Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 10, 1994 TAG: 9409120084
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
North sought on Friday to discredit an upcoming ``60 Minutes'' interview with former National Security Adviser Robert ``Bud'' McFarlane by alluding to McFarlane's failed suicide attempt seven years ago.
"It is clear," North said in a press release, ``that Bud McFarlane never recovered from the terrible stress.''
Five months ago, however, North cried "character assassination" when a GOP challenger asked North to disclose medical records related to a mental breakdown for which North was hospitalized for 22 days in 1974.
"Jim Miller ought to be ashamed," North said in April of his former GOP opponent, "that those of us who saw the horrors of Vietnam and then sought counseling to heal the wounds of war are somehow not up to his standards."
North said Friday night that he was not trying to discredit McFarlane by raising questions about his former boss' depression.
"I'm simply saying that a lot of people - myself included - had their lives changed by [Iran-Contra] events in 1986 and 1987 and were able to recover and get on without being bitter and visceral and looking back," he said.
"It's a shame that Bud McFarlane hasn't gotten on with his life and remains bitter."
In describing McFarlane, the North campaign chose words like "battle weary" and "devastated" - references to the bout of clinical depression that McFarlane suffered after the Iran-Contra scandal became public in late 1986.
In his forthcoming autobiography "Special Trust," McFarlane addresses his attempt to take his own life in February 1987 by swallowing at least 30 Valiums.
McFarlane said he recovered his mental health with the help of therapy, but acknowledged that some people would continue to look at him as "a weak person, mentally unstable and unable to deal with stress."
That is exactly the stigma that North has tried to place on McFarlane. Yet North has rejected the notion that he has suffered any lingering affects from his mental breakdown nearly 20 years ago.
In his autobiography ``Under Fire,'' North said he suffered his breakdown after departing for a second tour of duty in Asia and receiving a letter from his wife saying she felt neglected and that she was filing for a divorce.
He voluntarily entered Bethesda Naval Hospital, suffering from what was diagnosed as "emotional stress."
North said psychiatrists persuaded him to undergo marriage counseling with his wife and that his depression ended when the two reconciled.
There have been unverified reports - all denied by the candidate - that North suffered from suicidal depression.
The Washington Times, quoting unidentified sources, reported in 1986 that North called a former commanding officer, the late Richard Schultze, and told him that he "didn't have anything to live for, that he was going to shoot himself."
The Times reported that Schultze went to North's home, where he discovered North, then 31, naked and waving a .45 pistol. North has denounced the newspaper's report as a ``scandalous lie.''
The New York Times reported that same year that Schultze purged the hospital records from North's military file.
Richard Allen, former director of the National Security Council, said several years ago that he never would have hired North in 1982 had he known about the hospitalization. That comment has raised long-standing questions over whether North properly divulged his depression on security clearance forms.
But in an interview this spring, Allen said North probably was not asked about the hospitalization when he joined the NSC.
Staff writer Warren Fiske contributed to this report.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB