Congress Meets, Spurs Iran Probe : Democrat-Led Senate Creates Special Panel

Under full Democratic control for the first time in six years, Congress convened for its 100th session Tuesday and promptly set into motion a special investigation of the Iranian arms- contra scandal.

On its first roll-call vote, the new Senate voted 88 to 4 to create a special committee to investigate the Iran arms sales and the diversion of profits to the Nicaraguan resistance. The House is expected to do likewise today.

Despite pledges of cooperation between party leaders, the first day’s events were highly partisan--reflecting a lingering bitterness from the November election, in which the Democrats reclaimed Senate control with a 10-vote majority and increased their already substantial advantage by five seats to 258 to 177 in the House.

Clash Over Report

Senate Republicans and Democrats clashed over a proposal to release a Senate Intelligence Committee report on the Iran arms deal, and the House voted 240 to 175 along party lines to defeat a GOP measure that would have prohibited any increase in the new lower income tax rates set in last year’s tax overhaul bill.

From the outset, the new Democratic leaders made it clear that they intend to use control of the Congress to exert some control over President Reagan’s policies, both foreign and domestic. Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) declared that the American people elected a Democratic majority because they want a more moderate policy, adding: “Change they will have.

“The Iran misadventure has hurt the presidency, made a shambles of American foreign policy and called into question just how foreign policy is formulated and implemented,” Byrd said. “More importantly, the American people are once again asking the question: What is going on in Washington?”

As evidence of their willingness to challenge the President, leaders in both the Senate and House reintroduced an $18-billion bill to clean up the nation’s rivers and lakes that Reagan vetoed last November as too expensive. It is expected to pass both houses easily.

Wright Named Speaker

What seemed to irk the Democrats most was that Reagan had decided to proceed with the Iranian arms sale without telling Congress. Byrd and Rep. Jim Wright (D-Tex.), who was elected the 48th Speaker of the House on a party-line vote Tuesday, both vowed to restore Congress to its constitutional role as an equal partner with the President in the making of policy.

“We offer ourselves to the President not just as a rival center of power, but as a partner--not a junior partner, but a full and equal partner,” Wright said. “That’s what the Constitution intends. We ask no more. We’ll settle for no less. . . . The nation does not want an imperial presidency but does not want or need an enfeebled presidency.”

Byrd pledged to help strengthen Reagan’s bargaining position on arms control and both men promised that the Democratic majority would do its best to reduce the budget deficit, alter the current trade imbalance and come to the aid of American farmers.

Last-Minute Changes

At the same time, the new Democratic leadership demonstrated its willingness to compromise with the President’s supporters by agreeing to a number of last-minute changes in the legislation that created the special 11-member Senate investigating committee, known officially as the Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition.

The primary concession won by the Republicans was a requirement that the Senate committee make its report by Aug. 1, if possible. Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) argued that the original reporting date in the legislation, Oct. 30, is too late to keep the issue from becoming entwined in the partisanship of the 1988 presidential election year.

Reagan’s defenders were also upset by the decision of the Senate Democratic leadership to give the select committee sweeping investigative powers to look into all aspects of funding of the Nicaraguan rebels as well as the Iranian arms sales.

Assured by Inouye

But Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), chairman of the new committee, assured the Republicans that he had no intention of investigating all private funding of the contras--as some conservatives had feared. Instead, Inouye said he needed broad authority to determine whether the profits of the Iranian arms sales were used to pay for the supply plane that was shot down over Nicaragua last year carrying Americans, including Eugene Hasenfus.

Most Republicans were satisfied by Inouye’s pledge that he would not broaden the inquiry. But even these assurances did not satisfy the President’s most conservative supporters, three of whom voted against creation of the committee. They were Sens. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), Chic Hecht (R-Nev.) and Gordon J. Humphrey (R-N.H.).

Also voting against the investigation was Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), who insisted that the President must have known about the diversion of funds to the contras and thus should be held responsible. He said Reagan’s claim that he knew nothing about it was like “the captain of ‘Love Boat’ who finds out they’re making love in the cabins.”

His press secretary, Michael Fernandez, said Hollings opposed the part of the legislation that suggested that the Intelligence Committee’s report on its inquiry be released, and also feared that publicity about the select panel’s inquiry might weaken the presidency and people’s trust in government.

Seek to Limit Scope

In the House, Republicans also were seeking to limit the scope of the investigation. “I want to do everything I can to narrow this investigation down,” said Rep. William S. Broomfield (R-Mich.). “I’m concerned that this could get into more areas than the arms transfers and the diversion of profits.”

Draft legislation in the House calls for the investigation to end no later than Oct. 30, “unless the House directs otherwise.” The scope of its operation would be similar to that of the Senate committee.

Despite the willingness of Senate Democrats to yield on some of these points, they still refused to accede to the President’s request that they make public the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation of the Iran scandal. The Intelligence Committee has prepared a 183-page report based on its three weeks of closed hearings in December.

Called Too Inconclusive

Republicans argued that the report should be released to set the record straight; Democrats countered that the findings so far are inconclusive and that releasing them would only serve to undermine future prosecution of those involved.

Sen. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.), whose two-year chairmanship of the Senate Intelligence Committee ended Tuesday, accused the Democrats of trying to suppress the report because they feared it might vindicate the President--a charge that Byrd hotly denied.

“I personally know of no evidence that the President is culpable of knowingly violating any laws, but that doesn’t mean I know everything,” Byrd said. “If the President is not guilty, he will not be found guilty.”

Accuses Staff

At the same time, Byrd accused the Republican-controlled staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee under Durenberger of allowing White House officials to excise portions of the report earlier this week, even though those portions contained no top-secret information that could not be made public.

But Durenberger replied that the four-page section was cut on his instructions and not as the result of White House pressure. He declined to disclose the subject of the material.

As a partial compromise, the Democrats eventually agreed to an amendment that instructs the Intelligence Committee to submit its report to the newly created, Democratic-controlled investigating committee, which will have the discretion to decide whether to release parts of it. But Dole described the provision as “meaningless.”