Former President Ronald Reagan, questioned under oath for the first time about the Iran-Contra scandal, insisted in testimony released Thursday he did not know money from arms sales to Iran was illegally diverted to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels.
Reagan, in 293 pages of testimony taken last week for the trial of former national security adviser John Poindexter, also said he could not recall being part of any administration meeting called to reconstruct events in the scandal.Under questioning from Poindexter's attorney, Richard Beckler, Reagan repeatedly said he could not recall a variety of events from what had become the biggest scandal of his administration.
Referring to the time the scandal broke open and it was revealed that profits from the arms sales had been secretly funnelled to the rebels, even though Congress had prohibited direct U.S. aid, Reagan said he "felt the people should know this was as much news to me as it was to them."
Earlier, asked if he was ever part of a meeting in which administration officials tried to get a story together on what had happened in the scandal, Reagan said: "I don't recall. I don't recall that."
Even though Poindexter's trial is not supposed to begin until March 5, Reagan's testimony - taken in Los Angeles last week - was released on an order from U.S. District Judge Harold Greene.
Both a videotape of the testimony and a 293-page trascript were released.
Reagan previously provided written answers to written questions about the Iran-Contra scandal but never testimony under oath.
Poindexter faces five criminal charges in the scandal that involves secret weapons sales to Iran, efforts to win freedom for American hostages in Lebanon and financing covert aid to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels.
Poindexter was Reagan's national security adviser from December 1985 until he resigned in November 1986, when the scandal was exposed.
Questioned whether he had met with people to frame his public comments in the early stages of the affair, Reagan said: "I am not denying whether I met with others. It is just that I don't recall."
But the former president, trying to describe the feelings that led him into selling arms to Iran, argued that he did not feel it would be bad to help so-called moderates in the Islamic state if they could help release American hostages and he likened the situation to a kidnapping.
"If I had a child kidnapped and held for ransom, and if I knew of someone who had perhaps the ability to get that child back, it wouldn't be dealing with the kidnappers to ask that individual to do that," Reagan said.