Blame the Cake on Ollie North, McFarlane Says

WASHINGTON — It wasn’t President Reagan’s cake, it was Ollie North’s.

Robert C. McFarlane, the President’s former national security adviser, says the good-will cake he and others carried to Tehran in May, 1986, for their arms-for-hostages negotiations with Iranian officials was the bakery brainchild of Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North.

North, fired from his White House job on the staff of the National Security Council, has been blamed for much of the Iran arms- contra scandal, but this was the first time he was identified as having cake on his face.

The cake was variously identified as being chocolate and either baked in the shape of a key or with a chocolate key on the frosting.

“Simply put, there was a cake on the mission,” McFarlane told ABC’s “Nightline.” “I didn’t buy it, bake it, cook it, eat it, present it or otherwise get involved with it.”