Pawn Among Giants

By Ed Magnuson

In the cavernous Senate Caucus Room two years ago, a misty-eyed Marine Lieut. Colonel Oliver North dazzled millions of TV viewers. Imposing in his sharply creased uniform and Viet Nam combat ribbons, he confidently minimized his role in the Iran-contra scandal, insisting, "I was authorized to do everything that I did." Last week in a Washington federal courtroom, a more subdued North, now a blue-suited civilian with graying hair, took the witness stand and tried to convince twelve jurors that he had been merely a gofer, dutifully carrying out policy set higher in the White House. Surprisingly, the Government conceded for the first time that to some extent, at least, the former National Security Council aide was right.

Having failed in his effort two weeks ago to bring Ronald Reagan to the courtroom to testify on his behalf, North took the burden of his criminal defense upon himself. A risky move, it exposes him to cross-examination by the federal prosecutors and leaves him liable to a possible perjury charge if he contradicts his earlier testimony before the Iran-contra committees. Soft- spoken and earnest, he admitted lying to Congress as well as altering documents. But always, he insisted, he was following the orders of his White House superiors. In yet another melodramatic but memorable statement, he declared, "I felt like a pawn in a chess game being played by giants."

Shortly before North took the stand, the defense read to the jury an extraordinary 42-page "admission of facts," disclosing that secret efforts to provide support for the Nicaraguan contras involved not only North but also Ronald Reagan, former Secretary of State George Shultz, CIA Director William Casey and, most important, George Bush. The court paper was supplied by the staff of independent counsel Lawrence Walsh with the approval of Attorney General Dick Thornburgh. It had been drawn up to satisfy North's attorney, Brendan Sullivan, who had fought for months for the right to use classified documents to demonstrate that North's contra activities were part of a secret Administration policy.

The document describes the then Vice President as assuring the government of Honduras that it would be well rewarded if it would continue to harbor contra camps on its territory and funnel military supplies to the rebels. Bush visited Tegucigalpa on March 16, 1985. According to the evidence, he told Honduran President Roberto Suazo Cordova that the U.S. would carry out a promise from Reagan to increase and expedite military and economic aid in return for this help.

According to the document, Reagan had urged the Hondurans to continue helping the contras in a letter to Suazo one month before Bush's visit. The U.S. "conditions" for giving some $110 million in aid were considered so sensitive that a secret emissary was sent to brief the Honduran President orally on them. The quid pro quo had been approved that same month at a meeting of a special interagency crisis-planning group headed by Bush, although it was not clear whether he led this key meeting. At the time, the Boland amendment was in effect, banning lethal help to the contras.

Those and other disclosures were deeply embarrassing to various high officials of the Reagan Administration. Bush's covert role is at odds with his insistence at a 1984 meeting of top Reagan aides that soliciting help from other countries for the contras would be legal but that there would be a "problem" if "the United States were to promise to give these third parties something in return."

And while some Reagan Administration officials privately considered Panama's Manuel Antonio Noriega corrupt, the court document showed that North and his then boss, National Security Adviser John Poindexter, were encouraging Noriega to sabotage various Sandinista government facilities in Nicaragua. North, however, set some limits: he rejected as illegal a Noriega offer to assassinate the entire Sandinista leadership.

Bush last week simply shrugged off the disclosures and insisted, as he did during his campaign last year, that he could not discuss issues involved in court proceedings. If the revelations had come during the campaign or earlier, his candidacy might have been hurt. But now Administration officials believe that the public is weary of the Iran-contra question and he can easily weather the storm.

For North the stakes are higher: he faces a possible prison term for lying to Congress, obstructing an investigation by Attorney General Edwin Meese and shredding classified documents. Thus he took the witness stand to claim that these acts were either implicitly condoned or explicitly directed by higher officials.

Under the interrogation of his lawyer, North testified that he had been content with his peacetime Marine career and had not wanted to be assigned to the White House. Nor had he been eager to jump into his covert contra role. By , 1984, however, the impending congressional cutoff of military aid clearly ruled out further running of contra military supplies by the CIA. "Every bit of that CIA responsibility had been passed on to me," he told the jury. This "hand-off" came from Casey, "a man that I respected and admired."

North claimed that Casey, former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane and Poindexter repeatedly told him that his activities "could not be revealed." When suspicious congressional committee chairmen asked McFarlane precisely what the NSC and North were doing about Nicaragua, North said he argued in vain that McFarlane should claim Executive privilege and refuse to answer. Instead, McFarlane wrote deceptive letters to the committees. The prosecutors claim North helped him; North insists that he had objected. The deception is part of the charges against North.

Again directly contradicting McFarlane's testimony several weeks earlier, North claimed that he and his secretary, Fawn Hall, had altered various documents about the contra arrangements on direct orders from McFarlane. North conceded, under Sullivan's questioning, that he had lied when called before a congressional committee in August 1986. "I knew it wasn't right not to tell the truth about those things," he said in a voice husky with emotion. "But I didn't think it was unlawful."

But North is also accused of acts difficult to explain away as matters of high policy: defrauding the Internal Revenue Service by helping a tax-exempt foundation raise money for the contras; accepting an illegal gift to a Government employee, a $13,800 security installation for his home; and putting some funds raised for the contras to his own personal use.

The jurors may have been impressed by his performance -- as well as by the clear evidence of wider Administration complicity. But they no doubt remembered the testimony earlier in the week by Vincent Cannistravo, a former NSC aide, who admitted, "You could never be sure whether what ((North)) said was true, fantasy, or was being told deliberately to mislead." And North's ability to win over an audience will face its roughest test this week, when prosecutor John Keker gets his turn to ask the questions. "North makes an excellent witness," said Richard Ben-Veniste, a former Watergate prosecutor. "The question is the cross-examination, which will provide by far the greatest dramatic element of the trial. The trial may well hinge on the cross- examination of Ollie North."

With reporting by Steven Holmes/Washington