The following article was printed in the Saturday, June 1, 1991
issue of *The Arkansas Gazette* on page 2B. 

   BRYANT CALLS FOR PROBE

   Sends petitions to Iran-Contra lawyer

   By Max Parker

   Attorney General Winston Bryant has called on the lawyer investigating
the Iran-Contra scandal to look into the Mena airport drug smuggling
operation.
   Bryant sent petitions containing the signatures of more than 1,000
Arkansans to Lawrence Walsh, head of the Office of Independent Counsel
in Washington.
   Last week, the petitions were presented to Bryant's office at a news
conference called by the Arkansas Committee, a student group at the
University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
   The group called on Bryant to keep a campaign promise of impaneling
a grand jury to investigate the Mena airport activities of convicted
drug smuggler Barry Seal during the 1980s.
   Bryant has denied making such a promise in his 1990 campaign against
Republican Asa Hutchinson.
   "Their specific concern, as well as my own, is to learn why no one
was prosecuted in Arkansas despite a mountain of evidence that Seal was
using Arkansas as his principal staging area from 1982 through 1985,"
Bryant said.
   The attorney general also noted that Walsh had touched on such matters
during the Iran-Contra investigation.
   During the campaign, Bryant accused Hutchinson of not vigorously
pursuing allegations against Seal. Hutchinson has said the investigation
was in its early stages when he resigned from the U.S. attorney's office
in Fort Smith in late 1985.
   Bryant said he raised the issue only in response to Hutchinson's claim
that he was "tough on drugs."
   Arkansas Committee members had said if Bryant did not convene a grand
jury they would "alert the press about Mr. Bryant reneging on a campaign
promise."