Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 26, 1994 TAG: 9410260030
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: EDWARD POWER LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE NOTE: strip
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
To look upon Oliver North's career - political, military and otherwise - is to walk within a vast hall of mirrors: At this turn there's North the family man, born-again Christian, patriot. At that turn, there's North the gun-running, Nicaraguan Contra supply master.
At another bend, there's North the charismatic, mass-mail fund-raiser, supposedly penning hundreds of thousands of personal notes, autographing photos, soliciting supporters to send him $25 this month, $100 next.
Which image of North is in the next mirror? Who is Oliver North now?
This simple question has underpinned North's entire bid for Charles Robb's U.S. Senate seat. It is the question his critics walk around when they recount alleged instances of North's lying to the public. It is the question many of his former Marine colleagues seem to be nervously scouting out when they are asked to square his seat-of-the-pants Marine Corps exploits with his carefully orchestrated political ones.
And it is the question North himself invites anew each time he talks about a government official who doesn't understand what it means to take an oath before Congress, each time he attacks an opponent's military record, each time he charges a political opponent with lying.
Who is Oliver North now?
Perhaps it is the conviction with which North's supporters answer that question that explains the millions of dollars in contributions he has received for his Senate bid, and the public devotion that, according to the most recent polls, has him in a dead heat with Robb.
But if about 37 percent of Virginia's voters already view North the way he would like them to, his preferred image is not the only one at hand.
Visit the Family Cafe in Stafford and you get one picture of North: a family man who, in the five years that he lived around there, fit in well among the God-fearing citizens, the duck hunters, the Patsy Cline fans.
``If he did half the things he's accused of doing, then he should be president,'' one Stafford man said. ``It'd take an awful smart person to do all those things.''
Go back further in time and one gets, from former military and National Security Council associates, a more confused picture of North:
One unidentified Marine officer who served with North more than 10 years told Playboy magazine in a 1988 profile of North: ``He was good in combat, outstanding as an instructor at Quantico, terrific on Okinawa when he was running the Northern Training Area; I remember once I literally put my life in his hands when he taught me how to rappel out of a CH-53 helicopter.
``We were hovering 100 feet over the Okinawan jungle, and he hooked a snap link to my line, checked the knot and out of that chopper I went. He was cool and competent, and if he'd screwed up that day in 1974, I'd be dead. It's as simple as that.''
But another view also emerges: By June 1986, former NSC head Robert McFarlane was alarmed sufficiently about North's stability to note in a memo to his successor, John Poindexter: ``In Ollie's interest, I would get him transferred or sent to Bethesda [Naval Hospital] for disability review.''
And then there are views such as those of Lawrence Eagleburger, a former U.S. secretary of state.
On Oct. 6, responding to reports that North claimed a large role in planning the invasion of Grenada during the Reagan administration, Eagleburger characterized North as a ``pipsqueak lieutenant colonel'' and said he doubted North's role could have been as prominent as North has claimed.
North, said Eagleburger, has ``no moral character whatsoever'' and ``wouldn't recognize the truth if it hit him over the head with a baseball bat.''
Who is Oliver North now?
``Oliver North,'' said the Marine quoted in the 1988 profile, ``is a tremendously complex man.''
A scrapper in the ring
As unimaginable as the fall from grace may have been for Robb, equally improbable has been the political ascent of North.
While some say North always has had the traits that could enable him to succeed as a politician, his life really divides into two distinct periods: his career in the Marines leading up to his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal - and everything that came afterward.
Born in 1943 in Texas, Oliver Laurence North grew up in northern New York state. He was the eldest of four children and was called ``Larry'' to distinguish him from his father, Oliver Clay North.
Larry's grandfather ran a wool-combing mill in upstate New York, a business that his son - Oliver North's father - would enter after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.
Before entering the family business, young Oliver's father had served as a decorated lieutenant colonel in Patton's Third Army. The young Oliver's mother, Ann, who sometimes worked as a substitute teacher, was a devout Catholic.
