The North Verdict

When special prosecutor John W. Keker called Thursday’s conviction of Oliver L. North on three felony counts a vindication of “the principle that no man is above the law,” he spoke what many would consider a platitude. Commonplace it may be. But Keker’s remark expressed an ideal so central to the health of American democracy that it deserves repetition whenever the opportunity presents itself.

North’s trial was not a political trial, nor was its jury’s verdict a political verdict. The former Marine Corps colonel and national security aide to President Ronald Reagan was not called to account as the agent of a failed or unpopular policy. He was brought to answer for lying under oath, for obstructing a congressional inquiry, for taking money under the table and for destroying public records in an attempt to cover up his role in the Iran-Contra affair.

The laws he trampled apply equally in the corner grocery and Oval Office. They demand equal respect from the shopkeeper and the Chief Executive. Neither heroism nor sincerity exempts an individual from his obligation to this principle. In the end, it is law that stands between us and both the anarchy of the mob and the oppression of the man on the white horse. In the end, it is our law that keeps our colonels in their barracks.

North’s culpability on the counts for which he was convicted was unambiguous. One involved simple venality: the acceptance of an illegal gratuity in the form of a $13,800 home-security system paid for by arms dealer Richard Secord, who himself faces trial for his part in this affair. Similarly, there was no obscuring North’s guilt on two other charges: destruction of classified documents on the night of the so-called “shredding party” and aiding and abetting obstruction of Congress through his participation in the creation of a false chronology of the U.S.-assisted shipment of anti-aircraft missiles from Israel to Iran.

On the most serious of the other nine counts on which he was tried, however, the jury apparently was swayed by North’s insistence that he acted on instructions from his immediate superiors--National Security Advisers Robert C. McFarlane and John Poindexter--with the “concurrence” of the late Director of Central Intelligence, William C. Casey, and, ultimately, with the “approval” of then-President Reagan.

From the witness stand, North admitted he had lied to Congress and to then-Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese, but claimed he did so because he had “been led to believe that everything I was doing was done at the direction of the President.”

“I felt,” North said, “like a pawn in a chess game played by giants.”

That the jury seems to have accepted the excuse implicit in this rather pathetic statement may give some pause, especially since it flies in the face of U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell’s clear instruction that “neither the President nor any of the defendant’s superiors had the legal authority to order anyone to violate the law.”

But just as deference to the rule of law is central to our social compact with one another, so is the notion that the law’s sanctions ought to be voted by 12 ordinary people, who bring to their deliberations not only the rigors of the statute book, but also prevailing notions of fairness and common sense. The result, contradictory and paradoxical though it may be, approximates justice as closely as this uncertain world will allow.