Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, June 10, 1993                   TAG: 9306110344
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

OLLIE NORTH

The audacity of the Digest! In its June edition, the infamously liberal magazine carried an article that questions the honesty of the retired Marine lieutenant colonel. North, you'll recall, was convicted by a federal court on three counts, including lying to Congress, stemming from his role in the Iran-Contra scandal.

The convictions were eventually overturned on a technicality, based on the behavior not of North but of Congress. (A federal judge ruled that the testimony against North was tainted by congressional testimony given with the promise of immunity.) Indicted and convicted, North has yet to express remorse. Instead, he brags about his past - and has raised lots of money doing so.

Now he's considering a challenge to unindicted and unconvicted Virginia Democrat Chuck Robb for his U.S. Senate seat.

The Digest article, "Does Oliver North Tell the Truth?," quotes not North's foes but former colleagues, mostly political conservatives, who dispute North's assertions on matters about which they claim to have first-hand knowledge.

These matters range from incidents involving North's handling of federal funds to his bent for self-aggrandizement. (North tells, for instance, of a hug from President Reagan in the White House living quarters as the two of them chummily watched the evacuation of U.S. medical students from Grenada. Former Reagan spokesman Marlin Fitzwater says North was never in the White House living quarters and, on that particular day, didn't see the president at all.)

The article's author, Rachel Flick Wildavsky, says she interviewed North for two hours at the Loudoun County headquarters of his foundation, Freedom Alliance, before publishing the charges, and he didn't provide evidence to dispute them. At the recent Virginia GOP convention in Richmond, North turned away reporters' inquiries - not by denying the allegations in the Reader's Digest, but by simply dismissing them as "old news."

(In an apparent reference to a federal grand jury's refusal to indict Robb, after a lengthy investigation of the Democrat's role in an illegal phone-conversation taping, North also said, "I had a real trial, real jurors and a real judge and I won." Isn't this precious: political contenders comparing their brushes with the law.)

Meanwhile, Ken Tomlinson, editor-in-chief of that left-wing, commie-rag Digest, has to wonder about life in these United States. It's not just that his magazine, dentist-office staple of slice-of-Americana apple-pie values, is accused by North of joining a liberal media conspiracy.

It seems North's threat to cancel his subscription - contained in a letter to 65,000 of his closest friends - has this Point to Ponder:

For 2 1/2 years, North has received a gift subscription to the magazine. Says Tomlinson: "He's canceling something he didn't pay for."

The anecdote seems a worthy candidate for the Digest's "Humor in Uniform" column.