THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 3, 1994 TAG: 9409290011
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 39 lines
In 1989, Oliver North was tried by a jury and convicted of altering and destroying documents, accepting an illegal gratuity and abetting in the obstruction of Congress.
His conviction was reversed in 1990 on the ground that witnesses in his trial had been tainted by the immunized testimony which he had previously given before Congress.
Before his trial, a 24-count charge of conspiracy to defy Congress had been dropped because of the immunized-testimony issue.
North was not exonerated. The reversal and the dropping of charges were both technicalities and cast no doubt whatsoever on his guilt.
These facts should be enough to convince Virginians not to vote for Oliver North for U.S. senator.
But there is more. Oliver North was one of the principal managers of a 10-year war fought mainly against a civilian population and unparalleled in our history for the sum of its deceit, arrogance, cruelty, economic destruction, contempt for the wishes of the American people and scorn for national and international law. More than 50,000 Nicaraguans died in this war.
If we Virginians were to send such a person to represent us in the U.S. Senate, we would be telling the world that we disdain the ``rule of law,'' which we have traditionally honored, that we approve stealing and lying to Congress and that we condone a war which even a former CIA director (Stansfield Turner) described as ``state-supported terrorism.''
NEAL HERRICK
Norfolk, Sept. 23, 1994 by CNB