Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 9, 1994 TAG: 9410140026
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALBERT R. HUNT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It's a wonderful only-in-America story. Except it isn't true. The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot revealed that the businessman actually was the elder North's uncle and he probably didn't pay the passage, that it was illegal then to bring indentured workers into America, and members of Ollie North's own family refute key portions of the story. North, the Republican nominee for the Senate in Virginia, at first defended his story, but when confronted with these details later relented and said it was based on family lore.
At Falls Church High School last week, candidate North again offered a feast of misrepresentations. He falsely said that he never had lied to Congress. He said that his Democratic rival, Sen. Charles Robb, favors ``abortion on demand up through the last month'' of pregnancy, also not true. And in response to questions from an African-American student, he left the erroneous impression that he had not earlier supported the flying of the Confederate flag.
The North campaign also put out a flier that sought to refute the ``lies'' that the liberal media were peddling about the former White House aide's involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal. ``A jury of his peers,'' it proclaims, ``looked at the evidence and the evidence exonerated him.'' In fact the jury of his peers convicted North of three offenses. These convictions were overturned by a three-judge panel on a 2-to-1 vote because of connections between the trial and North's testimony before Congress. He claims the investigation drove his family ``nearly $10 million in debt.'' The truth: North's phenomenally successful defense fund raised $13.2 million, 40 percent of which went to his lawyers.
Oliver North's inability to tell the truth didn't end with Iran-Contra. It's a persistent pattern in this campaign, although he was on notice that his veracity would be under scrutiny.
Last year the conservative Reader's Digest wrote a piece titled, ``Does Oliver North Tell the Truth?'' More than a dozen of North's former colleagues, with specificity, questioned his integrity. Former top Defense Department official Richard Armitage questioned North's claim that he carefully kept records and accounted for all the money in the Contra aid effort, and retired Gen. John Singlaub, an active Contra supporter, charged that North ``told lies and got away with it.'' In the painstakingly researched piece, author Rachel Wildavsky concluded that many North associates ``say he cannot be trusted to tell the truth - in speech, in print, about Iran-Contra or much else.''
Ollie North sometimes even fibs about virtues like his service in Vietnam. In his book, author Ben Bradlee Jr. revealed that North, testifying in a 1985 trial, said he served in Vietnam much longer than he actually did, and suggested he had a higher rank.
This doesn't surprise some longtime observers. ``I have known Ollie since we were midshipmen together, and with him there never has been any clear definition as to what is fact and what is fantasy,'' says Marine Col. John McKay, a 1968 Naval Academy classmate. Another member of that Annapolis class, James Webb, secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration, is incensed at what he calls ``Ollie's deliberate inaccuracies regarding his military service.''
Some of the most anti-North sentiments come from the political right, including ardent champions of the Nicaraguan Contras. Deborah De Moss, who while a Jesse Helms aide was a key supporter of the Contras, fumes that Col. North forced the Contras to buy weapons, many of which were defective, at inflated prices; and that the so-called diversion from the Iranian arms sales never got to them. She also doubts his conservatism: ``North had no ideology. He only turned to conservatives when he got in trouble and decided he had political ambitions.''
On the Iranian arms-for-hostages swap, North claimed at a debate at Hampden-Sydney College last month that President Reagan dealt with the Iranians ``counter to some of us who recommended contrary to that.'' But Robert McFarlane, who as head of the National Security Council was North's boss, says, ``at no point did North ever express opposition to the Iranian initiative. To the contrary, he always was the strongest advocate.'' And Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who as a member of the Tower Commission investigated the entire Iran-Contra incident, says there was ``no indication'' that North ever opposed the initiative.
Candidate North, campaign aides privately say, still tells stories about the one-on-one sessions he had with President Reagan. But the former president, in criticism of a fellow Republican that was unprecedented for him, asserted, ``the private meetings he said he had with me just didn't happen.'' Reagan confidant Michael Deaver agrees: ``North never saw Ronald Reagan alone.''
Just the other day North told the Journal's Jim Perry that Robb was an ``8th and I Marine,'' a contemptuous reference to the Marines' ceremonial showplace, although North was well aware that Robb had a distinguished combat record in Vietnam.
The North campaign says the criticism comes from Ollie-hating liberals or is just politics. But North's pattern of duplicity is too pervasive to chalk it up to political hyperbole. And interviews with a score of former colleagues, from the military and the Reagan administration, suggest instead that many who know him best are horrified that Oliver North seems headed to the U.S. Senate.
They oppose him not because of his ideology or what today he professes to believe. They oppose him not because they see Robb or independent candidate Marshall Coleman as an attractive alternative. They oppose him because, having known and worked closely with Oliver North, they believe he's a liar.
Albert R. Hunt is Washington bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal.
Reprinted with permission of The Wall Street Journal. Copyright 1994, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB