Reagan Kept Top Aides in Dark--Speakes

WASHINGTON — President Reagan purposely cut some top aides from his Jan. 17 authorization to sell arms to Iran, apparently bypassing his own procedure for circulating national security decisions, White House spokesman Larry Speakes said today.

In a White House beribboned for the holidays but under siege from the widening foreign policy scandal, Speakes refused to acknowledge a Washington Post report that a 1982 “national security decision directive” by Reagan set up a system for notifying eight top U.S. foreign and defense policy officials of key decisions.

Speakes said he could not confirm the account because of a longstanding rule against discussing top secret documents.

But, he said, “as you know, on the Jan. 17 order, the President issued very strict rules about how it should be a closely held type operation. . . . As we’ve indicated, very few people knew about this and it was a very deliberate arrangement . . . because it was a sensitive issue.”

‘Finding’ Ordered Arms Sale

On Jan. 17, Reagan issued an intelligence authorization, called a “finding,” ordering an arms sale to Iran and providing legal justification for the sale.

The Post said Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, Treasury Secretary James A. Baker and Adm. William J. Crowe, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were not informed of the Jan. 17 document.

Those who participated in drafting the finding, the newspaper said, were Vice President George Bush, CIA Director William J. Casey, Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and White House chief of staff Donald T. Regan.