Reagan Call: Two Versions Cited

WASHINGTON — Congressional investigators are trying to reconcile differences between first-hand and second-hand accounts of a telephone call President Reagan made to Lt. Col. Oliver L. North hours after North was fired from his National Security Council post.

In testimony Tuesday, North said that Reagan told him that he “just didn’t know” about North’s diversion of profits from arms sold to Iran to the Nicaraguan rebels.

The committee disclosed Wednesday, however, that a North aide, Marine Lt. Col. Robert Earle, said in his deposition that North had quoted Reagan as saying: “It’s important that I not know.”

North acknowledged that he and Earle talked shortly after the Nov. 25 call, but he maintained, “I’m sure that what I said (to Earle) was basically what I told you yesterday, and that is that the President had told me, ‘I just didn’t know,’ ”

North’s version is the same as that offered in earlier testimony by his secretary, Fawn Hall, who had also talked to her boss shortly after the President’s phone call.