Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 19, 1994 TAG: 9405190136
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By MARA LEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
"The colonel will be disappointed," said Thomas MacAdoo. "He usually prefers that everyone arrive before he gets here. It's much more impressive."
But if Oliver North felt let down, he didn't show it as he stepped out of the Sheriff's Office patrol car, his crisp white shirt and suspenders contrasting sharply with his tie patterned with an abstract of the stars and stripes.
North, seeking the Republican nomination against Jim Miller, visited Christiansburg on Tuesday for a pep rally with some of Montgomery County's delegates to next month's GOP convention in Richmond.
Inside, a few students and their parents stood out in the mainly older crowd.
North made a point of shaking hands and looking into the eyes of almost every one of the roughly 40 people who came to hear him speak.
He asked, "How are you?" as if he really wanted to know. He complimented a preteen girl, telling her she looked grown-up. She giggled and said, "Thank you, sir," as he signed her yearbook. He winked at most of the women and laughed at the men's jokes. He stood close to folks as he talked.
Ernestine Frith said she needed no encouragement to support North. "I like his honesty and his belief in God, his family values and good moral values and his pro-life position, of course. And in my eyes, he's a great hero."
North's speech, unlike his warm conversations with individuals, was philosophical, historical and academic. He hit on social and fiscal policy with sophisticated language such as fealty and panoply that often left the audience with moments of puzzled silence.
But he also used punchy phrases that raised, "Amen!" and "That's right," from the crowd.
Much of the speech was a familiar recitation of conservative political themes he has used to distinguish himself from Miller and target the Democratic incumbent, Sen. Charles Robb.
Several delegates said they first liked North when they watched the televised coverage of his testimony before Congress in 1987 on his role in exchanging arms for hostages in the Iran-Contra affair.
But others asked him why former President Reagan has turned on him, and if North lied to Congress. North said Reagan, who wrote a letter critical of North earlier this spring, had been misled by Miller. But the retired Marine said he still respected Reagan. "He changed the world for the better for my children."
"If I thought for a second he hadn't approved, I wouldn't've done it," North said.
One woman asked him to explain. "I've never really grasped it," she said of the Iran-Contra affair. "It's so complicated. I'm just a simpleminded thing here."
"The bottom line is I didn't [lie]," North said. "They're used to people breaking their word. It was a criminalization of a policy difference. It never should've happened."
Drema Bagley, who home schools her children, said North may have difficulty getting on with a Congress that dislikes him, but that can change. "You start one at a time," she says. "You get him in, then we'll get another one in."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB