ROANOKE TIMES

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

DATE: FRIDAY, October 21, 1994                   TAG: 9412210026
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A15   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JAMES A. BILL
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long


NORTH BROUGHT DISGRACE ON HIS COUNTRY

IN MAY 1986, the leading challenger for the U.S. Senate seat from Virginia helped plan and carry out a foreign-policy escapade that brought disgrace and embarrassment to the United States. As a lieutenant colonel working in the National Security Council, Oliver North cobbled together a plan that unnecessarily threatened human lives and compromised the dignity of his country.

Given North's desire to return to the corridors of national political power, it is worth examining some of the little-known details of this strange and ill-fated adventure.

Early on the morning of May 25, 1986, North and five others boarded a Boeing 707 aircraft in Tel Aviv, Israel. They were bound for Tehran, the capital of revolutionary Iran. Their goal? To exchange Hawk missile parts for American hostages held in Lebanon. North already had spent several months working secretly to provide missiles to Iran in order to secure funds to help illegally bankroll the Nicaraguan Contras.

Despite North's cocky enthusiasm and assurance that the operation would go ``peachy keen,'' the May 1986 foreign-policy gamble was a disaster from the beginning. After three days of bluffing and bickering with low-level Iranians, North and colleagues shamefacedly returned to Washington. The pallet of missile spare parts remained in Iran. The hostages remained in Lebanon. And North remained convinced of his diplomatic skills.

In fact, the venture never stood a chance. North's operation was flawed by faulty assumptions and by the clumsy tactics of an ambitious amateur. North and his colleagues put their trust in a middleman named Ghorbanifar, an individual whom the CIA described as a ``guy who lies with zest.'' North apparently actually believed that his group would meet with the highest authorities in Iran, including Majlis Speaker Rafsanjani and President Khamenei.

Joining the five Americans on this flight of fancy was an Israeli operative named Amiram Nir whose passport identified him as ``Adam Miller.'' All six adventurers carried Irish passports. Oliver North, who had chosen the pseudonyms ``Blood and Guts'' and ``Steelhammer,'' took the code name ``Mr. Goode'' for this operation.

To ingratiate his colleagues and himself to the Iranians, North brought along a chocolate cake fresh from a kosher Tel Aviv bakery. During the flight, he placed a brass key on the middle of the cake. This, he later told the Iranians, was the key to opening Iranian-American relations.

Oliver North thought he could con the Iranians. In his attempt to do so, he himself has stated that ``I lied every time that I met the Iranians.'' As the unfortunate outcome of the Iran overture indicates, North's lying and his attempt to con the Iranians failed miserably.

False passports, colorful pseudonyms and chocolate cakes are not the essence of wise and prudent diplomacy. Long before May 1986, North had been working hard to cut deals with the Islamic Republic, and the lieutenant colonel considered himself an expert on Iran. In fact, his ignorance of Iran was profound. As part of his secret Iranian-American arrangement whereby Iran was to receive more than 1,000 TOW missiles, North confidently predicted that Ayatollah Khomeini would voluntarily step down! Even the most casual observer understood that the ayatollah was not the type to surrender his position.

Four months after the Tehran flight, North was still blindly struggling to make secret deals. In September 1986, for example, he reportedly went so far as to provide secret tours of the White House to low-level Iranian operatives. In meetings in Frankfurt in October 1986, North tried to ingratiate himself with the Iranians by presenting them with a Bible inscribed by President Reagan.

Blind tenacity and boastful enthusiasm are no substitutes for sober and balanced judgment. Oliver North has stated that ``this kid was the one people came to when they wanted something done.''

North's political opponents are, of course, likely to resist senatorial representation by such an individual whose record is long on self-promotion and short on constructive results. But the seriousness of the problem is seen in the fact that many of North's former associates are also uneasy about his current statements and his past behavior. Thus, Ronald Reagan wrote a letter indicating he was ``pretty steamed'' abut North's statements.

Robert McFarlane, a fellow ex-Marine who accompanied North on the Israel-to-Iran adventure, has stated on national television that Oliver North is a ``performer'' who ``is conning people the same today as he did in government.'' McFarlane, who knew North ``like a son,'' has described the lieutenant colonel in print as ``deceitful, mendacious and traitorous.'' McFarlane concludes that ``this is not somebody you want in public office.''

Many Virginians apparently are willing to forgive Oliver North for his admitted lying and numerous misrepresentations of the truth. Many are also apparently willing to forget that, despite taking the Fifth Amendment whenever he could, North was convicted of three felonies. But how many Virginians can really support a man whose foreign policy-making experience is limited to reckless missions built on ignorance and secrecy - missions that resulted in predictable failure and in the process disgraced Oliver North and dishonored his country?

In this fragile, dangerous, complex world, would North offer America mature, reasoned and steady judgment? Is the self-proclaimed ``kid'' a statesman?

James A. Bill is professor of government and the director of the Reves Center for International Studies at the College of William and Mary. He is the author of ``The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations.''



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