Iranscam's Near Tragedy

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

A visitor to Robert McFarlane's Washington office a few months ago was surprised to see the former National Security Adviser kick the air boyishly in celebration. He had just wangled two tickets to a Naval Academy Glee Club concert in which his son was to appear. That unexpected display of emotion was memorable for its rarity, since Bud McFarlane is a man whom the word taciturn might have been invented to describe. But powerful emotions evidently boil behind McFarlane's studiedly enigmatic face, and last week they found a sad outlet.

After keeping his schoolteacher wife Jonda awake through much of Sunday night by tossing and turning in bed, McFarlane failed to respond when she tried to awaken him Monday morning. He stirred only when she shook him, and then appeared to be, in her words, "semilucid." Fearing that he had suffered a stroke, Jonda summoned a rescue squad. By the time it arrived she had discovered a note left by her husband, whose contents no one would divulge. Before an ambulance rushed him to nearby Bethesda Naval Hospital, the groggy McFarlane mumbled something to its crew about taking 25 to 30 Valium tranquilizer pills.

The overdose did not seriously threaten his life, and at week's end McFarlane, still hospitalized under observation, was expected to recover completely -- and eventually to resume testifying about his central role in the sale of arms to Iran. Police nonetheless concluded that McFarlane, 49, had attempted suicide.

Why? There appeared to be no single trigger. Though McFarlane's hospitalization came only two hours before he was scheduled to be questioned by a presidential commission investigating Iranscam, there was no indication that he faced any damaging new disclosures. Rather, the former Marine colonel seemed to friends to be tormented by a nagging general sense of failure. As National Security Adviser, he sometimes confessed frustration at being unable to "move these elephants," his unflattering description of the powerful foreign policy Pooh-Bahs in the Reagan Administration.

Still, McFarlane occasionally gave the impression that he regretted having resigned in December 1985, in the midst of a turf battle with White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan, to become a counselor at Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International Studies. He missed the excitement of Government service, for all its headaches, and Iranscam probably extinguished his prospects of becoming a policymaker again. Instead of being regarded as a wise elder statesman as he had hoped, McFarlane found himself viewed as the official who had first favorably presented a plan to sell arms to Iran, and thus led the way into a disaster that has profoundly shaken the presidency he tried to serve.

His part in the burgeoning Iranscam investigations deepened McFarlane's depression. He has testified more fully than anyone else. But, says his lawyer Leonard Garment, "the more information he gave, the more he became an object of scrutiny." Another friend adds that "he is a loyal ((former)) Marine suddenly thrust into the role of John Dean," the Nixon White House Counsel whose Senate testimony fueled the Watergate scandal.

Moreover, Regan and others have contradicted some portions of McFarlane's story, most notably his insistence that the President gave prior approval to Israeli sales of arms to Iran in 1985. McFarlane was wounded by what he took to be implications that he was lying to protect himself. Whether for physical reasons or because of internalized stress or both, McFarlane suffered worsening back spasms this winter. The future seemed to hold only increasing strain. McFarlane confided to friends that he expected a "long, difficult spring" of being questioned on TV at one congressional hearing after another, and then seeing the conflicts between his testimony and that of others bannered in news reports.

McFarlane's near tragedy did not interrupt the flow of Iranscam revelations. The presidential commission, headed by former Republican Senator John Tower of Texas, postponed its report for one week, until Feb. 26, after announcing that it had discovered "new material" on the scandal. Reports are that the new evidence consists of computer records, thought to have been lost, detailing far-flung and possibly illegal efforts to raise money for the Nicaraguan contras by former National Security Council Aide Oliver North.

The Tower commission, originally appointed by Reagan to recommend changes in the structure and operations of the NSC, has turned into a kind of runaway grand jury conducting a far-reaching investigation of the whole Iran arms- contra funds scandal. It is the only investigative body that has questioned the President, who last week met with its three members for the second time, in a 70-minute session. The White House is bracing itself for what Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater predicted will be a "critical and tough" report. Among other things, the commission is believed to have found deep CIA involvement in illegal arming of the contras. As a result, the agency's deputy chief Robert Gates, Reagan's nominee to succeed ailing William Casey as CIA director, may face heated questioning at Senate confirmation hearings this week.

Within the Administration, a war of backbiting leaks broke out. Early in the week, a Rowland Evans and Robert Novak column reported that Vice President George Bush had given a stern admonition to Secretary of State George Shultz, a public opponent of the Iranian arms sales, to support President Reagan or resign; the source was widely believed to be Don Regan. The Washington Post then reported that last November Shultz had protested to the President that Casey was about to give false testimony to a congressional committee. After a sharp confrontation, the Post said, Shultz got Casey's testimony changed. Washington gossips promptly suspected that Shultz had leaked that story in retaliation for the earlier disclosure. Whatever the facts, the leaks gave a vivid impression of officials scrambling to save their own skins.

With reporting by David Beckwith and Barrett Seaman/Washington