Poindexter to Pay for Role But Reagan May Suffer Most : Iran-Contra: The ex-White House official once said defiantly: ‘The buck stops here with me.’ It is a statement he later came to regret.

WASHINGTON —  When members of Congress wanted to know two years ago who was primarily responsible for the Iran-Contra affair, former National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter told them defiantly: “The buck stops here with me.”

“I made the decision,” Poindexter testified to the Iran-Contra committees. “I had the authority to do it. I thought it was a good idea. I was convinced that the President would in the end think it was a good idea, but I did not want him to be associated with it.”

It was a statement the former presidential adviser would later come to regret. During his five-week trial on charges of conspiracy, lying and obstructing Congress, his lawyer, Richard W. Beckler, tried without success to portray Poindexter instead as a man who was only carrying out the wishes of President Ronald Reagan.

But with his conviction Saturday on all counts, bringing down the curtain on the Iran-Contra prosecution of Reagan’s former aides, it appears that history is likely to support Poindexter’s original judgment of his involvement in the scandal.

It almost certainly will be Poindexter--not Reagan or Poindexter’s gung-ho aide, Oliver L. North--who suffers the most severe punishment for playing a central role in the scandal that scarred the Reagan presidency and nearly brought on a constitutional crisis.

Of the eight men who have been tried or pleaded guilty in connection with the Iran-Contra affair, only Poindexter risks a jail term. North, who was convicted last year of only three counts, was fined $150,000 and sentenced to 1,200 hours of community service. And Robert C. McFarlane, Poindexter’s predecessor at the White House, paid a $20,000 fine and served 200 hours of community service after pleading guilty to four counts in March, 1988.

In an interview shortly after the verdict, Mark A. Belnick, former counsel for the Senate Iran-Contra investigation, said it was not surprising that Poindexter had been singled out by the American legal system to bear most of the responsibility for the Iran-Contra affair.

“Next to the President, Poindexter was at the apex of the Administration,” Belnick noted. “He had a heavy job; he bears a heavy responsibility.”

But Belnick and others involved in unraveling the complex Iran-Contra case were quick to note that while the former national security adviser will undoubtely suffer more in the short run, the long-term consequences of the scandal clearly will be felt by the man that Poindexter was trying to protect: Reagan.

“Iran-Contra has diminished Ronald Reagan in the public’s mind and in history,” said John W. Nields Jr., who served as chief counsel for the House Iran-Contra investigation.

The role of “fall guy”--as North once described it--was clearly one that Poindexter freely embraced on Nov. 25, 1986, when a stunned nation first learned that its President had authorized a covert sale of weapons to Iran and that top White House officials had secretly diverted $3.5 million of the profits from the sale to provide assistance to Contras in Nicaragua. At the time, the Administration was prohibited by Congress from using U.S. funds to aid the Contras.

What surprised many Americans about the Iran-Contra affair was not so much that the President had been secretly assisting the Contras, whom he always had supported, but that he was involved in what appeared to be an arms-for-hostages swap with Iran. Since the beginning of his presidency, Reagan had pledged never to bargain with terrorists or hostage-takers.

In his congressional testimony, Poindexter admitted that he had personally destroyed an official document signed on Jan. 17, 1986, by Reagan authorizing the Iran arms sale. He said he did so because it stated that the Administration was involved in trading arms for hostages, which Reagan had strongly denied.

Poindexter also admitted that he personally had approved the diversion of profits from the Iran arms sales in February, 1986, as a way of providing “bridge financing” for the Contras. He said that he never told Reagan about his action because he knew it could damage the President if it ever became public knowledge.

“I made a very deliberate decision not to ask the President so that I could insulate him from the decision and provide some future deniability for the President if it ever leaked out,” he told congressional investigators. “Of course, our hope was that it would not leak out.”

Although public knowledge of the diversion did not hurt Reagan’s popularity as much as Poindexter had feared, it caused a firestorm in the Democrat-controlled Congress. Congressional leaders accused Reagan of violating not only the Boland Amendment, which banned U.S. aid to the Contras, but also the constitutional trust he held as President to keep Congress informed of major foreign policy initiatives.

Nevertheless, it was not the violation of the Boland Amendment or the alleged betrayal of the Constitution that ultimately caused Poindexter and other Reagan aides to run afoul of the law. All were charged with much smaller crimes, mostly conspiracy and lying to Congress.

Unlike the Watergate scandal, which sent a number of high-level White House aides to jail, the Iran-Contra affair did not hinge on allegations that could easily be prosecuted by the criminal justice system. There are no criminal penalties for violating the Boland Amendment and no sanctions written into the Constitution--short of impeachment--for a President who betrays his duty to keep in touch with Congress.

