TALE OF TWO WHITE HOUSE AIDES: CONFIDENCE AND MOTIVATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100220003-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 24, 2011
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: November 30, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100220003-6
ILLEGIB
;%ASHINGTON POST
30 November 1986
Tale of Two White House Aides: Confidence and Motivation
iVorth Viewed av a Can. Do Marine
Who Ifni Too Far in Zealousnexv
STAT
mantic," said Michael Ledeen, wno
was until recently National Security
Council consultant on terrorism and
worked closely with North in the
early stages of the secret negoti-
By David Ignatius
Wdsh11i Kt"11 Past Stall Writer
Lt. Col. Oliver L. North told an acquaintance in early 1985 ations with [ran.
that he knew his secret efforts to maintain funding for the Ledeen added, "I don't believe
Nicaraguan contras might ruin?his career in the Marine Corps. that North did anything in this that
But he was prepared to accept the consequences, North said* didn't reflect the convictions of his
because he believed it would be morally wrong to abandon the superiors."
contras in their time of need. "Ollie is not it cowboy," said Noel
Then, as now, North was operating close to the edge of C. Koch, a former deputy assistant
illegality. North told an acquaintance last year that he had secretary of defense who super-
confided to only one person-his boss at the time, national vised the Pentagon's special forces
security adviser Robert C. McFarlane-details of his fund- and antiterrorism programs until
raising effort for the counterrevolutionaries, or contras, which several months ago. "He's not the
at that point mainly involved introducing rebel leaders to pri- freebooter he's been made out to
vate contributors in this country and abroad.
North's remarks last year help explain the personality of oe. eIle's r a prudent and dely is the man who is at the center of the Reagan administration's ri c p .le.. en His
to his first lmily and s his
greatest political crisis. They show a man who is intensely principle, then to hifamily ahis
loyal to his friends and allies, a moralistic military officer who friends."
often tends to dramatize his role in events, a man with a pas- North's critics argue that this
sionate sense of mission who, in his zealousness, long ago devotion to principle sometimes got
crossed the border into questionable conduct. out of control and may even have
"Ollie knew he had sacrificed his career a long time ago," led him to take the law into his own
said one of his close friends, a former Pentagon official. hands.
A bizarre new chapter in Oliver North's secret war One administration official who
emerged last Tuesday. According to Attorney General Edwin ha.-Z.-worked closely with North said,
Meese III, North was involved in a scheme to divert profits for example, that he was not sur-
from a secret Iranian arms deal he had helped arrange, laun- priZtd by allegations last week that
der this money through a Swiss bank account and use it to aid thtC Marine officer may have
the contras in Central America. North's friends generally sh dded documents about the Iran
refuse to comment on the Iran connection, but none seems
surprised by it. operation.
North is at the center of a justice Department criminal in-
vestigation and several congres-
sional investigations focusing on
potential violations of U.S. export
laws and congressional prohibitions
against military aid to the Ni-
caraguan rebels. This 43-year-old
military officer, whether acting on
orders or unilaterally, has been
blamed for the most serious crisis
of the Reagan presidency. His is a
stor' of a can-do Marine who went
too Lt r.
iVorth's friends stress two things
abnuLhim: that he is idealistic and
intensely patriotic, and that he is a
loyal military officer who executed
the policies decided by his superi-
ors, rather than operating as a
rogue elephant.
"Of the two kinds of ambitious
people-those motivated by causes
and those motivated by personal
ambition-Ollie is motivated by
causes. He is an idealist and a ro-
had' papers that identified sources,
he Would have thought of protecting
tl e people first, regardless of the
co1$equences for himself," this of-
ficilll said. "It's the same as if he
were in a tirefight in Vietnam and a
grqlade came into his bunker. He
would be the first to jump on it."
To his NSC colleagues, North
seemed like a real-life Rambo. He
was tough, courageous, contemp-
tuous of the Washington institu-
tiods-Congress, the news media,
thy; bureaucracy-that blocked the
excise of American power. He
seoned to embody the strong, self-
coigident image that the Reagan
administration wanted to present to
the;world.
North's gung-ho manner was not
a pose. Born in San Antonio, Tex.,
he initially was a pre-med student at
Rochester and then transferred to
the Naval Academy, where he was
graduated in 1968. He was the
academy boxing champion and com-
pany commander in his senior year.
The academy's 1968 yearbook,
"Lucky Bag," said of him, "No mat-
ter where his career may lead, he
knows his thoughts will always be:
the Corps, the Corps, the Corps."
After graduation, North distin-
guished himself in Vietnam, win-
ning a Silver Star and a Bronze Star
for valor under fire. He also re-
ceived two Purple Hearts, and he
still walks with a slight limp be-
cause of his combat wounds. Details
of his war record are hard to come
by, but he apparently was part of
the CIA-run covert war in Indochi-
na. North told one acquaintance
that he had survived one of his war
wounds only because he was carried
to safety on a makeshift stretcher
by some of the fighters he had
trained and led into battle.
