages initiative that has evolved into the biggest scandal since Watergate. "It is not reasonable to believe that I would convey an approval against the President's wishes," McFarlane told TIME. But White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan testified last week that the President gave no such approval. Shultz checked his own notes and says he does not recall Reagan's doing so, nor does Weinberger, though McFarlane says he discussed the President's approval with both men. The President seems unable or unwilling to recall exactly what he ordered. The dispute is merely one of the many surrounding the Iran-contra connection. But it is emblematic of the difficulties involved in getting to the bottom of the affair.

The goal of the past few weeks, repeatedly professed by President Reagan and almost everyone else, was to get all the facts out as quickly as possible. But it didn't happen. As congressional committees wrapped up their extraordinary series of post-adjournment hearings, the lingering questions about Iranscam ranged from how it started to where all the skimmed profits intended for the contras ended up. Now it is the turn of Lawrence Walsh, the newly appointed independent counsel, and the select committees formed by the House and Senate to begin the task of sorting through a scandal that has taken on a life of its own.

After hearing 91 hours of secret testimony from 36 witnesses over three weeks, the Senate Intelligence Committee starkly conveyed the pervasive confusion. Republican Chairman David Durenberger concluded that the entire scheme to divert funds to the contras was handled by Oliver North, the fired National Security Council staffer who still refuses to testify. "There's no clear evidence in my mind," said Durenberger, "that North operated under anybody's authority." But ranking Democrat Patrick Leahy disagreed. "My firm thought right now is that he did not act alone." The two Senators concurred, however, that they had not yet discovered what money, if any, actually made it to the contras. "All the money could be sitting in a Swiss bank account as far as we know," said Durenberger.