THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 29, 1994 TAG: 9410290235
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ROBERT LITTLE AND DAVID M. POOLE, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: FALLS CHURCH LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
Staying true to his politics-is-for-the-people theme, U.S. Senate candidate Oliver L. North on Friday revived a hallowed tactic of the American stump: the old-fashioned, foot-stomping, fist-pumping campaign rally.
About 600 hardcore Ollie fanatics cheered on their conqueror in what was the first of five such red-white-and-blue riots planned throughout the state this weekend.
The show will arrive at Mount Trashmore in Virginia Beach today at 4 p.m. It will be in Wytheville at 11 a.m., and in Roanoke on Sunday at 2 p.m.
``It's Friday - good night for a party,'' said Colleen Carter, a 27-year-old Alexandria hairdresser who borrowed her roommate's elephant sweater and ticket for the gathering. ``And not a Virginia Beach party, either. An Ollie party,'' she said, referring to Democratic Sen. Charles S. Robb's notorious beachfront social life of the early 1980s.
The crowd's support for the Republican nominee was evident in the ``Kids for North,'' ``Greeks for North,'' ``Attorneys for North'' and ``Branch Davidians for North'' lapel stickers.
Their rowdy enthusiasm was evident in a brief scuffle with four Robb supporters. Just as North began to address the crowd, four people chanting ``We want Chuck!'' stood up in front of the podium. Their chants were quickly drowned by a roaring, ``We got Robbed!'' as North supporters took their ``Robb for U.S. Senate'' banner.
Afterward, the four dissenters were talking with Fairfax County Police, planning to lodge assault charges.
``I can tell you what drove me to do it: My rights. I thought this was America,'' said a sobbing Mirna Aceituno, one of the wounded agitators.
Aceituno, 24, said she was struck in the face and bruised on her arm.
North was far removed from the scuffles, railing from the podium about his Democratic opponent and joshing about his notorious past in the Iran-Contra affair.
``The people of Virginia know I know how to fight for what's right, and I keep my commitments,'' North said. Then he laughed, and added, ``I keep my commitments no matter how much trouble I get into.''
Some of North's ``trouble'' cropped up Friday afternoon on the Cable News Network. The channel reported that it had obtained a declassified White House memo from 1986 in which North suggested paying $1 million to Panamanian Gen. Manuel Noriega in return for sabotaging the leftist Sandanista government of Nicaragua.
Noriega's connections to drug smuggling had already been exposed by the media when North met him in a London hotel room to talk about aiding the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
In his autobiography, North recalled that he told Noriega to stop associating with criminals and remarked that the general was ``probably the single most despicable human being I ever had to deal with.''
But according to the memo as reported by CNN, the two men discussed sabotaging the airport, oil refinery and electric and telephone systems in Nicaragua. North wrote in the memo that Noriega's services could be secured for $1 million from the secret funds he was using to finance the Contra rebels, according to CNN.
The Iran-Contra scandal became public a few weeks later, making the proposal moot. Noriega was eventually captured by U.S. troops and sentenced to 40 years in prison for drug convictions.
North declined to appear in the CNN report, and aides called the matter ``garbage.''
Also on Friday, Republican Gov. George F. Allen waded into the Senate race by asking a political action committee opposed to North to stop using a variation on the the state's tourism slogan.
The Clean Up Congress PAC has emblazoned its motto - ``Virginia is for Lovers, Not Liars'' - on T-shirts, posters and bumperstickers.
Clean Up Congress director Woody Holton acknowledged that the motto incorporates the state's registered tourism slogan, but said the group's lawyers assured him it fell under the protection of ``political speech.''
Holton - whose father, Linwood Holton, championed the tourism slogan when he was governor from 1970-74 - agreed to withdraw the anti-North motto until he could talk with a lawyer. MEMO: Staff writer Greg Schneider contributed to this report.
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA CANDIDATE by CNB