Bush accused of 'covering up a cover-up'

IN WHAT would be a venomous final act in Washington's worst scandal of recent years, George Bush could face direct questioning from a frustrated and furious prosecutor in a bid to establish, once and for all, how deeply the outgoing President was involved in the Iran- Contra affair, which almost brought down his predecessor, Ronald Reagan.

It was in November 1986 that an astonished America first learnt how the Reagan administration defied the law of the land and sold arms to Iran in the hope of securing the release of US hostages held in Lebanon, and then, equally illegally, used part of the proceeds to fund the right-wing Contra opposition in Nicaragua.

Now two developments have brought passions back to fever pitch: the disclosure to Iran-Contra prosecutors 17 days ago that Mr Bush, when Vice-President, had kept hitherto unsuspected diaries touching on the scandal; and his Christmas Eve pardon of the former Defense Secretary, Caspar Weinberger, whose scheduled trial here next month had seemed to offer a last, best chance of getting to the bottom of it.

Mr Weinberger, meanwhile, said yesterday that the Iran-Contra special prosecutor tried to 'coerce false testimony' from him implicating Ronald Reagan. Mr Weinberger said Lawrence Walsh brought charges against him only after he had refused to co-operate in the prosecution of his seniors.

Ever since his election defeat on 3 November, Mr Bush had been mulling over a pardon for Mr Weinberger, and White House aides sought bipartisan support for a move intended to close the matter once and for all. Instead, it has merely served to generate a salvo of accusations that the President has acted not just to spare the 75-year-old Mr Weinberger from a courtroom ordeal, but to save his own skin as well.

This Christmas holiday, Washington has been awash with language scarcely heard since the height of the Watergate affair almost two decades ago: of cover- up, flagrant constitutional abuse, even the impeachment-that-might-have- been of President Reagan, had the Bush documents been made available during the 1987 congressional hearings.

According to Mr Walsh, Mr Bush has defied repeated requests to turn over all relevant material. Documents which had been provided contained unexplained gaps and omissions for crucial periods. The President, Mr Walsh charges, is now attempting 'a cover-up of the cover-up'. His refusal to comply constituted 'misconduct', he said, and the President was now a 'subject' of his investigation. Yesterday the Washington Post said Mr Walsh wanted to question Mr Bush, probably after he leaves office on 20 January.

In response, the White House has promised that all documents will be handed over, but only when it has been given full transcripts of the testimony provided by then Vice-President Bush to the prosecutors in early 1988. This linkage has merely generated fresh charges of stonewalling - shades of Richard Nixon and Watergate.

That, however, is not how the President and his supporters see things. Throughout the campaign, speculation about Mr Bush's precise role in the Iran-Contra affair would crop up. Allegations by former Iran-Contra figures that, as Vice-President, Mr Bush had been 'in the loop' and known all about the secret machinations of Colonel Oliver North and others embarrassed him as he tried to focus attention on the character and trustworthiness of his opponent, Bill Clinton.

Indeed, it is an article of faith with Republican loyalists that the release by prosecutors a few days before the election of subpoenaed notes taken at the time by Mr Weinberger, and which seemed to confirm Mr Bush's involvement, was deliberately timed to halt the President's eleventh-hour comeback.