"Ollie thinks in terms of life and
death, and there are people to
whom he owes his life," Ledeen
said. Some of his friends claim, for
example, that North's life was
saved once in Asia by retired Air
Force major general Richard V.
Secord. Recent news reports have
alleged that Secord was involved in
two of North's secret NSC opera-
tions: the Iran arms deal and covert
aid for the contras.
North joined the NSC staff in Au-
gust 1981. His subsequent career
proved to be an extreme version of
something that has become com-
mon on the NSC staff in recent
years: the rise of the can-do mili-
tary man. He originally went to the
NSC on temporary assignment
(with a strong recommendation
from Navy Secretary John F. Leh-
man Jr.) to help lobby for Senate
approval of the sale of Airborne
Warning and Control System
(AWACS) radar-surveillance planes
to Saudi Arabia. But he soon made
himself indispensable.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100220003-6
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100220003-6
"He was an incredible worker,
very reliable, always there," re-
called Geoffrey Kemp, a former
NSC senior director for the Middle
Last who is with the Carnegie En-
dowment for Peace. "In the first
few years, he would rarely open his
mouth during a meeting. But he got
things done. The briefing books
were always there. The phone calls
were made. The Situation Room
was briefed."
One former national security ad-
viser who supervised North says his
rise reminds him of advice he once
received about the ways that mil-
itary officers can become essential
to civilians. "Get yourself a military
aide," the advice went. "It will
change your life. When you come
into the office in the morning, your
desk will be clear. Your mail already
will be opened and answered."
"What Ollie did after 1981 was to
make himself Johnny on the spot,"
said another administration official.
From North's base on the NSC's
military staff, he became involved in
Middle East policy, then in the
Falklands War, then in planning the
invasion of Grenada, then in devel-
oping the administration's antiter-
rorism policy and finally in coordi-
nating U.S. aid to the contras. He
was promoted to deputy director
for political-nriiitary affairs, a job
that gave this officer enormous
power in the bureaucracy. By this
year, he had served on the NSC
staff longer than nearly anyone
else, and he understood how to
u,e-and abuse-the policy pro-
cess.
When a fellow Marine, Lt. Col.
Robert C. (Bud) McFarl:uie, be-
came national security adviser,
North's position was enhanced.
North was also aided by a bureau-
cratic ,troke of luck. His secretary
was the daughter of IN&Farlane's
secretary. "if Ollie wanted to get in
to see Bud, it was just a question of
the daughter calling up her mother
to set up an appointment," said one
administration official who worked
closely with North.
North's usefulness as a secret
operative increased for McFarlane
because of the gridlock that devel-
oped on major policy issues be-
tween Secretary of State George P.
Shultz and Secretary of Defense
Caspar W. Weinberger.
The foreign-policy situation
"made it impossible to function at
all," except in secret, according to
Koch, the former Pentagon antiter-
rorism official. The lesson for
North, Koch said, was. "If you're
going to do anything hold or inno-
vative, you're going to have to do
things through irregular channels."
The contras had become a con-
suming passion for North by early
1984. He traveled often to Hondu-
ras to visit their training camps and
talked regularly-sometimes sev-
eral times a clay-with one of their
leaders, Adolfo Calero. North would
animatedly tell people about some
of the contra fighters he met, men
like "Tigrillo," who had broken from
the Sandinistas, joined the resis-
tance and been wounded in combat.
As the secret war in Nicaragua
became more controversial, North
became more determined to stay
the course. He was intensely !oval
to those whose careers had been
harmed by the wa. Following the
1984_ flab over a CIA-sponsored
manual for the contras that advo-
sated assassination North helRed
rrange a job on the NSC staff or
rncent Cannistraro, the CIA of -
er who had run the agency's task
free on t e contras. And he helped
hnd 1 jo or a ormer Y--of-
ficer who had written t o assassi-
nation manual for the c1 and was
then fired by the agency.
When Congress voted to cut off
funds for the contras in 1984,
North took it as a personal blow.
Friends say that he regarded the
Boland Amendment-which made
it illegal for the United States to
finance the anti-Sandinista rebels,
directly or indirectly-as a betrayal
of people whom the United States
had recruited and trained. The
money ran out in mid-1984, and the
contras were broke. One of the
contra leaders was so starved for
cash that he had mortgaged his
wife's house in Miami, North com-
plained to one acquaintance last
year.
North's initial answer to the con-
tras' money crunch was to help
raise private contributions. He trav-
eled the globe in late 1984 and ear-
ly 1985 seeking donations. The
cash flow last year totaled about $1
million a month, according to one
source. One man who knows the
details of North's 1985 fund-raising
effort described it this way:
"Adolfo Calero has been intro-
duced to people in various countries
who are sympathetic to the cause of
democracy. They have decided af-
ter being introduced to him to make
donations. They are provided with
information about how to contrib-
ute."
