The Nation - News from June 24, 1988

The judge in the Iran-Contra case complained about more delays in bringing Oliver L. North to trial and called on the Reagan Administration to speed up the declassification of necessary documents if it wants the case to go forward. “The highest levels of the government have to make a decision as to whether this case is going to go or if it’s not going to go,” Judge Gerhard A. Gesell said in Washington during a hearing on the problems posed by reams of secret government documents collected by independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh. The judge expressed frustration over Walsh’s request for a one-month delay in getting 150,000 pages of secret documents cleared by an interagency task force. He suggested that Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III designate a Justice Department official to review the situation to help the Administration decide whether it is ready to release secret documents or whether the case has to be dismissed.