IRAN INVESTIGATORS SEEK REAGAN TAPES
The House and Senate committees
investigating the Iran arms scandal said they would like to
review tapes of phone conversations between President Reagan
and White House officials, if such tapes exist.
    The committees were responding to a magazine article
that quoted unidentified "sources with first-hand knowledge of
U.S. communications intelligence" as saying there is an archive
of recorded conversations among Reagan administration
officials, including the president.
    The article in Progressive magazine also said the
government had secretly monitored the home telephone of former
National Security adviser Robert McFarlane after he had left
government service in late 1985.
    "According to sources with first hand knowledge of U.S.
communications intelligence operations," the story said, "the
McFarlane intercept grew out of a program that has produced a
still-undisclosed archive of recorded conversations involving
... Reagan, Vice President George Bush, (fired National
Security Council aide) Lt Col Oliver North, (former National
Security Adviser) Adm John Poindexter, (former White House
Chief of Staff) Donald Regan and other key figures in the
Iran-contra arms scandal."
    It said the monitoring was done for security and record
purposes by the top-secret National Security Agency (NSA), and
was apparently done with the consent of those monitored.
    But White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater denied one
premise of the article, saying, "The National Security Agency
said it did not monitor any of McFarlane's conversations."
    He did not comment on the other recorded conversations the
Progressive article said were included in the program.
    "Clearly we would be interested in taking a look if indeed
such tapes exist," a Senate Iran committee aide told Reuters in
response to the magazine article.
    A spokesman for the House Iran committee said the panel
would consider a request to the NSA for copies of the
telephone-tap archive described in the article.
    Several legislators said the tapes, if it is confirmed that
they exist, could prove invaluable to the special House and
Senate committees that were created in January to investigate
Reagan's most damaging political crisis.
    "This sort of evidence could be absolutely crucial in
getting to the bottom of the affair," said Rep. Robert
Kastenmeier, a Wisconsin Democrat and member of the House
Intelligence Committee, told Reuters.
 Reuter
