gates consistently testified that he first heard on october 1, 1986, from charles e. allen, the national intelligence officer who was closest to the iran initiative, that proceeds from the iran arms sales may have been diverted to support the contras. other evidence proves, however, that gates received a report on the diversion during the summer of 1986 from ddi richard kerr. the issue was whether the independent counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that gates was deliberately not telling the truth when he later claimed not to have remembered any reference to the diversion before meeting with allen in october.