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North’s Prosecution Invokes Hitler, Bible, Isuzu, Lincoln in Summation

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From Times Wire Services

An Iran-Contra prosecutor summed up the case against Oliver L. North today by citing Adolf Hitler, Joe Isuzu, Abraham Lincoln and the Bible, and portraying North as a lying, scheming bureaucrat who knew he was breaking the law.

“The tragedy of Oliver North is that a man who says he cared so much about freedom and democracy in Nicaragua forgot about the demands of freedom and democracy at home,” John W. Keker told a federal jury.

North, on trial on 12 criminal counts stemming from his role in the 1985-86 Iran-Contra deal, sat stone-faced as Keker spoke directly to the jurors who have heard eight weeks of testimony.

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Quoted Lincoln

Keker quoted Lincoln and Hitler to drive home his point that North acted outside the law by lying.

“The day before he was shot and killed several blocks from here on April 11, 1865, Abraham Lincoln said, ‘Important principles must be inflexible,’ ” Keker said. “Telling the truth is such a principle.”

In August, 1985, when two congressmen sent letters asking for information about North’s activities, former National Security Council chief Robert C. McFarlane and North gave false answers, Keker said. North said he supplied the answers at McFarlane’s direction.

“North and McFarlane were following Adolf Hitler’s old strategy, which is the victor will never be asked if he told the truth,” Keker said.

“In time, a good man turned into a bad man,” Keker said in a low, unemotional voice. “Once lying becomes a habit, it’s hard to stop. He (North) put his hand on the Bible and swore to tell the truth.”

He said when North was questioned in November, 1986, by Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and aides about the diversion of Iranian arms sales profits to the Contras, “they thought he was telling the truth.”

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But, said Keker, “he was by this time the Joe Isuzu of government,” likening North to the compulsive liar in the popular auto commercial on television.

North’s defense has been that he was a loyal Marine following orders from the highest officials in the Ronald Reagan Administration, including the President, McFarlane and the late CIA director William J. Casey.

“By his own testimony (North) was a man of great power, a man who met with kings and Presidents, a man who could tell our intelligence agencies what to do, a man who didn’t hesitate to say, ‘This is the White House calling,’ ” Keker said.

“Oliver North wants all that power without the responsibility. . . . He blames other people. ‘McFarlane made me do it, Casey told me to do it.’

“The Bible says it best: ‘The wicked walk on every side when the vilest men are exalted.’ ”

North’s attorney Brendan V. Sullivan Jr. was expected to begin his final argument later in the day, followed by a prosecution rebuttal on Wednesday. The jury is expected to begin deliberations by noon Thursday.

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