Took Gift to Save Family, North Says

Former White House aide Oliver L. North admitted Wednesday that he accepted a $16,000 home security system financed by Iran- contra funds and later wrote two false letters to cover it up--”probably the grossest misjudgment that I made in my life.”

But North, who earlier had insisted that he had never broken the law, was not the least bit apologetic about his apparent violation of a statute barring gifts to government employees. He said it was necessary for him to have a home security system because his family had been threatened by the notorious terrorist Abu Nidal.

“I want you to know that I’d be more than willing . . . to meet Abu Nidal on equal terms anywhere in the world,” he told the congressional committees investigating the Iran-contra affair. “There’s an even deal for him. OK? But I am not willing to have my wife and my four children meet Abu Nidal or his organization on his terms.”

Denies Receiving Money

In a highly indignant tone, the Marine lieutenant colonel strongly denied allegations that he received other money from the Iran-contra affair--either by spending traveler’s checks provided by the Nicaraguan resistance or through two special funds created for his potential benefit by Albert A. Hakim, the Iran-contra financial manager.

“I never took a penny that didn’t belong to me,” North said. “The only thing that can be said that I ever received as a consequence of what I did in the course of these (Iran-contra) activities . . . is the security system which is in my home.”

He seemed particularly vexed by a suggestion made by someone that he had used some of the contras’ money to purchase hosiery for his attractive secretary, Fawn Hall.

“People snicker that Ollie North might have been doing a little hanky-panky with his secretary,” North said. “Ollie North has been loyal to his wife since the day he married her.”

He said he kept a detailed ledger that accounted for every cent of the more than $150,000 in cash and traveler’s checks belonging the contras that passed through his control from 1984 through 1986. But he said he destroyed the record last November on orders of CIA Director William J. Casey.

North’s home security system, including an alarm system and a automatic gate, was installed last July by a former CIA employee, Glenn Robinette. Records show that the $16,000 bill for the system was paid from the proceeds of the Iran-contra affair by middleman Richard V. Secord, who had made arrangements for the installation.

North said he felt compelled to turn to Secord for help in providing security for his home because the government had failed to accede to his request to do so. The only offer the government made, he said, was to give him a permanent change of station, which meant being “jerked out of my home and sent to Camp Lejeune (a base in North Carolina).”

Although North acknowledged that he knew the security system was an “accommodation” or a “gift” provided to him in connection with the Iran-contra affair, he stressed that he never asked who paid for it nor inquired how it was financed.

‘Never Got a Bill’

“To this day,” he said, “I don’t know exactly who paid for it . . . . I never got a bill. I didn’t ask for a bill, and I never received one.”

North emphasized that the Abu Nidal threat that prompted his security concerns was made in April as he was preparing to make his now-famous trip to Tehran in May, 1986. He insisted that the threat to his family was too serious for him to wait weeks for a private contractor to install a security system. But he did not explain why he was willing to wait for Robinette to do the work in July--long after he returned from Iran.

He sought to emphasize his concern for the safety of his family by showing the committee a blow-up of a newspaper article detailing the atrocities of Abu Nidal. He recalled that an 11-year-old American, Natasha Simpson, had been gunned down at the Rome airport by a follower of the terrorist leader.

However, North clearly knew that it was illegal for him to accept the security system because it was the the first thing that came to his mind last November after the Iran-contra affair was exposed and he was fired by the President.

“There was one thing that just didn’t look right,” he said. “And that was that, for the first time in my life, I had accepted something that I hadn’t paid for.”

North then contacted Robinette, who voluntarily supplied him with two falsified back-dated bills indicating that the security system had never been paid for. It was the first step in what would become a poorly executed cover-up.

Phony Documents

“And then,” North added, “ . . . I did probably the grossest misjudgment that I have made in my life. I then tried to paper over the whole thing by sending two phony documents back to Mr. Robinette.” The letters indicated, falsely, that Robinette had agreed to accept a deferred commercial endorsement of his product by North in lieu of payment.

North contradicted the earlier testimony of an expert witness, who surmised that the Marine officer had intentionally filed down the letters “e,” “g” and “u” on a typewriter in order to make the two documents look different.

Instead, North said, he typed one letter on a defective demonstrator typewriter in a store. He said he had sought to explain this problem by adding a “p.s.” to the letter, saying that he had “dropped the ball” of his electric typewriter.

Although admitting that he made “a serious, serious judgment error” in trying to cover up the gift, he castigated the government for failing to protect his family. He said Congress “ought to write a check” to Secord to reimburse him for the $16,000.

He noted that since he has returned to the life of a uniformed Marine--or, as he put it, “back with a band of brothers that has a long reputation for taking care of their own”--he and his family have received around-the-clock protection from 20 security guards provided by the Naval Investigative Service.

North testified that he was “shocked” when he learned from watching the Iran-contra hearings on television that Secord and his business partner, Hakim, had made him the ultimate beneficiary of a $2-million trust fund. He said he had had the same reaction when testimony disclosed that Hakim had established a $200,000 Swiss bank account--which bore the unlikely code name of “Bellybutton”--to help finance the education of North’s children.

“I never heard of buttons or bellybuttons until these hearings began,” he said.

But North acknowledged that he was aware that Hakim had planned to provide for his family if he had been killed or forced to commit suicide during his trip to Tehran. He said Hakim told him: “If you don’t come back, I will do something for your family.”

Trip to Philadelphia

He acknowledged also that his wife, Betsy, had gone to Philadelphia to meet with a representative of Hakim to discuss how she might collect the money. But he insisted that, when the man called again in June to ask for the name of an adult family executor, he told her not to return the call. By that time, he said, a survivor’s benefit fund was unnecessary because he had returned safely from Tehran.

“She never heard from him again and she has never made contact with him again,” he said. “No money was ever transferred to my possession, control, account or that of my wife.”

During the more than two-year period in which North oversaw the activities of the Nicaraguan resistance, according to his testimony, he handled an estimated $100,000 in traveler’s checks that came to him from contra leader Adolfo Calero and between $50,000 and $75,000 in cash from Secord.

He said his superiors all knew that he kept the money in his White House safe and disbursed it when necessary for a variety of covert activities, including his own travel expenses when he was working on behalf of the contras.

In fact, he said, it was Casey who gave him the ledger in which he kept a record of the transactions. He destroyed it in early November when it appeared that the Iran-contra affair was about to be disclosed.

Reimbursed Self

When asked about $2,400 in traveler’s checks that he cashed at local supermarkets and other retail outlets, North hotly denied that he ever converted any of the contras’ money to his own use. Instead, he said that he spent those checks to reimburse himself for out-of-pocket expenses he had incurred in the line of duty.

The record shows that one of the checks was cashed for snow tires and another was written at a hosiery shop. He said the hosiery shop purchase had nothing to do with his secretary, Hall, but was to buy leotards for his two daughters.

He acknowledged that he did lend a small amount of the contras’ money to Hall one weekend when she was caught without cash in advance of a trip to the beach. He said she later repaid him and he put the money back into the account.