European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 13, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 the stars and stripes monday. July 13, 1987 columns William f. Buckley or. Iron Contra hearing raising heavy questions reflections on the testimony of Marine it. Col. Oliver North give Rise to thoughts grave and no so grave and these last for the moment occupy the mind. What were you using the shredder for Early in the proceedings an inquisitor found himself asking. What a Joy it was a Long Lime ago 1hat i read the essay by Rob Ert bin Chulcy in which he externalized his fantasy the witness in the murder trial. The Exchange went some thing like this Well now or. Bechky what time was it you say you heard the shot "2 37," the prosecutor a smug expression of satisfaction aimed a the jury asks. And How do you know or. Benchley thai it was 2 37?" "1 looked at my the prosecutor a Little More slowly this time asks and Why did you look Al your watch to Sec what Lime it was Well it was t exactly that neat but darn near when North said that the reason they have shredders in the National Security Council offices is in order to shred things. Ii was in the category of the Why do you Rob Banks question the answer to which made Wilhe sul Lon famous. But. Inevitably the levity blurred into the major question. The untangle ability of which is exactly what is going to doom Tuhcic Long proceedings to ultimate meaningless Ness. Because the Salim question the Only question is ought this particular document to have been shredded or ought it to have been saved in order to assist a congressional investigating committee or a special prosecutor to do its Job but such questions Are not reasonably Pul to such As North and not that easily put even to those with higher positions of responsibility than North exercised. He tended to rely on rather obvious an Swers that the material he was shredding involved among other things the identities of persons whose lives Hung on confidentiality. Obviously one is going to destroy such a document As that. But from some James resign thing As obvious As that the line begins to move and the question then arises docs that Tine reach a Point readily discernible where the balance changes and the Burden is overwhelmingly on the shredder one can without any problem conceive of a hypothetical situation in which that would be so. Memo to col. North while congressman b. Grande was in Rome operative x slipped him a thousand Bucks in return for his Promise to change his Vole next time around on the Boland fiction yields up such stuff and so docs life but Busy operating agents engaged in Covert operations can t reasonably be asked to come up with the relevant perspective. What May seem a document entirely inno cent in its implications May in fact prove in certain circumstances to be dynamite. Richard Nixon discovered Hal. In what direction should someone engaged in Intelli gence operations lean North when asked if his motives had been political made the mistake on one occasion of saying he should have said that inc objectives political and strategic were in Many cases indistinguishable. Heavy questions have been raised and not All of them will be answered. Bulhe question that is raising the least Public attention is really this should the com Mander in chief of inc United slates have done every thing constitutionally possible to help to defend hemispheric interests from further sail ligation by the soviet Union on this Point there Are two distinct Camps and Nonh is inc most visible Public activist standing be Hind the position that yes we should have helped the Contris we should continue to help the contras and we should be proud to do so. His Public support is very remember a lot of people Hwe Plep face p0wm in the mop so that this Man Coulp vat Tate the Laws sheep new face adj Tell cow press mrs own flows re au.owim6them to see him meaty moulded to death by inc ambit lists who lend to try to run our foreign policy from Congress the kind of people so articulately and eloquently abhorred by Daniel Patrick Moynihan while he served in the United nations the kind of people whose ranks he went on alas to join. Which brings me to a fresher proposal than anything Likely to come out of the hearings in Washington. Oliver North was brought up in new York upstate somewhere. When this is Over which will be not too far off Why does t he run for senator run on a Clear hard defense inc position. The Raff irritation of the Monroe doctrine if you want to think Biff let him and Pat Moynihan debate Hal Issue and see what the voters of new York Tell us. Probably they will say thai the reason we have elections is to vote people in and out of office. A pint syr Wicht North s testimony did t Surprise committee it. Col. Oliver North did t walk the Plank after All. In his firs Day of testimony before the con Gressional investigating committees he simply moved the question of responsibility for the Iran Centra affair up the line As he said into the Cabinet room and the Oval office. According to him he was no Loose Cannon but just � Good of Edical Marine carrying out orders from the head of the National Security Council which he assumed Wilhour written proof came from presi Dent Reagan. Wilhour that in writing of course no smoking gun can be traced to Reagan. North looked the part in his Marine uniform with its breast full of medals and if you accepted his Prem ise you could Swallow almost anything. His premise was that the nation was in a cold War that required Covert operations which justified any amount of lying to help the nicaraguan contras and protect the presi Dent of the United Smuts. He not Only adm lied that he shredded evidence but boasted about it. Always he insisted he acted with the knowledge of his superiors. Did he know thai the historic chronology of the events was not True sure he helped write it but us contents were known also to attorney general Metic former director of Central intelligence William Casey . This was the testimony thai seemed to impress the committees More than anything else. For obedience to the Law is what they Are after and they clearly reject his premise thai lying to Congress and evading or breaking inc arms Export control act was justified by his cold War objectives. And they were particularly inter sled in finding the missing document dial authorized Clandestine activities. There we really two different hearings on the opening Day. In the first the colonel was flip and a Little shifty and his Aboniey. Brendan Sullivan tried to put the com Millie on the defensive by complaining mess mute to a Otino Uwi thai his client had t been Given Lime to read a stack of documents taller than himself. But in the afternoon North remembered his Man ners though he did t remember a lot of other things. Even Sullivan who implied in the morning that the committee had changed one document to suit is own purposes refrained from undue interference later. Nevertheless North stuck to his Story that his past Lesli Mony had been false but justified lives of agents and hostages were Al stake and secret Intelli gence channels might be exposed if he spoke. What he did not explain was How these agents and hostages who Are still Al risk would be secure now thai he was talking. At one Point he complained my mind has been shredded and at another he openly regretted the fact thai the delete Button on his computer had t deleted All the embarrassing document. He slated All this quite candidly. When things began to unravel and the truth was getting out he started cleaning things up increasing the Pace of the shredding. Yes he said he probably did some More shredding after he heard that Meese was belatedly starting an investigation of his own. Not much of this came As a Surprise to the commit tee but North involved Meuse in the cover up More than had been known at least to inc Public. And he puzzled the committee by saying he sometimes did t Enow whether he was talking to Meese the attorney general or Mccase the president s the committee counsel pressed him hard on inc falsification of the historic chronology Hal was going out As the administration s version of the facts. Did t he know that what he was pulling into this chronology was false yes said the colonel. Who else knew in was false adm. John poin Duxler and Robert Mcfarlane Bolh former National Security advisers. Meese and maybe other High officials. North replied. Did t any of these officials come Forward and pro test Hal they were committing the president to some thing they knew to be untrue silence. The colonel insisted that he ditto l believe that anything he had done was a violation of the Law. At one Point he said. If you want 10 blame me that s Fine " but at this Pom in As North was forever saying he is in trouble for obstructing Justice. And if so metre i ainu crier Mcfarland and maybe some other higher officials Are in trouble , Ynch to
