To the Editor:
Anthony Lewis (column, Oct. 13) accuses top White House officials in the Reagan Administration of covert sales of arms to Iran and diversion of the proceeds to the Nicaraguan contras in violation of the Boland Amendment.
I served as research director for the House Republicans in the Congressional investigation of the so-called Iran-contra affair. The Boland Amendment brimmed with ambiguities -- for example, whether it applied to the National Security Council or covered money not appropriated by Congress.
The author, Representative Edward P. Boland, Democrat of Massachusetts, declined to condemn the diversion as illegal during the Congressional hearings.
No court ever ruled that the diversion violated the Boland Amendment.
BRUCE FEIN
McLean, Va., Oct. 13, 1998
