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

DATE: THURSDAY, January 27, 1994                   TAG: 9401270242
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DALE EISMAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WARNER CALLS NORTH UNFIT TO BE SENATOR

Virginia's senior Republican leader, U.S. Sen. John Warner, struck Wednesday night against fellow Republican Oliver North's campaign to take the state's second seat in the Senate.

As North and a national television audience watched, the usually courtly Warner portrayed the mastermind of the Iran-Contra, arms-for-hostages scandal as a criminal, able to run for office only because of a "technical reversal" of his conviction for lying to Congress.

"So far as we know, no one in the history of the United States Senate - since 1789 - has ever sat in this chamber that was convicted of a felony," Warner said. ". . . That is on his record. And at the very time that this nation is struggling against crime, what sort of signal does that send to the younger generations?"

Warner's salvo, taped in his office Wednesday morning with CNN talk-show host Larry King, was played at the outset of King's nightly broadcast. North was a guest on the show to formally announce his candidacy for the Senate seat now held by Democrat Charles Robb. He will launch the campaign with speeches today in four cities, including Roanoke.

North said he was not surprised by the attack. He promised not to counterattack - "You're never going to hear me say an unkind thing about a fellow Republican" - but seconds later called Warner's statement "a crock, and you know it, and [viewers] know it, and most of all, he knows it."

North, whose testimony in defense of the arms-for-hostages deal led to his conviction for lying to Congress, brandished a copy of the Constitution and said that was the "technicality" that cleared him. His conviction was reversed when an appeals court ruled that testimony he gave while under a grant of immunity from prosecution had been used against him.

In 15 years in the Senate, Warner has rarely gotten involved in intraparty disputes. But he angered many in the GOP's most conservative wing last year by refusing to back Michael Farris, the party's nominee for lieutenant governor.

Farris has since hinted that he may challenge Warner when the incumbent's term expires in 1996.

Running against North for the GOP nomination is Jim Miller, a former federal budget director.

In addition to Warner's comments, the King program featured strong criticism of North by Robert McFarlane, like North a former assistant to President Reagan.

"Can you imagine, the first time that North chairs a subcommittee and asks somebody to stand and swear that they will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth - when he lied again and again?" McFarlane asked.

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