The Norths set out to mold their son in the finest traditions of American youth: He became a Boy Scout, an altar boy and a member of the school track team. While he never has been described as a gifted student or athlete, he worked extremely hard - a habit he established early on and that many people have said both served him well and sometimes nearly drove him to the brink of exhaustion.
After graduating from high school (classmates there had voted him both ``nicest looking'' and ``most courteous''), North enrolled at the State University of New York College at Brockport. There he studied English and education while training with the Marine reserves. A classmate's father was the soccer coach at the U.S. Naval Academy; with the man's help, North was able, after his sophomore year, to transfer to Annapolis, though he was compelled to start over as a plebe.
In 1964, North and four other plebes were driving late at night outside Corning, N.Y., when their car collided head-on with a tractor-trailer. The car's driver was killed; North, asleep in the back seat, escaped with back and knee fractures. Because of the accident, North missed months of school and had to begin his plebe service again the following year.
Concerned that lingering symptoms of his injuries might affect his career in the Marines, North took up boxing to build strength and stamina. In what since has become an infamous match, North, in his junior year, got into the boxing ring with James Webb, who later became a well-known novelist and served briefly as secretary of the Navy.
An account of the fight describes Webb as having been more skillful in the ring, but the scrappy North eking out a win on points.
Webb still may feel the sting of that defeat: On Oct. 12, Webb criticized North in a news conference saying that, ``Over the years, many people who have known Oliver North well have marveled at the exaggerations and misrepresentations he has brought to the public arena.''
North later countered by recalling his defeat of Webb in the ring and remarking, ``How old are these sour grapes - 26, 27 years?''
Boxing ultimately played a critical role in helping North secure a Marine Corps commission. When questions arose about the lasting effects of his car-wreck injuries, North went before a board and played a film of the Webb fight. His gamble worked. In June 1968, at the age of 24, Oliver North entered the Marines as a second lieutenant.
After graduation, North barely had time to complete basic training in Quantico and to propose to and marry his sweetheart, Frances Elizabeth ``Betsy'' Stuart, of Falls Church. By that December, he was off to Vietnam.
North served in South Vietnam as an Infantry platoon commander from Dec. 3, 1968, to Aug. 21, 1969, winning a Silver Star, two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star. From 1969 to 1973, North was an instructor at the Marine Corps' Basic School at Quantico. In 1971, he was promoted to captain. In 1973 and 1974, he served on Okinawa as officer in charge of the Northern Training Area, a jungle-warfare school.
It was when North returned from that posting that rumors began to circulate about his emotional state. While the exact details never have been disclosed fully, media accounts have said North was found one day in a state of high anxiety and that he was threatening to commit suicide with a .45-caliber service pistol.
North says that account is inaccurate; Marine records show only that he spent 22 days at the Bethesda Naval Hospital beginning in December 1974, and then returned to full duty. North has refused to release to the public his Marine records from this period.
North spent the next four years as a manpower analyst at Marine Corps Headquarters in Washington, D.C. In June 1978 he was sent to Camp Lejeune, N.C., where he was promoted to major and served as a battalion staff officer for two years.
After being admitted to the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., North caught the eye of soon-to-be Navy Secretary John Lehman. The secretary later recommended North to Richard Allen, then National Security adviser, who was looking for young officers to assist with Capitol Hill briefings. On Aug. 4, 1981, North was assigned to duty with the National Security Council.
``He was just a military grunt,'' Allen told Life Magazine in 1987, recalling North's arrival. ``He was hired to hold charts and carry briefcases for those going to the Hill. That was it.''
At least for a time.
`Neat idea' trouble
In 1983, when Robert McFarlane helped create a new political-military section on the NSC, North began to take on greater responsibility. On Oct. 1, 1983, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel.
As the NSC's deputy director for political and military affairs, North did nothing to allay the impression that he was the Reagan administration's covert-operations specialist; meanwhile, he took on responsibilities for combating terrorism and supporting anti-communist insurgencies.
