Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 15, 1994 TAG: 9408150079
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
All that was missing were the strains of "Hail to the Chief" as Oliver North emerged from the state Republican convention early in June surrounded by what looked like a presidential escort.
A dozen men with dark suits, thick necks and humorless expressions whisked the U.S. Senate candidate and his wife, Betsy, through the basement of the Richmond Coliseum.
As they approached a waiting van, David Valinski, a former Naval Intelligence Service officer who has been at North's side since the Iran-Contra hearings, barked orders.
"Seal it off," Valinski said, his baritone ricochetting off the concrete walls. The security men fell into formation, creating a human shield around the van as the Norths climbed aboard and sped away.
North, the former Marine who gained international fame for running covert foreign policy out of the basement of the Reagan White House, has given his U.S. Senate campaign a cloak-and-dagger edge.
North is accompanied by at least one bodyguard as he campaigns around Virginia. The Sun Sport motor home in which North travels is stocked with a bulletproof vest and a .38-caliber revolver, just in case. Last week, a judge refused to renew North's permit for carrying a concealed weapon because of what North claimed were political reasons.
North has appealed, and in the meantime has said, "We'll take whatever the proper steps to ensure that my family and I are adequately protected."
His staff has taken extraordinary steps to protect campaign strategy by discarding sensitive paperwork through a company - Document Destructors Inc. - that serves super-secret government agencies.
The "Doonesbury" comic strip has portrayed North as a paranoid candidate hunkered in fortified campaign headquarters. Former Gov. Douglas Wilder, an independent candidate for the Senate, has told audiences that he couldn't imagine the need for bodyguards on the campaign trail.
"This is not the Wild West," Wilder said.
But political analysts say North is such a polarizing figure in American society that he may be wise to travel with more than a tape recorder-toting press secretary.
"I don't blame him for having security," said Larry Sabato, a political scientist from the University of Virginia. "It's possible that a crackpot would take a shot at him."
Mark Merritt, North's deputy campaign manager, said the North campaign headquarters in Sterling receives an occasional death threat. There also is some concern in the North camp that international terrorists could strike in retribution for North's counterterrorism activities in the mid-1980s.
"Those threats are lifelong threats," Merritt said, adding that North is not obsessed with security. "That's just a caricature created by the media."
Merritt described North as an accessible candidate who has logged more miles on the campaign trail and encountered more everyday Virginians than the rest of the field, comprising incumbent Democratic Sen. Charles Robb, former state Attorney General Marshall Coleman and Wilder.
The level of security around North fluctuates. At major events, North makes a big show of it by surrounding himself with a dozen or so off-duty police officers who volunteer their services. Most of the time, however, security is less visible.
North recently appeared at a GOP fund-raiser at the Omni Waterside in Norfolk, where security measures probably escaped the notice of the 250 faithful who paid $40 each to lunch with him and Jack Kemp, a Republican presidential hopeful for 1996.
North arrived with a three-person escort: Merritt, who has the shoulders of a barroom bouncer; North's son, Stuart, a former high school wrestler; and Jonathan Grigg, a businessman who wore a "Law Enforcement for North" lapel pin shaped like a sheriff's badge.
"These are the easy events," Grigg said, surveying the crowd from the back of the Omni ballroom.
Security tightened a few hours later when North and Kemp walked through Lamberts Point, a predominantly black neighborhood near Old Dominion University. Two North staffers who had driven three hours from Northern Virginia joined the entourage as backup during North's 30-minute walk through the low-income neighborhood.
Valinski, the former Naval investigator who oversees security for North, met North when he was assigned to cover the Marine during the Iran-Contra hearings. Valinski retired soon after the hearings and went to work for North.
Valinski, who declined to be interviewed, is the only paid security person on North's campaign staff.
The rest of North's security team are volunteers who include former military officers who knew North during his Marine days, off-duty police officers, a former federal drug agent and those simply attracted by the thrill of guarding a national celebrity while carrying a limited edition "North for Senate" shield that looks just like a real police badge.
One of the most visible bodyguards at the GOP convention was former Washington Redskin lineman Wally Klein, whose 6-foot-9-inch, 300-pound frame kept the media away from the newly crowned candidate.
It's hard to assess if the threat on North's life is more real than perceived. North has refused his staff's urging to wear a bulletproof vest.
Merritt declined to elaborate on death threats. In April, a man called and said he was driving down from New York to kill North at a scheduled campaign reception in Staunton that night. The man called back from New York a few hours before the event, apparently leading North's staffers to conclude the call was a hoax.
"They said they could handle it," recalled Chief G.L. Wells of the Staunton Police Department.
In his request for a concealed weapon permit, North cited threats from the likes of Abu Nidal, a terrorist who vowed to get even with North and others who planned the bombing of Tripoli after the terrorist attack on the Achille Lauro cruise ship in 1986.
But counterterrorism experts say North no longer has anything to fear.
"If North went to Syria, Libya, Iraq and, certainly, Iran, he'd be in great danger," said Robert Kupperman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan think tank in Washington.
Kupperman added, however, that North has "virtually no danger" of a encountering terrorists on the hustings of Virginia.
North has found it difficult to let go of a terrorist whose threats have done so much to advance his career and enhance his blood-and-guts image.
North's challenge to Abu Nidal provided one of the most memorable lines from the televised Iran-Contra hearings: "Now, I want you to know that I would be more than willing - and if anybody else is watching overseas, and I am sure they are - I will be glad to meet Abu Nidal on equal terms anywhere in the world."
A year earlier, North had used the Abu Nidal threat to preserve his posting at the National Security Council when superiors were considering a transfer.
"I cannot imagine putting my tail between my legs and running in the face of this provocation," North wrote at the time.
If North really fears a terrorist assault, he has done little to prepare his volunteer security men for that possibility.
One security man, when asked at the GOP state convention if he would recognize Abu Nidal if he saw him, replied: "Abu Ni-who?"
North's security detail spends most of its time helping the candidate wade through throngs that mob him at virtually every stop, elbowing reporters who try to get too close to the candidate and dragging away the occasional heckler.
In recent weeks, followers of political extremist Lyndon LaRouche have shown up at several North appearances to shout charges that pilots sent by North into Nicaragua to support the Contra rebels smuggled tons of cocaine back into the United States.
"Lyndon LaRouche people give us the most trouble," Grigg said, "but we just get rid of them."
Andrew Spannaus, the 22-year-old son of perennial statewide candidate Nancy Spannaus, was dragged out of a rally in Falls Church last month when he interrupted North's speech.
"By the time I got to the end of my sentence, three guys had grabbed me and pulled me outside," Spannaus said. ``They threw me on this car and started going through my pockets.''
Spannaus said the North people opened his wallet to learn his identity and then ordered him to leave. They called the police when he refused. No charges were filed.
Another time, the North security men acted without police help. On July 27, LaRouche loyalist Jerry Berg of Richmond confronted North at a Republican picnic in Charles City County.
As soon as Berg began yelling, three men - spokesman Dan McLagan, Stuart North and Grigg - pulled him away from the crowd.
Berg said he continued to scream until a man flashed a badge and threatened to arrest him. Berg assumed the man was an off-duty deputy from the Charles City County Sheriff's Department.
"That convinced me to moderate my intervention," he said.
In fact, the man whom Berg thought was a cop was none other than Grigg, who had flashed his Oliver North badge.
"I've had someone offering me a thousand bucks for it," Grigg said after the encounter, "but I'm not selling."
Kerry Dougherty of Landmark News Service contributed to this story.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB