Impassioned Sullivan Tells Jury North Is No More Guilty Than Reagan

Oliver L. North’s defense attorney, in an emotional summation of his case, told jurors Wednesday that the former White House aide is no more guilty of crimes than former President Ronald Reagan, who directed his staff to support Nicaragua’s Contras while a congressional ban on U.S. military assistance was in effect.

“What’s the difference between what Oliver North did and what the President did?” attorney Brendan V. Sullivan Jr. asked in concluding his final arguments before the jury receives the case today.

North merely carried out presidential directions that he believed to be legal, Sullivan declared.

Nevertheless, “The President is happily retired in California. Oliver North has spent the last 2 1/2 years in Washington fighting for his reputation,” he said.

Sullivan spoke for three hours as he strove to convince the jury that North had no criminal intent when he worked to help the Contras and keep his operations secret from Congress.

The attorney’s voice choked with emotion several times as he implored the jury to see North as an honorable man caught in a high-level power play between the White House and Congress.

“Oliver North doesn’t want to be a hero,” as Reagan once described him, Sullivan said. “He just wants to go home.”

With the conclusion of the final arguments and eight weeks of testimony, U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell today will instruct the jury on the 12 counts against North, which center on allegations that he lied to Congress about his Contra support activities.

Sullivan’s impassioned address to the jury Wednesday was countered by a 75-minute rebuttal argument by prosecutor John W. Keker, who had summarized his case for the jury Tuesday.

Keker painted a sharply different picture of the trial evidence, saying that no one counseled North to make false statements to Congress about the financial and military support he was orchestrating for the Contras.

The claim that North was “a scapegoat, a fall guy, a sacrificial lamb . . . is no defense,” Keker said.

“This case is about what Oliver North did,” the prosecutor told jurors. “Don’t worry about who else is being investigated. . . . The fact that others also are guilty does not make North innocent.”

In his oration, Sullivan underscored that Reagan had instructed the National Security Council, of which North was an official, to “keep the freedom fighters (Contras) together body and soul” while a congressional ban on aid to them was in effect.

Reagan met in picture-taking sessions with wealthy donors who had given hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Contras through North’s efforts, Sullivan recounted.

Yet when the Iran-Contra scandal broke into public view, Reagan “threw him overboard,” Sullivan told jurors.

Reminding the jury that North’s White House duties included efforts to combat international terrorism and to free American hostages in Lebanon, the attorney added:

“In a sense he’s a bit of a hostage. The man who had the lives of others in his hands now puts his life in your hands. I ask you on the evidence to set him free.”

In a report Wednesday night, ABC News said that two jurors may face disqualification from the deliberations for failing to accurately respond to questions asked during the jury selection process. The report said that the two indicated on a questionnaire that they had not previously been the subject of any criminal or civil actions. It has since been determined that they were defendants in civil suits resulting from auto accidents.

However, sources close to the North case said the matter does not appear to pose a serious snag for the trial. “These jurors honestly may have thought they did not have to report this, since the lawsuits were settled out of court,” one source said. Should they be disqualified, their spots would be filled from the pool of five alternate jurors.

Meanwhile, in another courtroom in the same U.S. courthouse, the prosecution of North’s one-time boss, former National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter, moved closer to trial amid indications that the diversion of Iranian arms-sale profits to the Contras will be a much larger issue than it has been in North’s trial.

At a hearing, independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh said the two main charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and theft of government property that were dropped against North last January to protect government secrets are still “salvageable” against Poindexter.

The two main counts--conspiracy to supply the Contras illegally and theft of the Iranian arms sales funds for the benefit of the rebels--were dismissed against North after Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh said that government secrets would be compromised if those counts were at issue in the trial.

In addition to a softening of intelligence community concerns about disclosing secrets in trying Poindexter on these counts, Walsh said some classified material that caused concern in the North case is not relevant in Poindexter’s case.

U.S. District Judge Aubrey E. Robinson Jr. set May 15 as the deadline for Poindexter’s lawyers to present requests for materials they need from the government.

Staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow contributed to this story.