THE IRAN--CONTRA HEARINGS : North’s Testimony Essentially Over as Rebuttal Replaces Interrogation

To their immense relief, congressional investigators are about to say goodby to Lt. Col. Oliver L. North.

North will return this morning for the final questions. For practical purposes, though, the hearing ended last week.

What occurred Monday was not so much interrogation of the witness as it was rebuttal by a series of committee members who had been forced to listen passively throughout last week as an increasingly confident North held the floor.

Avoiding contentious questions, Sen. George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) devoted most of his hour as the principal questioner for Senate Democrats to an eloquent entreaty for North, who had invoked God several times in his earlier testimony, to recognize the importance of dissenting views.

‘God Does Not Take Sides’

“Although he is regularly asked to do so,” Mitchell told North, “God does not take sides in American politics. And in America disagreement with the policies of the government is not evidence of lack of patriotism. . . . Indeed, it’s the very fact that Americans can criticize their government openly and without fear of reprisal that is the essence of our freedom and that will keep us free.”

Long before Mitchell turned to his examination, the hearing had become a forum for North, with telegrams and telephone calls pouring in to support him. Republicans who had distanced themselves from the Marine before the hearing began used their turns in the spotlight to praise North for his devotion to duty and commitment to the cause of democracy in Central America.

Sen. Paul S. Trible (R-Va.), who had been sharply critical of North before last week, turned his attention to retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord and Iranian-born businessman Albert A. Hakim, who were recruited by North to handle the sale of arms first to the Nicaraguan contras and then to Iran.

Trust ‘Betrayed’

“In the activities of Mr. Hakim and Secord,” said Trible, “we have seen private interest riding roughshod over public motives, a cause compromised as individuals reaped enormous profits. And in my judgment, the trust of Col. North (was) betrayed.”

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) denounced the possible prosecution of North, who is under investigation by independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh.

“Based on what I have heard thus far,” Hatch told North, “with your admission of mistakes, with your admission that some of the things you did you feel are wrong . . . I don’t want you prosecuted. I don’t. I don’t think many people in America do.”

Praised by Members

If North had a problem in his last full day before the committee, most of it was shouldering the praise heaped upon him by committee members--some of whom had carped at the panel’s own lawyers once the mail and polls began to come in.

“Is it fair to say that you were doing everything humanly possible to help the contras, the democratic resistance in their fight for freedom?” Trible asked sternly.

Replied North: “Senator, without going overboard on the statement, I don’t think that there’s anyone else in the United States of America that worked as hard as I did to ensure (A) a democratic outcome and (B) the survival of the Nicaraguan resistance from 1984 to 1986.”

Democrats no longer saw any future trying to run North to ground. Only the combative Rep. Jack Brooks (D-Tex.) was willing to continue in that vein.

When he criticized the decision to grant North immunity from prosecution based on his testimony, he touched off a brief shouting match with Brendan V. Sullivan Jr., the colonel’s attorney. That caused Senate committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) to decide to postpone North’s final testimony until today.

For the most part, Democrats were more like a frustrated Rep. Dante Fascell (D-Fla.), who expressed some begrudging admiration for North’s energy by suggesting that he had single-handedly carried out activities that normally would have required major efforts from the CIA, the State Department, the Defense Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

After congratulating North for character and patriotism, Fascell added ruefully: “I keep asking myself, ‘How come I don’t feel good.’ ”

Moments later he answered: “I begin to feel right now that we, the people, in order to form a more perfect union, Col. North, have instead adopted the values, at least temporarily, of a totalitarian government--in an effort to do what we feel is proper and right, and that is to encourage and enhance democracy.”

Dramatic Change

Not even in the explosive 1973 Watergate hearings was there a development more dramatic than North’s transformation from a renegade profiteer to a dedicated public servant.

His five days plus on the witness stand, however, put the most difficult burden on his former boss, former National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter, said by North to have approved everything he did.

Just as John W. Dean III gave testimony that underlay all the remaining Watergate testimony in 1973, North’s account of the Iran-contra affair will provide the backdrop for all of the witnesses yet to come this summer.