“At its core,” said Nields, the former House counsel, “Iran-Contra was a political matter more than a criminal matter. The criminal trials were not a central part of the event. Watergate was at its heart and center a criminal law issue. There was some criminal conduct around the edges of Iran-Contra, but mostly the acts committed were wrongs against our political system.”

In addition, the Iran-Contra prosecutors were hampered somewhat by the need to protect government secrets that might have been disclosed had the Reagan aides been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Some charges were dropped in order to preserve classified information that the Administration sought to protect.

But even though the prosecution of Reagan’s aides revealed no substantial, new information about the Iran-Contra scandal, it provided the American people with an opportunity to see that the former President still refused to acknowledge accepted facts of the case.

In eight hours of videotaped interviews played during Poindexter’s trial, Reagan said he still doubted that $3.5 million actually was diverted to the Contras--a remark that will undoubtedly be seen as important when historians begin writing their accounts of the Reagan presidency and the Iran-Contra affair.

“He seemed to be blind,” said Nields. “He didn’t see what he didn’t want to see.”

The Iran-Contra committees concluded in November, 1987, that while Reagan knew nothing of the diversion, he was responsible for creating an atmosphere at the White House that encouraged his aides to lie to Congress and to take the law into their own hands.

Reagan’s videotaped testimony appears likely to rank as one of the most memorable events in the entire Iran-Contra affair, along with North’s testimony before the congressional committees in June, 1987. With his big, gap-toothed grin, and rows of medals pinned to the chest of his Marine uniform, North became an instant media hero.

Constitutional scholars cringed as North, with no apologies, recounted every detail of how he set out to create “the enterprise”--a quasi-governmental, covert operation funded with Iranian arms sale profits that would carry out the foreign policy objectives of the President without accountability to Congress. It was, he asserted, the President’s prerogative to conduct business in that manner.

Although North’s attitude quickly divided the nation--pitting conservatives against liberals, Congress against the President, Democrats against Republicans--Iran-Contra experts note that many of those old wounds have since healed, especially since the start of the Bush Administration.

“I was worried that it would polarize us,” Nields said. “But there is now actually a better sense of cooperation between the Congress and the executive (branch), perhaps as a result of the Iran-Contra experience.”

IRAN-CONTRA DEFENDANTS John Poindexter is one of nine people who have been indicted by special Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh. Here are summaries of the other eight and their current status:

OLIVER L. NORTH

A retired Marine lieutenant colonel and former aide to Poindexter, North was found guilty by a jury on May 4, 1989, of three felonies: altering and destroying official documents, accepting an illegal gratuity (a $13,800 home security system) and aiding and abetting in the obstruction of Congress. He was sentenced last July 5 to two years’ probation, fined $150,000 and ordered to perform 1,200 hours of community service in a District of Columbia drug education program for youths. He is appealing the conviction while carrying out the community service.

ROBERT C. McFARLANE

The White House national security adviser who preceded Poindexter, McFarlane pleaded guilty on March 11, 1988, to four misdemeanor charges of withholding information from Congress. He was sentenced on March 3, 1989, to two years’ probation, fined $20,000 and required to perform 200 hours of community service.

CARL R. (SPITZ) CHANNELL

A political consultant who raised money for the Contras from wealthy Americans, Channell pleaded guilty on April 29, 1987, to conspiring to defraud the United States of income tax revenue. He was sentenced last July 7 to two years’ probation.

RICHARD R. MILLER

An associate of Channell, Miller pleaded guilty on May 6, 1987, to conspiring to defraud the United States of tax revenue. He was sentenced last July 6 to two years’ probation.

RICHARD V. SECORD

A retired Air Force major general and North’s chief assistant for logistics, Secord pleaded guilty on Nov. 8, 1989, to a felony charge of making false statements to a congressional committee. He was sentenced on Jan. 24 to two years’ probation.

ALBERT V. HAKIM

The businessman who controlled the money in the scandal, Hakim pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of helping to supplement North’s government salary by arranging to pay for a security system at North’s home. He was sentenced to two years’ probation and fined $5,000. Hakim also agreed to abandon his claim to $7.3 million from Iranian arms sales proceeds frozen in Swiss bank accounts.

JOSEPH F. FERNANDEZ

A federal judge in Alexandria, Va., last Nov. 24 dismissed all four counts against Fernandez, a former CIA station chief in Costa Rica, after Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh blocked disclosure of classified information that was ruled relevant to Fernandez’s defense. Independent counsel Walsh has appealed the action to the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

THOMAS G. CLINES

A former CIA agent who assisted North in locating sources of arms and shipping them to the Contras, Clines is awaiting trial on a four-count income tax indictment. Clines has pleaded innocent to allegations that he under-reported his earnings in 1985 and 1986 and that he falsely stated he had no foreign bank accounts. Upon conviction, he would face a maximum penalty of 26 years in prison and fines of $1.2 million.