Terming the indictment “a grotesque distortion of the prosecutorial power and a moral and legal outrage,” Weinberger pleaded not guilty to all five counts and requested a speedy trial. U.S. district Judge Thomas F. Hogan obligingly scheduled the case, with its mammoth political implications, for Nov. 2-the day before the 1992 elections. For Walsh, the trial could be his best chance to prove what he believes is a conspiracy to cover up illegal shipments. His critics say Walsh is obsessed with nailing a big name to justify his $30 million investigation.

The evidence that revived Walsh’s moldering investigation was a large cache of notes in Weinberger’s own hand-1,700 five-by-seven-inch notebook pages recording his thoughts on matters ranging from high policy to the family dog. Weinberger donated the notes to the Library of Congress in 1988 with the stipulation that only he could approve requests to read them. But in 1990 someone tipped off Walsh’s office to the existence of these papers, and investigators discovered what seemed to be the mother lode of inside dope.

Drawing on Weinberger’s notes, Walsh’s staff has now reconstructed what they say are critical moments in the Reagan administration’s internal debate on arms sales to Iran. They say that Weinberger and other top officials sat passively at three meetings while national-security adviser John Poindexter and Attorney General Edwin Meese spelled out a bogus version of events to protect the president. The key issue was the legality of a shipment of 18 HAWK antiaircraft missiles to Iran in November 1985. That shipment, together with a separate shipment of 500 TOW antitank missiles, was airlifted through Israel to Iran before Reagan signed a secret presidential “finding” authorizing the sales in the name of national security.

According to the prosecutors, Weinberger himself was told of the HAWK shipment on several occasions in late 1985. And he was present at a meeting on Dec. 7, 1985, in which Reagan, former secretary of state George Shultz and others were briefed on the Iran overture. Weinberger’s notes, as’ read by Walsh’s team, indicate he restated his objections to selling arms to Iran, which he opposed as a violation of U.S. law. The notes also say, “Reagan responded that he could answer charges of illegality but that he could not answer the charge that he had passed up a chance to free the hostages.”

When the scandal was unraveIing a year later, prosecutors say, Weinberger and others had several chances to tell the truth but did not do go. One came at a meeting with congressional leaders on Nov. 12, 1986. With Reagan, Weinberger, Shultz, Vice President George Bush and others in attendance, Poindexter briefed the leaders on the history of the Iran affair, carefully omitting any mention of the 1985 HAWK shipment. According to prosecutors, Poindexter also said there had been no arms shipments to Iran before 1986.

On Nov. 24, according to the indictment, Reagan, Bush, Weinberger and others met again with Meese to discuss Meese’s in-house investigation of the scandal. " Meese told the group that the November 1985 Israeli HAWK shipment may have been illegal, but that the President did not know about the shipment at the time," the indictment charges. " No one contradicted Mr. Meese’s knowledge, although several of those present, including defendant Caspar Weinberger, had contrary information."

Like Reagan, Weinberger has testified he had no knowledge of the 1985 arms shipments to Iran until after the fact. He and the president he served so loyally are now contradicted by his concern for historical precision-by his own notes, taken in an almost illegible hand. “These notes have been grossly misstated,” a supporter insists. “Walsh has really stretched them.” That, of course, is an issue for the jury to decide-but either way, the case will surely provide another element of drama in a tumultuous election year.

The Charges Against ‘Cap’

one count, for withholding and concealing the existence of notes relevant to the congressional Iran-contra investigation

Two counts: for lying about his knowledge of Saudi contributions to the contras and for lying about the existence of his notes

Two counts: for denying knowledge of a 1985 Israeli arms sale to Iran and for denying knowledge of the need to resupply Israel with arms it sold to Iran