This system for funding the con-
tras was somewhat shaky and un-
reliable. But an alternative source
of funds apparently emerged late
last year, when North became in-
volved in the sale of weapons to
Iran. According to statements made
last week by Meese, North was
aware of a skimming operation that
diverted $10 million to $30 million
in profits on the Iran arms deal to a
Swiss bank account, from which
money was drawn to support the
Nicaraguan rebels.
The [ran operation grew out of
North's other preoccupation: the
war against terrorism. It was in this
area that North had some of his
greatest successes and ultimately
his costliest failure.
North's finest hour, according to
several colleagues, was his role in
the capture of the Palestinians who
hijacked the Italian cruise ship,
Achille Lauro. After the ship
docked in Egypt and the hostages
were released, North dropped his
plans for a military rescue mission
at sea. But he kept watching the
situation. When the NSC received
intelligence reports that the terror-
ists planned to fly from Egypt to
Tunisia on a chartered Egyptair
plane, North realized that he had an
opening.
"We can do an Admiral Yama-
moto," North exclaimed to one of
his NSC colleagues. He was refer-
ring to Japanese Adm. Isoroku Ya-
mamoto, who was ambushed in
flight by American planes in 1942.
North planned the interception of
the Egyptair plane and its forced
landing in Italy from beginning to
end. Hoping that the United States
would be able to capture the terror-
ists and bring them to trial in Amer-
ica, he obtained arrest warrants
from the Justice Department, a col-
league recalled.
It was a bravura performance,
but North also made a character.
istic mistake. He did not think
through clearly the political impli-
cations of the operation for Egypt
and Italy-the Italian government
fell shortly thereafter and bad blood
between Washington and Cairo per-
sisted for months. North did not
seek the advice of regional special-
ists who might have offered useful
political insights. When the special.
ists finally arrived late that night,
North is said to have greeted them
with relief.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100220003-6
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100220003-6
3
For North, the United States was
at war with terrorism. He helped
draft a 1984 National Security De-
cision Directive that committed the
administration to a tougher antiter-
rorism strategy, and he supervised
the increased antiterrorism efforts
that followed last year's TWA
Flight 847 hijacking. North also
took charge of efforts to free Amer-
ican hostages in Lebanon. That re-
sponsibility eventually led him into
the past year's secret round of ne-
gotiations with the enemy-Iran.
North's tendency to overdrama-
tize himself was evident in some of
his antiterrorism activities. One
source described North's agitated
reaction several months ago when
the new government of France's
-onservative prime minister,
Jacques Chirac, was shaken by ter-
rorist bomb attacks in Paris.
"Chirac will fall," North is said to
have warned colleagues melodra-
matically. "We have to send in our
forensics people to help him. We
have to save him." North apparently
did not understand that dispatching
a team of FBI agents at that deli-
cate moment might have hurt
Chirac more than it helped him, the
source said.
Former national security adviser
Richard V. Allen, who hired North
for the NSC staff, had a bizarre en-
counter with North at Dulles Air-
port not long ago. Allen will not dis-
cuss the incident, but one of his
friends summarized the highlights.
Allen, according to this account,
was sitting in the lounge awaiting
his flight to Frankfurt. He was ap-
proached by Secord, who was also
waiting in the lounge with North.
"Don't recognize him," Secord
implored, referring to North. He
explained later, after the plane was
airborne, that North was traveling
under an assumed name and was
afraid that Allen might blow his cov-
er.
Yet for all his secrecy about his
foreign travels, North was some-
times surprisingly open about his
work. Last December, for example,
he testified in the trial of former
NSC aide Thomas C. Reed, who
was later acquitted on charges of
securities violations. At one point in
his 10-page testimony, North re-
marked: ". . . I just returned from
overseas, where we are trying to
effect the recovery of the five
Americans who are missing in Bei-
rut."
It is North's tendency to overdra-
matize himself-the sense he con-
veys that he is starring in his own
movie-that may have gotten him
in such trouble. One of his close
friends recalled a gathering not long
ago at the headquarters of the Re-
publican National Committee. The
subject was aid for the contras and
the guests included some prominent
diplomats, politicians and defense
intellectuals. The discussion was
somewhat academic. North finally
exploded in anger and impatience.
"Ollie went ballistic," the friend
said. "He told the group: 'You're
sitting here having a nice quiet
lunch while people in Nicaragua are
dying.' He was trying to make peo-
ple understand what the world is.
like."
North operated with the same
ferocious sense of mission, and the
same contempt for the people who
sit in armchairs watching the ac-
tion, in nearly everything he did,
That zealousness finally landed him
in the midst of a criminal investi-
gation exploring whether, in his
secret operations with Iran and the
contras, he broke the law.
North's friends argued last week
that the NSC aide conducted his
secret missions with a conviction
that he was right and that he was
serving President Reagan. Ob-
served North's friend Koch: "What-
ever he was, he was the president's
man."
Staff writer Tom Vesey and special
correspondent John Kennedy in New
York contributed to this report
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100220003-6