North Drops Bid to Disclose CIA Cables at Trial

WASHINGTON — Former White House aide Oliver L. North on Wednesday dropped efforts to disclose a quarter of the 40,000 pages of classified documents he wants to use to counter criminal charges arising from the Iran-Contra affair.

Defense lawyers filed a brief statement that they were withdrawing 10,000 pages of CIA cables on Nicaragua that were listed in North’s Nov. 14 notice of government secrets he wants to reveal in a public trial.

The monthly intelligence cables covered a three-year period from January, 1984, through December, 1986, a month after the Iran-Contra affair became known and North was dismissed from his job at the National Security Council.

Sought to Bar Documents

In a motion last month, independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh sought to bar the defense from using any secret documents as evidence. Walsh accused the defense of listing a large number of irrelevant documents “to overwhelm the court’s and the government’s abilities to conduct proceedings” under the Classified Information Procedures Act.

He specifically criticized North’s listing of “large swatches of CIA cables concerning Nicaragua that bear only the most tangential relation to the subject matter of the case.”

North’s statement was filed as U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell continued closed hearings into the use of secret documents at trial. The hearings began last week.

Gesell has not ruled on secrecy issues and must decide if classified material North wants to disclose is needed for his defense. President Reagan said last week that he would allow virtually none of the documents to be disclosed in open court.

If Gesell decides that North cannot get a fair trial without disclosing some documents, he could dismiss the central charge that the former presidential aide conspired to illegally divert U.S.-Iran arms sale proceeds to the Nicaraguan rebels.

No date has been set for North’s trial. Separate trials have been ordered for his co-defendants, former National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter and arms dealers Albert A. Hakim and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord.