Congress's Case

By Jacob V. Lamar Jr

For the Reagan Administration, April has been the kindest month on the Iranscam calendar. A long, brutal winter of damaging leaks and accusations culminated in the release of the Tower commission report, the cathartic firing of Chief of Staff Donald Regan and his replacement by Howard Baker, followed by the President's address and press conference on the scandal in March. The advent of spring has provided a welcome time-out for Reagan and his new advisers.

But the respite will be brief. On May 5, Congress is scheduled to begin its public hearings on the Iran-contra affair. While the scandal has been off the front pages recently, congressional investigators and Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh have slowly and meticulously been building a powerful case against the melodrama's key players. Sources close to the probe told TIME last week that there is now "enough evidence to indict people."

The information unearthed reportedly transcends the discoveries of the Tower commission. "People were very careful," says one prober of the Iranscam schemers. "But they left a great paper trail." Some of the most important evidence, however, was not on paper but on computer tape: the White House has provided investigators with much more of the electronic correspondence between former National Security Adviser John Poindexter and his aide, Lieut. Colonel Oliver North, that proved so valuable to the Tower commission. These new messages, says a committee member, will be as crucial to explaining the essential mysteries of Iranscam as the White House tapes were to resolving Watergate. In addition, the White House recently completed an exhaustive review of all documents relevant to the affair, then turned them over to Walsh and the joint committee.

Investigators say they have traced much of the contra money trail. According to sources, "every penny" of the contributions North helped raise from private donors reached the Nicaraguan rebels. Contrary to reports last December, none of the solicited money was funneled to campaigns against anti- contra members of Congress. While leaders of the Nicaraguan rebel forces claim they never received any of the proceeds from the Iranian arms sales, investigators think a substantial amount of the earnings did indeed drop into contra coffers.

Probers suspect that former CIA Director William Casey played a dominant role in Iranscam, despite his proclaimed ignorance of the scheme. Casey, who underwent surgery for a brain tumor last December, resigned in January, and his physicians have maintained that he is unfit to testify. The lawmakers plan to send their own doctor to examine Casey and report on whether he is capable of delivering testimony. One investigator justifies this step by explaining that if Casey does not talk "we may never know" the extent of CIA involvement in the scandal.

Meanwhile, the man who has been picked to succeed Casey, FBI Director William Webster, weathered some tough questioning at his confirmation hearings before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week. Webster acknowledged reading an FBI memo of last Oct. 30 that indicated North might be facing a criminal investigation for his role in the secret contra supply network. Three weeks later, when Attorney General Edwin Meese informed Webster that he was launching an inquiry into the affair, Webster did not mention the memo. The Senators grilled Webster on his reticence. "I didn't remember that piece of paper," he explained, "or have it in my mind." Despite his memory lapse, Webster performed adequately, and is expected to win confirmation after Congress's Easter recess. He went out of his way to assure the panel that he will be a cooperative CIA director. "I will not," he pledged, "try to be devious or cute with the committee."

, The White House also seemed eager to please Congress. The President agreed to provide the Iranscam committee with some of his personal notes on the scandal. Under the terms of the deal, new White House Counsel Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr. will peruse Reagan's handwritten diaries and produce a report including any references to the Iran-contra affair. While Reagan is going far beyond constitutional requirements for disclosure, some committee members would have preferred more direct access to the diaries. Nevertheless, one legislator described the deal as "fair." He added, "We got what we asked for."

With reporting by Hays Gorey/Washington