North Claims He Is Being Unfairly Prosecuted : No One Else Has Ever Faced Similar Charge, He Contends Angrily

Oliver L. North, with his defense that he was merely a political pawn under intense attack, declared in federal court Tuesday that he had been singled out unfairly for prosecution and told his chief accuser, prosecutor John W. Keker: “You know it.”

Bristling under Keker’s caustic cross-examination about false statements he had made to Congress, the retired lieutenant colonel said that he had been involved in “political warfare” between the White House and Congress for which he was ill-prepared.

He exclaimed that candor has never been the rule in such exchanges between the White House and Congress and that “nobody else has ever been prosecuted” for sending a misleading letter to Capitol Hill.

For weeks, the trial of the former White House aide has been dominated by dry recitations of events and citations of documents by persons who worked with North, the fired National Security Council aide and a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal.

Suggestions Shake North

But Keker, like North a former Marine who served in Vietnam, Tuesday pushed up the emotional temperature of the proceedings, shaking the defendant’s stolid bearing with suggestions that he had betrayed the principles of his military education and lined his own pocket with money that had been collected for the Nicaraguan rebels.

North’s anger began to swell as Keker pressed him on his experience at the U.S. Naval Academy, where North had proudly told jurors that he had been educated.

“At the U.S. Naval Academy, you would be kicked out for this, wouldn’t you?” Keker asked, referring to North’s admissions that he had sent “factually incorrect” letters to congressmen about his secret efforts to support the Contras.

“At the Naval Academy,” North retorted hotly, “no one taught me how to run a covert operation. I was trying my ever-loving best to get it done. And nobody in the U.S. Naval Academy teaches you about internecine political warfare.”

He noted that then-National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane had asked him to write the misleading letters. “I did not consider the fact that any letter from a Cabinet officer to a congressman could possibly be unlawful,” North said evenly.

Then, glaring at Keker with his voice rising, he added: “Nobody else has ever been prosecuted for it, and you know it.”

“How about McFarlane?” Keker replied calmly.

“He pleaded guilty,” North said.

“And Admiral Poindexter is being prosecuted, isn’t he?” Keker asked, referring to former National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter, whose separate trial in the Iran-Contra scandal is scheduled to follow North’s.

“That’s the first two that I know about,” North said.

North reiterated that he had only reluctantly drafted false and misleading answers for McFarlane to send congressmen who were asking about his activities. He said he had argued that McFarlane should provide no information at all and should cite then-President Ronald Reagan’s right to withhold answers on grounds of executive privilege.

But North, for the first time Tuesday, contended that his draft answers were not original. He said that McFarlane had told him what to say.

North has claimed that McFarlane and William J. Casey, the late CIA director, both authorized his efforts to help raise private funds for the Contras and to help resupply them with weapons purchased abroad at a time when Congress had prohibited U.S. military aid for the rebel forces.

Asked About Moral Qualms

The two officials told him also that former President Reagan did not want to share information with Congress about private fund-raising for the Contras, he has testified.

In taking North line by line through a written draft of one of his letters to Congress, Keker asked at one point: “Did you have any moral qualms about being mixed up in this? Did any moral bells go off in your head?”

“It would not be proper to use the word ‘moral,’ ” North said, then used the question to explain why he had worked so hard for the Nicaraguan rebels after Congress had banned military aid for them.

“I thought it was extraordinarily immoral for the United States to put forces in the field, to equip them . . . and then to leave them in the lurch. I thought it was heinous.”

When North repeated that McFarlane knew all about his activities but still told him to draft responses to Congress, Keker asked: “Did he tell you he wanted the answer to be a lie?”

“I don’t recall his using those words,” North said with some irritation.

“Did he say he wanted the answer not to be truthful?” Keker continued.

“I don’t recall those words,” North said.

U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell interposed his own question:

“Did you ever in your mind consider not doing it, just saying: ‘No, I won’t do it?’ ”

“No, I did not,” North replied.