Shredded Policies, Arrogant Attitudes

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The long-awaited witness initially seemed as skittish as her name would suggest. Fawn Hall's right hand trembled when she was sworn in as the 18th and final witness in the first phase of the congressional hearings on the Iran- contra scandal. But when she coolly related an extraordinary tale of typing phony official documents, shredding classified papers and hiding others in her clothes to sneak them past White House guards, her face hardened. Whenever her motives or those of her boss, Lieut. Colonel Oliver North, were challenged, she flashed both anger and fear. "Sometimes you have to go above the written law," she blurted out. Then, apparently hearing the gasps in the audience, she retreated. "Maybe that's not correct; it's not a fair thing to say."

But she did say it. In just a few words, Fawn Hall crystallized the mentality of so many involved in the scandal. As House Majority Leader Thomas Foley put it, Hall's remark amounted to a "spontaneous evocation of the whole attitude of those involved: the ends justified the means."

The hearings have offered plentiful details about how weapons were surreptitiously shipped to the contras in Nicaragua and to Iran at a time when U.S. law and the Administration's proclaimed policy banned such arms traffic. The 110 hours of public testimony have highlighted certain themes as well: an appalling willingness to stretch and sometimes break laws, to deceive Congress, to conduct the Government's business in furtive ways. And once the secret was out, many of the participants attempted to cover their tracks.

The Iran-contra mess has been more complex and difficult for Americans to follow than the Watergate tragedy, but according to New Jersey Congressman Peter Rodino, the newer scandal illustrates a similar "arrogance of power." Rodino knows the subject better than most; he chaired the House Judiciary Committee that voted articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon. No similar threat imperils Ronald Reagan, and there are many differences between the two events. Still, as the hearings demonstrated, the Iran-contra misdeeds in some ways are more far-reaching in their implications, placing U.S. foreign policy in the hands of private citizens and arms merchants whose yearning for profits may have exceeded their patriotism. Seemingly accountable to no one, these operatives used their secrecy, in Foley's view, "not to thwart our adversaries but to thwart the legitimate institutions of our Government. It was a covert action by the U.S. against the U.S." Fawn Hall's insistence that "it was a policy of mine not to ask questions" echoed the attitudes of other witnesses. Even Cabinet officials showed little curiosity about the questionable activities of their subordinates or timidly shrugged off decisions with which they sharply disagreed. Secretary of State George Shultz, for example, termed North a "loose cannon" and told Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams to "monitor Ollie." But Abrams testified that he merely asked North if he was doing anything illegal. Like Hall, Abrams said, "I was careful not to ask Colonel North questions I did not need to know the answers to."