North Winds Up Campaign Tour : Cox Says He’ll Urge Pardon for Supporter

Indicted former White House aide Oliver L. North Thursday concluded a two-day Southland campaign sweep in support of GOP congressional candidates with 40th District hopeful C. Christopher Cox saying he will urge the President to pardon North.

Cox, 35, who has emerged in the past week as the front-runner in Orange County’s crowded June 7 Republican primary for the 40th District, told reporters that he hoped “North will not be convicted and that if he were, that he be pardoned.”

North, indicted in March by a federal grand jury on 16 criminal charges including theft, conspiracy, fraud, lying and obstruction of Congress, is caught in a “political fight masquerading as a legal or criminal one,” Cox said later.

Cox, a Newport Beach attorney and former senior associate counsel to President Reagan, characterized North as a pawn in a 200-year struggle between Congress and the President.

North is charged with diverting government funds for private use by the Contras and for giving false statements as part of his role in the Iran-Contra scandal. He allegedly sold arms to Iran in exchange for hostages, then used the money to fund the Nicaraguan Contra effort.

If convicted on all counts, North could face 85 years in prison.

North spent a long day Thursday swooping through Southern California in a Cox campaign helicopter. He started with breakfast in north San Diego County, then lunched in Los Angeles and finished in Orange County with the afternoon speech followed by cocktails and dinner.

It was a second busy day for the retired Marine lieutenant colonel turned major fund-raising asset for a pair of candidates in close GOP congressional races in Southern California.

On Wednesday, North stumped for former Reagan speech writer Dana Rohrabacher, 40, a candidate in the 42nd Congressional District Republican primary. Rohrabacher’s campaign said it pulled in $135,000 from four North campaign fund-raising events.

The Cox campaign said it hoped that North’s appearances Thursday would raise $200,000. Cox has proved himself a formidable fund-raiser. Through May 18, he had banked $505,000, more than any other candidate in the field of nine Republicans.

North said he was not paid to appear on behalf of the candidates. His usual speaking fee is reported to be between $10,000 and $25,000 per engagement.

At his Cox rally speech Thursday afternoon before about 250 people at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, North warmly endorsed Cox as a “staunch supporter of President Reagan and a champion of conservative values and the conservative movement in the United States.”

For the most part, North repeated the speech he gave the day before at a Rohrabacher rally. He chastised Congress for “usurping” the President’s power to conduct foreign policy and said Congress needed such conservatives as Cox to stand up to such Democrats as House Speaker Jim Wright of Texas.

North was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd chanting “Ollie, Ollie,” including three busloads of people from Leisure World in Laguna Hills motored in by Cox campaign drivers.

It was a sea of red, white and blue. North’s speaking platform was backed by a large U.S. flag and surrounded by red, white and blue balloons and paper bunting.

Western Union, a country-rock band that was paid $500 for the one-hour affair, played under a hot June sun atop a flatbed truck for the waiting spectators, many toting Cox signboards.

Dismissed Endorsement

Staff members for Cox’s leading contenders in the 40th District Republican primary--Newport Beach businessman Nathan Rosenberg and Irvine City Councilman C. David Baker--dismissed North’s endorsement.

Baker aide Frank Caternicchio said that while North is a patriot and hero, he knows nothing about Orange County’s problems.

Rosenberg campaign manager Ted Long said North’s endorsement sends the wrong message to Orange County voters. “By his own admission he broke the law,” Long said.

More important than popularizing the election with a popular figure, the Cox campaign should understand that it also sends the message that “under certain circumstances it is OK to break the law,” Long said. “This is a democracy, and things need to be done in a democratic process, otherwise how do you draw the line? Which laws do you break?”

Times staff writer Anthony Perry in San Diego County contributed to this article.