He has claimed a key role in planning the invasion of Grenada, the bombing of Libya and the mining of Nicaraguan harbors, not to mention his role in supporting the anti-communist Contras. In Washington, North eventually would come to be described as ``the world's highest-ranking lieutenant colonel.''
If North's actual influence on Reagan administration policy is still a matter of debate, it is clear that, within some circles, he did gain favor in those days. McFarlane spoke of him almost as a son, and the late CIA Director William Casey valued his services. Even Ronald Reagan saw fit to praise North as ``a national hero,'' though Reagan has distanced himself as North has become controversial in his Senate campaign.
Others were less taken with North and his penchant for intrigue.
Secretary of State George Shultz reportedly grabbed the young Marine aide by the arm once after he learned that North had made unauthorized contact with the Israeli army.
``Don't you ever dare to get involved in diplomatic matters again,'' Schultz reportedly said.
In June 1986, McFarlane recommended that North receive a disability review at Bethesda.
Meanwhile, North was getting deeper into the Iran-Contra arms dealing. It was an enterprise that eventually would catapult him onto the national scene as a uniform-clad, televised symbol for all that, depending on one's point of view, was right or wrong with government.
The beginning of North's undoing was what he once described as a ``neat idea.''
Retaining private arms dealers, North got them to sell U.S. weapons to Iran in return for the Iranian government's pledge to help free American hostages in the Middle East. Sold at inflated prices, the weapons became the source of profits that then were funneled secretly to the Contras.
News of the Iran-Contra dealings began to leak in late 1986 and North became involved in a massive cover-up. In the early 1980s, Congress had passed the Boland Amendments, cutting off financial aid to Nicaragua's Contras in their country. When congressional investigators visited the National Security Council, North altered documents and gave assurances that the spirit of the Boland Amendments had not been breached. To this day, North insists that although he was not ``fully explanatory'' to Congress, he never lied outright.
But a congressional committee investigating North found otherwise. The panel, in a 1987 report, said North ``by his own [subsequent] testimony ... lied to the members of the [House] Intelligence Committee'' in their initial investigation.
Asked during nationally televised hearings in 1987 whether he had made ``false statements'' to committee members, North responded: ``I did.''
Long ago shredded and lost are North's financial records of the sale of arms to Iran, and of contributions to the Contras. Prosecutors have suggested that North may have profited from the affair, noting that in 1985 he paid $8,038 in cash for a used car. North testified that he had been saving the money for 20 years and kept it in a strong box bolted to a closet floor in his home.
North did accept a $13,000 home security system from arms dealer Richard Secord, in direct violation of federal laws barring government employees from taking gratuities. As the scandal unraveled, North wrote backdated letters to indicate that he paid for the system.
In 1989, a federal jury convicted North of aiding in the obstruction of Congress, receiving an illegal gratuity and altering, destroying and concealing documents. A divided appeals court overturned the verdict a year later. It ruled prosecutors could not prove that they hadn't relied on information North gave Iran-Contra investigators in 1987 - information North had given while under immunity.
North said in a June 1993 interview that he regrets his ``mistakes and lapses of judgment.'' But he asserts that he was caught up in his zeal to fight communism.
``I know the difference between right and wrong and I can tell good from bad,'' he wrote in his autobiography, ``Under Fire.''
``But I also know the more difficult decisions come when we have to choose between good and better. The toughest calls of all are between bad and worse. That was the choice I faced ...
``I never saw myself above the law, nor did I intend to do anything illegal.''
`Hero' or 'liar'?
Who is Oliver North now?
If one listens to Ralph Reed, executive director of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition, North is an ``American hero.''
Or to Richard A. Viguerie, a Republican fund-raiser: ``True conservatives have been searching for a leader since Ronald Reagan left office. In terms of leadership, we haven't had a person with all the excitement and gravitas of Reagan. Ollie is filling that position. He has that star quality.''
Listen to Donald Moseley, a former GOP district chairman from Southside, and one hears a different story. North, Moseley has said, is an ``admitted liar.''
