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

DATE: SUNDAY, October 23, 1994                   TAG: 9410240081
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                 LENGTH: Medium

NORTH: ACCUSATIONS A CHEAP PLOY

Republican Senate nominee Oliver North on Saturday denounced as ``hogwash'' a report that as a White House aide in the mid-1980s he failed to act on tips that drugs were being brought into the United States on a Contra supply plane.

North, campaigning before the Virginia Tech-Pittsburgh football game, dismissed the story as a futile attempt to derail his candidacy.

He said the report ``will reinforce those people who want to believe the worst about me. But it will energize those people who feel that I'm being mistreated. And I feel I am, and I'm going to remind them.''

Sen. Charles Robb on Saturday accused North of looking the other way when presented with evidence of drug smuggling.

``During a time when we were spending millions of dollars trying to stop drugs at our borders, Oliver North's office in the White House was the secret passage to bypass the [Drug Enforcement Agency] and U.S. Customs,'' Robb said.

A North spokesman fired back with charges of ``utter hypocrisy.''

``Chuck Robb partied with the sleaziest drug dealers and hookers in Virginia while serving as governor and chief law-enforcement officer of this state,'' said Mark Merritt, North's deputy campaign manager. ``And now he is accusing Oliver North of looking the other way?''

Robb argued that North had an ``obligation'' to respond to suggestions that North knew of possible drug smuggling by pilots hired to supply ``Contra'' rebels seeking to overthrow the then-communist government of Nicaragua.

Robb said the accounts essentially prove that North committed perjury during his sworn congressional testimony in 1987. He challenged North to come forward with DEA officials who can corroborate his account.

The North campaign supplied statements from two ranking Reagan administration officials, ex-National Security Adviser John Poindexter and former Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams.

``I know that Ollie passed on rumors like that to me, the DEA and the CIA,'' Poindexter said.

North predicted that ``in the last days of this campaign, the liberal media will do everything in its power to see that I'm not elected.'' But, he said, ``The voters are a whole lot sharper than many in the media give them credit for.''

Staff writer David M. Poole supplied information for this story.

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB