
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 14, 1990                   TAG: 9003142727
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

NORTH SAYS POINDEXTER KNEW ABOUT HAWK MISSILE SHIPMENT

Former White House aide Oliver North on Tuesday undercut a defense attempt to show that John Poindexter was unaware of a 1985 missile shipment to Iran, saying he kept his boss apprised of the operation.

Poindexter's lawyer, Richard Beckler, took North through a half-hour series of questions about how the former National Security Council staff officer helped obtain a CIA aircraft to ship 18 Hawk missiles owned by Israel to Iran.

At each stage, Beckler asked if Poindexter participated in any of the discussions with Israeli or CIA officials that preceded the November 1985 shipment.

North testified that Poindexter, then President Reagan's national security adviser, did not participate.

Beckler was trying to show that Poindexter wasn't lying when he told Congress that he learned about the shipment more than a month after it occurred.

But his point was undermined when he asked North: "Admiral Poindexter was not assisting you in carrying out this mission, he was not working with you side by side, was he?"

"I do not recall the admiral being on the phone with me, as you just asked, but I did keep the admiral apprised of what I was doing," North said.

North, meanwhile, disclosed that he urged a trip by a U.S. official, perhaps Vice President Bush, to visit Iran in 1986 as part of the effort to free American hostages.

There was no indication from the testimony that the proposal was seriously considered and North testified that Poindexter opposed the idea.

Beckler also produced a handwritten note from Poindexter that stated that he had briefed Reagan about a shipment of Hawk missile spare parts that cost the Iranians $15 million.

The document is the first indication that Reagan may have been informed at the time of the Iran initiative of the actual prices the Iranians were paying for the weapons.

The prices were exorbitant and at least $3.8 million from the Iran arms sales was diverted to the Nicaraguan Contras, according to a report compiled by Congress.

Reagan maintains he didn't know there was any extra money being generated from the Iran arms sales. He most recently made that assertion last month in a videotaped deposition for Poindexter's trial.

Poindexter is accused of obstructing congressional inquiries into the Iran-Contra affair by making false statements and destroying documents.

by CNB