North's own characterization of himself is as an agent of change - part of a new generation of GOP leaders who would recommit the party to the Reagan mantra of no new taxes and a strong national defense. North supports term limits and has promised not to serve more than 12 years if he's elected to the Senate.
Acknowledging a friendship with religious broadcaster Robertson, North has said, ``I am not anyone's single-issue candidate.''
But North's strongly conservative underpinnings emerge when he's asked to outline his position on abortion.
On the question of voting ``whether public funds ought to be used for abortion,'' North stated last year: ``Do you have any doubt as to how I'm going to vote on that? I will vote against it, and there's nothing that will change my mind.''
North's conservative agenda also has, in his stated view, made him a target for what he terms ``the liberal media.'' The media ``can't stand the fact that I am innocent in the eyes of the court,'' he once said.
Since his departure from the Marine Corps, North has seen his financial fortunes change dramatically.
After retiring from the Marines on an annual pension of $23,000, he has amassed, according to estimates in May 1994, assets of between $2.3 million and $4.8 million.
His income, in large part, is from book royalties and speaking fees. North is the author of a best-selling book, ``Under Fire,'' that recounted his travails in the service and during Iran-Contra. Last fall, he published a sequel, ``One More Mission,'' which recounted his experiences in Vietnam and which became a Book of the Month Club selection. Before his Senate bid, he was a busy orator on the national trail, collecting a reported $25,000 per speech.
North is also the chairman of Guardian Technologies International Inc., a manufacturer of body armor. The company, headquartered in Sterling, Va., claims accounts in 26 states and several foreign nations.
In 1990, he and his family moved from Great Falls to a $1.17 million, 194-acre estate in Clarke County, about 35 miles northwest of Washington. North has said the estate is part of a family trust owned by his in-laws.
North also is an extraordinary national fund-raiser. Since 1988, he has raised more than $40 million for conservative causes he has headed.
His mammoth legal bills from Iran-Contra have been paid, thanks to at least $13.7 million raised nationwide by the North Legal Defense and Family Safety Trust Fund, which was terminated in 1993.
North is past president of the Freedom Alliance, a group that has raised more than $7 million in recent years for conservative causes. In newsletters, he has lashed out at President Clinton's efforts to lift the ban on homosexuals in the military. He has criticized federal funding of the National Endowment for the Arts and has called for boycotts of companies that cut financial support to the Boy Scouts of America to protest the group's ban on gay and atheistic members.
While the Freedom Alliance continued with its fund raising, North started a political-action committee called V-PAC in late 1991. The group's stated purpose was to raise money ``in support of, or opposition to, candidates or ballot issues.''
Of the $890,000 the committee had raised by last May, only about $50,000 had been contributed to federal candidates and about $20,000 more to state and local Republicans seeking election in Virginia last year, including Gov. George Allen.
North aides have acknowledged that the mailing list North cultivated over the years has been the base of his record-breaking fund raising. From July 1 through Sept. 30, the campaign spent more than $1.1 million a month on direct-mail activities, according to federal disclosures. Of every $1 it received in contributions, the campaign was spending nearly 50 cents sending out more mail.
North's pitches seem to have a special effect on elderly people.
``That's true in most direct-mail enterprises,'' said Viguerie, who has managed much of the campaign's direct mail this year. ``People over 55 have the most disposable income.''
But Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist, has said that direct mail ``fools a lot of elderly people into thinking they are receiving personal letters. This is why I think direct mail is the most corrupt of all campaign fund-raising endeavors.''
North himself seems to have no trepidations at all about such targeted fund raising.
``Money,'' he wrote last March, ``is the ammunition of political warfare.''
This profile was written using reporting that has appeared in the Roanoke Times & World-News and The Virginian-Pilot since 1993. Among the staff reporters whose work the writer drew from are Margaret Edds and Warren Fiske. In limited excerpts, their writing was lifted directly from previously published reports. The writer also drew from reporting that appeared in a 1987 Life magazine article, in a People magazine article the same year, and in a 1988 Playboy magazine article.
Keywords:
POLITICS PROFILE
by CNB