The Nation - News from Feb. 3, 1989

Selection of a jury pool for Oliver L. North’s Iran-Contra trial reached the halfway point, with the judge predicting the effort will take most of next week also. By the end of the third day of selecting a pool of 50 potential jurors, 18 women and seven men had been qualified after painstaking, often solicitous questioning. U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell also declared heatedly he won’t allow “security gurus” to interrupt the trial, after prosecutor John Keker asked him whether four courtroom seats could be made available on a rotating basis to the CIA, the Justice, Defense and State departments and the National Security Agency. Gesell reacted angrily, saying: “I’m very concerned about their function. I do not intend to have this case run by two or three security gurus sitting in the audience. I don’t want to be in a position where every time a document flashes by you go to these people, who check with their department.”