North-Aided Contra Event Paid Big ‘Consultant’ Fees

Fired White House aide Oliver L. North participated behind the scenes in a dinner in 1985 to aid Nicaraguan refugees that netted only $1,000 to help refugees but paid more than $100,000 to “consultants,” according to documents and sources.

Documents on the April 15 dinner, obtained by the Associated Press, show one of its chief organizers reporting to North on plans for raising money, including a suggestion that the Sultan of Brunei “might kick in a million dollars.”

Although it is not clear what came of the Brunei suggestion, U.S officials said last week that the State Department persuaded the sultan of the oil-rich Asian kingdom to donate millions of dollars to Nicaraguan contra rebels this year.

Role in Early 1984

The newly obtained documents show that North participated in pro-contra fund-raising at least as early as 1984.

Two sources have told the AP that the Nicaraguan Refugee Fund was started in mid-1984 through a secret agreement between Miner & Fraser Public Affairs Inc. and the contras’ Washington-based corporate arm, the Nicaraguan Development Council.

Letters from Edie Fraser, Miner & Fraser president, to North suggest that he participated in detailed decisions about the fund.

Sources at the White House and close to the April 15, 1985, dinner said North played a behind-the-scenes role in arranging it.

Before the dinner, Administration officials insisted that their participation was simply to coordinate the logistics of a speech by the President.

But one of the fund’s directors, Louisiana state Rep. Louis (Woody) Jenkins, said, “The White House has been deeply involved in this. . . . It wouldn’t be happening but for the White House.”

The Nicaraguan Refugee Fund sponsored the dinner, featuring a speech by Reagan, that took in $219,525 for refugees. However, an internal audit by the fund showed costs totaling $218,376, including $116,938 in consulting fees and $71,163 to feed the nearly 700 people at the dinner.

Little more than $1,000 went to transport aid to Nicaraguan refugees.

Largest Fee to Firm

According to the fund’s records, the largest consultant fee--$50,000--went to Miner & Fraser, although another $10,000 went to Daniel Conrad, a fund-raiser for the National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty, a conservative group that North reportedly assisted in preparing pro-contra television commercials.

In an angry exchange of letters following the dinner, Michael Schoor, a lawyer for the refugee fund, told Carl Russell (Spitz) Channel, the endowment’s president, that the fund had not received promised contributions from the endowment and would “contact directly those persons who you identified as your donors and from which funds have not been identified as being received.”

J. Curtis Herge, an endowment lawyer, responded, attacking the refugee fund letter as “untruthful, disparaging and slanderous” and threatening unspecified legal action if direct contact was made.