Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 29, 1994 TAG: 9404290161
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
With North spokesman Dan McLagan looking on, David Hackworth called North a liar and a fraud at a news conference held to promote his article on North in the June issue of Playboy.
"Anytime I say anything that's not right, Dan, you stand up," Hackworth said at one point.
McLagan stayed seated, but North campaign officials countered with their own news conference in which retired military officers defended North's character.
"Ollie North is real. He is for real. He isn't a fraud," said retired Army Lt. Col. Dave Stanley of Wytheville. He predicted the Playboy article would have little impact in Western Virginia on the GOP nomination race between North and Jim Miller.
"Those people out there don't read Playboy, most of them," Stanley said.
Miller, a former White House budget director, doubted the article would help his campaign because Republicans generally don't view Playboy as a credible magazine for news. "The effectiveness of the article is limited by its source," he said.
Hackworth, a retired Army colonel described as the country's most decorated living veteran, said North has presidential ambitions and could lead the country to disaster.
"North, like Adolf Hitler, appears to a lot of people as the solution to what is wrong with our country," he said. "What we're looking at is an authoritarian figure."
Hackworth said ``the people who read have his number'' but called North supporters ``those two-digit midgets. They don't have his number.''
North campaign spokesman Mark Merritt said he would not respond to the article because he has not read it, but he attacked Hackworth's credibility.
North did not appear at the second news conference because ``it's not worth the candidate's time to respond to Playboy's tasteless attack,'' Merritt said.
``Ollie North doesn't read Playboy,'' he added.
The campaign at first handed out a news release titled ``Why Newsweek Fired David Hackworth'' but then switched to one headed ``How David Hackworth Embarrassed Newsweek.''
Merritt said sources told him Hackworth was fired as a contributing editor to the magazine. Hackworth and a Newsweek spokeswoman said he is still employed there.
Merritt said Newsweek had to announce that Hackworth would not write any articles about North after the writer was linked to an anti-North group called OLLIE-PAC. Hackworth said he was never planning to write about North in Newsweek and has no ties to the group.
He wrote the article for Playboy, he said, because it is well read.
Keywords:
POLITICS
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.