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ALL INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN IS UNCLASSIFIED 87Wy=BLE-hJS xa 83-7F-83xrd # 3944s2 FTON POSt JACK ANDERSON and DALE YAN ATIA Senate Panel Knew of Iran Arms Sale he investigation of the Iran-contra affair was arms-for-hostages deal was not exposed and bounced through enough congressiona! stopped until 1986.. committees to set a record. It is on the Our associate Stewart Harris asked the two rebound again on Capitol Hili with startling ranking senators on the Senate intelligence evidence that a Senate committee knew crucial committee why they did not tell the Iran-contra information and failed to do anything with it. committees about Webster. Both David L. Boren The fumble happened in April 1987 when the D-Oka.) and Wjlliam S.Cohen (R-Maine) also sat Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was on the Senate Iran:contra cormmittee. quizzing Wiliam H.Webster about his qualifications Boren declined to talk to us about it. Cohen's to become director of the Central Jntelligence office said the information was passed on to the Agency.Behind closed doors,the committee asked Iran-contra committees. But none of the former Webster, then director of the Federal Bureau of Iran-contra conmittee staff aides we talked to Investigation, what his agency had known about a knew about it. delivery of American missiles to Iran. Cohen's office also contends that the issue came Webster said the FBI had monitored a shipment of up in open sessions of Webster's confirmation American arms to Iran in 1985.Elsewhere on Capitol hearing and was public knowledge. But it is Hill that day, the Iran-contra committees were nowhere to be found in the transcript. furiously assembling evidence to begin hearings on Congressional sources who have reviewed the the scandal. But apparently the intelligence record of the open and closed hearings on Webster committee never bothered to teli the Iran-contra confirm that it came up only behind closed doors. committees about Webster's bombshell. *We blew it,* The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee a staff aide for the intelligence panel confided. learned in July that the FBI had been warned away The FBI was told by the CIA to mind its own from investigating the arms shipment in 1985.But the intelligence committee found out and took operation." charge of the investigation. The information has heated up the congressional Senators should find out why the CIA never gave Iran-contra investigation again. It is important the Iran-contra committees its only record of the because it indicates that the FBl may have known FBI information: a memo written by a CIA desk? more about the arms sales to Iran than was officer in 1987, at the time of Webster's ? acknowledged, and failed to do anything even confirmation hearings. The classified memo tells of though the shipment violated arms export faws a call to the CIA froin FBI agent Randal Boone, It also raises the possibility that the CIA was who wanted to Jnow what to do about the arms ? trying to cover up for Oliver L. North and the shipment.The memo says Boone was told to leave National Security Council as early as 1985. The it alone.