Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 15, 1990 TAG: 9003152730
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/2 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Webb said North's testimony "went well" and that the government "got a lot" out of the former White House aide, who testified that he witnessed Poindexter tear up a politically embarrassing presidential document.
Earlier, during North's four days on the stand, U.S. District Judge Harold Greene called North a "hostile witness" and said getting him to answer questions on the stand was like "pulling teeth."
But Webb said today that North's testimony "cut off two or three weeks" of the prosecution's work and that "I could rest as early as Monday."
During his testimony, North said Poindexter sent him to a meeting with members of Congress where North lied by denying he was assisting the Contras. Before the meeting, Poindexter assured North that he could "take care of" the matter.
After Webb's remarks, the prosecution called as a witness the former general counsel to the CIA, Stanley Sporkin, who drafted the presidential finding that Poindexter subsequently destroyed.
Sporkin explained how he was contacted in late November 1985 by the CIA's deputy director, John McMahon, and was briefed by agency staffers on a Hawk missile shipment to Iran that the CIA was assisting.
"It was my preliminary view . . . that . . . for the CIA to provide help that I would require that the president of the United States" sign a finding, Sporkin testified.
Federal law requires that "before the CIA can undertake" such activity in a foreign country "it must have a finding," Sporkin said.
The finding wasn't drafted until after the Hawks were delivered, so Sporkin included a sentence saying that "all prior actions taken by U.S. . . . officials" in the operation "are hereby ratified."
Sporkin is now a U.S. district judge serving in the same courthouse where Poindexter is on trial.
The hurriedly drafted document, known as a "finding," depicted the U.S. government as being involved in a straight arms-for-hostages deal with Iran. Poindexter presented it to President Reagan for his signature two weeks after the missiles were sent to Iran.
Poindexter tore up the finding a year later when the administration's Iran initiative was exposed. He destroyed the paper the same day he told the House and Senate intelligence committees that he hadn't known about the Hawk shipment until five weeks after it occurred.
The prosecution contends that Poindexter's knowledge that the finding existed was his motive in concealing from Congress the U.S. role in the Hawk shipment.
North and his former secretary, Fawn Hall, testified Wednesday.
North, Poindexter's former aide on the National Security Council staff, underwent a blistering round of questioning by prosecutor Webb, who focused on North's lies to congressmen at a meeting that Poindexter had ordered North to attend.
After being informed of what North told the congressmen, Poindexter sent his aide a congratulatory note.
"When John Poindexter told you `Well done,' did you expect he had been happy you had carried the water?" Webb asked. "Did you think you did well?"
"No, I've told the world I don't feel good about that," the retired Marine lieutenant colonel said, his voice so choked with emotion he had to pause for a moment with head turned away before speaking again.
by CNB