Oliver North sat at the witness table, erect in his Marine colonel’s uniform, his chest gleaming with ribbons and medals. He was appearing before a Select Committee of Congress, a joint Senate-House body established to investigate the controversy over the provision of missiles to Iran and aid to the so-called contras in Nicaragua by some members of the Reagan administration. Beside him sat his skillful and combative lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, who had spent the past week lecturing any member of the Committee who dared to challenge his hero-client. In a single week that strategy had transformed North from the potential fall guy in a national security fiasco to a television star and national icon, praised effusively by his many supporters for standing up to communists and congressmen. He was a man of action against men of words, and it was no contest. Or was it?
While most viewers saw the medals on North’s chest, few noted that as he raised his right hand to be sworn in as a witness, the Committee’s chairman, Senator Daniel Inouye, raised his left arm as he administered the oath. His right arm had been buried in the hills of central Italy, where he lost it while serving as an infantryman in World War II. Yet North’s fervent supporters glorified him as a hero and pilloried Inouye. Few then could know that North’s testimony, which so dominated the news and captivated the public, included many false statements. In a bold move he not only admitted that he lied; he boasted about it. He had to lie, he said, to save lives. But that too was a lie.3
By the time it was my turn to question him he was a national sensation. Acting on advice from my good friend Harold Pachios, a skillful Maine lawyer, I decided not to engage North on his false statements but to concentrate on an important principle. As Harold put it, “North said today that you guys should vote aid for the Contras for the love of God and country. That’s outrageous. It’s insulting. You can take that and turn it around. Not only can you do it, you have to do it.” That’s what I did. Other than my announcement eleven years later that a peace agreement had been reached in Northern Ireland, it was perhaps the most widely watched and publicized statement I ever made.
You have talked here often eloquently about the need for a democratic outcome in Nicaragua. There’s no disagreement on that. There is disagreement over how best to achieve that objective. Many Americans agree with the President’s policy; many do not. Many patriotic Americans, strongly anti-communist, believe there’s a better way to contain the Sandinistas, to bring about a democratic outcome in Nicaragua and to bring peace to Central America.
Many patriotic Americans are concerned that in the pursuit of democracy abroad we not compromise it in any way here at home. You and others have urged consistency in our policies, you have said repeatedly that if we are not consistent our allies and other nations will question our reliability. That is a real concern. But if it’s bad to change policies, it’s worse to have two different policies at the same time; one public policy and an opposite policy in private. It’s difficult to conceive of a greater inconsistency than that. It’s hard to imagine anything that would give our allies more cause to consider us unreliable than that we say one thing in public and secretly do the opposite. And that’s exactly what was done when arms were sold to Iran and arms were swapped for hostages.
Now, you have talked a lot about patriotism and the love of our country. Most nations derive from a single tribe, a single race; they practice a single religion. Common racial, ethnic, and religious heritages are the glue of nationhood for many. The United States is different; we have all races, all religions, we have a limited common heritage. The glue of nationhood for us is the American ideal of individual liberty and equal justice. The rule of law is critical in our society. It’s the great equalizer, because in America everybody is equal before the law. We must never allow the end to justify the means where the law is concerned. However important and noble an objective, and surely democracy abroad is important and is noble, it cannot be achieved at the expense of the rule of law of our country. . . .
Now, you have addressed several pleas to this committee, very eloquently. None more eloquent than last Friday when in response to a question by Representative Cheney you asked that Congress not cut off aid to the contras for the love of God and for the love of country. I now address a plea to you. Of all the qualities which the American people find compelling about you, none is more impressive than your obvious deep devotion to this country. Please remember that others share that devotion and recognize that it is possible for an American to disagree with you on aid to the contras and still love God and still love this country just as much as you do.
Although He’s regularly asked to do so, God does not take sides in American politics. And in America, disagreement with the policies of the government is not evidence of lack of patriotism.
I want to repeat that: In America, disagreement with the policies of the government is not evidence of lack of patriotism.
Indeed, it is the very fact that Americans can criticize their government openly and without fear of reprisal that is the essence of our freedom, and that will keep us free.
I have one final plea. Debate this issue forcefully and vigorously as you have and as you surely will, but, please, do it in a way that respects the patriotism and the motives of those who disagree with you, as you would have them respect yours.4
The response was immediate and overwhelming. Before I finished speaking, every line in every one of my offices was busy. By the thousands they came in, first the telephone calls, then the telegrams, then the letters. Most were favorable. The unfavorable, although few in number, were intense in their hostility.
I felt at ease. I don’t think I dented Ollie North’s image one bit. I’m sure the supportive comments to him far outnumbered those I received. But at least I got across a different point of view, one worth restating: although He is regularly asked to do so, God does not take sides in American politics, and in America disagreement with the policies of the government is not evidence of lack of patriotism.
Lawrence Walsh, a former federal judge, was appointed independent counsel to investigate the Iran-Contra affair to determine whether any criminal action had occurred. Ultimately he brought criminal charges against fourteen participants.5 Eleven were convicted, either after trial or on pleas of guilty.6 On December 24, 1992, five years after the Committee had concluded its hearings, George H. W. Bush, now president, granted pardons to six defendants; four of them had previously been convicted,7 while two more were awaiting trial.8 In defense of these six pardons, Bush stated, “[The] common denominator of their motivation—whether their actions were right or wrong—was patriotism.” He criticized the years-long investigation run by Walsh as reflective of “what I believe is a profoundly troubling development in the political and legal climate of our country: the criminalization of policy differences.”9
Walsh released a response: “[The] pardon[s] . . . undermine the principle that no man is above the law. It demonstrates that powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious crimes in high office—deliberately abusing the public trust without consequence.” He concluded, “The Iran-Contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed.”10
Although Democrats were in the majority in both the Senate and the House, the Select Committee inquiry was conducted in a largely nonpartisan manner. Inouye insisted that the ranking Republican senator on the Committee, Warren Rudman of New Hampshire, be named and function as vice chairman instead of simply ranking minority member. This had significant implications: in Inouye’s absence, Rudman, not the Democratic senator next in seniority to Inouye, would chair the Committee. Senator Inouye and Representative Lee Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat who was the House chairman of the Committee, treated the Office of the President, and President Reagan personally, with careful consideration, even deference.11
On March 4, 1987, in a nationally televised address, President Reagan said, “A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.”12 In the immediate aftermath of the Iran-Contra disclosures his approval rating fell sharply, from 67 to 46 percent. However, by the time he left office two years later, his rating had recovered to 64 percent.
The Iran-Contra affair was complex and involved several strands, each in its own way dramatic, especially, in light of current events, the secret sale of missiles to Iran by the Reagan administration. Even as the president was saying publicly that he would not negotiate with terrorists to obtain the release of hostages, his aides were doing precisely that, in the end secretly sending missiles to Iran.
But looking back twenty-five years later, my dominant impression of the affair is how thoroughly the process was permeated by false testimony. As a former U.S. attorney and federal district court judge, I am sadly familiar with the reality that the oath to tell the truth is not always honored. But the massive scale of false testimony in the Iran-Contra hearings exceeded anything of which I was previously aware. To his credit, Oliver North at least admitted that he lied. Many of the other participants made statements that in retrospect can only be described as deliberately false and misleading. There were many victims of Iran-Contra, but none more so than the Truth.