On Iran-contra, what did Roberts know?

What did you know, and when did you know it?

That query, dating from the Watergate probe, is perhaps the best known question ever asked during a congressional hearing (at least since the McCarthy era). But the kind of scandal that prompts such a bare-knuckled interrogation does not appear on John Roberts's golden résumé.

The US Supreme Court nominee, now appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, is being questioned about his conservative leanings, his past writings, and his courtroom advocacy of far-right constitutional interpretations. But no one is attacking the prospective chief justice's honesty, integrity, or ethics.

Nonetheless, at least one episode in Judge Roberts's past may prompt that famous line of interrogation. As a member of the White House counsel's office in 1985 and early 1986, Roberts was in close proximity to what ultimately became the Reagan administration's Iran-contra scandal.

As early as January 1985, Roberts was asked to give a legal opinion about White House involvement in private fundraising to help the contra forces fighting Nicaragua's Sandinista government. He also wrote several memos in early 1986 concerning the private fundraising activities of individuals who were later prosecuted in the Iran-contra affair.

But Roberts's White House memos, made public at the National Archives, are unlikely to provide much grist for conspiracy theorists seeking to link the former Reagan staffer to the scandal.

Instead, Roberts's memos on contra-related issues reveal a cautious lawyer who consistently sounded alarm bells about appearances and who urged compliance with the letter and spirit of the law. His words convey no sign of a devious consigliere searching for ways to bend the law or conceal lawless activities.

More important, the memos suggest that Roberts and his colleagues in the White House counsel's office were outside the loop on the secret dealings of Lt. Col. Oliver North at the National Security Council. There is no indication that the office was consulted about the legality of trading arms for hostages in Lebanon, or using proceeds from the Iran arms sales to support the contras at a time when Congress had barred US government assistance to them.

One odd circumstance, though, might raise a question about how much Roberts knew about Iran-contra and when he knew it.

Roberts left the Reagan White House in May 1986 - six months before public disclosure of the Iran-contra scandal threw the Reagan presidency into turmoil.

Roberts's departure alone isn't unusual. Ambitious and talented lawyers circulate in and out of government service on a regular basis. What is unusual is that between January and June 1986 the entire counsel's office departed. All seven lawyers - including presidential counsel Fred Fielding - resigned and left the White House.

The departures mark an extraordinary exodus of legal experience even as the Iran-contra deception was in full operation.

Peter Wallison, who succeeded Mr. Fielding as White House counsel in April 1986, says the departures were routine turnover within the office, nothing more. "They would have to be very, very perspicacious ... to have sensed something that was such a tightly held secret," he says. "Nobody had the slightest inkling [the Iran-contra operation] was occurring, and if they had, it would have been stopped."

Richard Hauser, deputy White House counsel until early 1986, also says there was no connection between the departures and Iran-contra. "It may have just been because Fred [Fielding] and I were leaving that that became a natural time for others to make plans," he says.

The Roberts legal memos dealing with Iran-contra issues were the type of routine matters that came through the White House counsel's office every day, he says.

Page: 1 | 2