Trying to Speed North Trial--White House

The White House said today it wants legal proceedings to go forward in the case of fired National Security Council aide Oliver L. North and is doing everything possible to release the necessary classified documents.

Spokesman Roman Popadiuk responded to a statement by Judge Gerhard A. Gesell, who said at a hearing in U.S. District Court Thursday, “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.”

Gesell suggested that Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III name a Justice Department official to help the Administration decide whether it is willing to make the disclosures of national security documents that are necessary to move the case to trial.

Working to Meet Demand

Popadiuk said a team of senior officials has been spending “an inordinate amount of hours” to meet the demand for release of classified documents.

“We want the legal proceedings to go forward, but the question of a trial is up to the judge and the prosecutor,” Popadiuk said. “We are doing everything we possibly can.”

Popadiuk added that he could not say whether the Administration would consider any further steps to speed up the declassification process.

The judge said that he wondered whether “we don’t need a clear decision from the Administration itself that they want to try this case or they don’t want to.”

Gesell made the comments after he heard independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh’s request for a month’s delay in the production of 150,000 pages of classified CIA and Justice Department documents still to be reviewed by an interagency task force.