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

DATE: SUNDAY, January 2, 1994                   TAG: 9401120004
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: F2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

LIAR'S BURDEN

Several, including the former president, have taken no stand between North and James Miller, the Reagan budget director who's challenging North for the GOP nomination.

Several - including two former secretaries of state, two former secretaries of defense and a former attorney general - support Miller.

And so far as is known, a grand total of one - John Poindexter, the former national-security adviser whose Iran-Contra conviction (and jail sentence) were overturned on appeal - publicly backs North.

Why the disparity among those most closely acquainted with North's so-called public service?

One reason, presumably, is that North is a liar.

In a June issue of Reader's Digest, the lead article by Rachel Flick Wildavsky listed a number of outright Ollie fabrications reported to her by North's former government colleagues. In the current issue of The New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin notes a list of provable, material Ollie lies collected by Toobin while a lawyer on the staff of special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh.

But you don't have to accept Wildavsky's or Toobin's reportage. North himself is source enough.

During the Iran-Contra probe, he admitted to telling repeated lies to Congress about his role in the scandal. It is because the admission was also to Congress, in immunized testimony, that his criminal convictions were overturned.

What would North today have the voters believe - that he lied about lying? That lying doesn't matter? That lying in official capacity, under oath, to the agency of government he wants to join, isn't a legitimate campaign issue?

There may be, as well, a second, related reason for Reagan officials' opposition to North's Senate aspirations. With Virginia Democrats in disarray, their Senate seat now held by Charles Robb looks vulnerable. North is the kind of guy who, for the GOP, could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory ... even should North be elected.

After all, his reputation for lying extends not only to untruths told a hostile Congress but also untruths told to supervisors and colleagues within a putatively friendly administration. Given that background, and his preference for grandstanding style over policy-making substance, a Sen. North is less likely to be vilified in Washington than ignored: What credibility would be put in anything he said?

With Miller, conservatives would have a senator who knows his way around Washington, who knows budgets, and who knows enough to separate fact from fancy ... the kind of senator, in other words, who could prove a great thorn in the side of the opposition. The election of North, on the other hand, could prove a considerable if unwitting boon for the Democrats.