Schuller Hires Go-Between for North, Contras

Robert W. Owen, a private citizen who testified in the Iran-Contra hearings that he served as a courier of money between former White House aide Lt. Col. Oliver L. North and the Contras , has been hired as a fund-raiser for the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove.

The Rev. Robert H. Schuller named Owen, 35, to be assistant to the director of development, according to Owen’s new boss, development director Chester Tolson.

While precise details of Owen’s new job still are being worked out, Owen basically will work in the church’s development department, helping raise money for the ministry, which has seen donations drop in recent years in the wake of highly publicized scandals involving other television ministries, Tolson said. Owen will begin work Aug. 15, he said.

Owen revealed his plans to television reporters Wednesday morning when he was being asked about the sentencing of his former boss, North.

Owen said he would have preferred that the announcement come from Schuller himself and be disassociated from his past. “I want it to be made as clear as can be: When I leave Washington, I leave my politics behind me. I’m going to work for a church and a man I have the deepest respect for,” he said in a telephone interview from his home in Washington. He said he is a strong believer in Schuller’s positive messages of “turning your scars into stars.”

Tolson said neither he nor Schuller were concerned with Owen’s relationship to North. “I never once discussed Ollie North or anything he had done. We were interested in what he (Owen) could do for us in the area of fund-raising,” Tolson said. “The fact of his previous employment with Ollie North was not the thing that caught our attention about him. He’s a man of enormous experience and ability. We’re quite excited about having him come aboard.”

A member of a Washington Episcopal congregation, Owen said he met Schuller last year after sending him an admiring letter asking him to baptize his newborn daughter. “I had been a follower of his ‘Hour of Power’ program. He was a tremendous help to me during difficult times. We wanted him to baptize our daughter, if possible.”

Schuller subsequently baptized the child in Owen’s home, he said.

Owen testified during North’s trial that he had made many trips in 1985 and 1986--the period when Congress banned U.S. military aid to the Nicaraguan rebels--between Washington and Central America carrying maps and money, as well as tactical military advice from North.

Owen has referred to North as “my godfather” and signed his messages to North at the National Security Council with the code name “T.C.,” meaning “the courier.”

For a year, he said, he received a $2,500-a-month salary in traveler’s checks in Contra funds, paid by one of the rebel leaders. And he acknowledged that in 1985, North gave him $1,000 in Contra money as a wedding present.

Owen testified that he often represented North at meetings in Central America with Contra leader Adolfo Calero because North wanted to keep a low profile.

Owen and retired Army Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub testified that they had repeated contacts with North to raise private funds and channel military equipment to the Contras . North has denied that he had been working with them to raise private money for the rebels.

Owen said he never raised private funds for the Contras . “Development will be a whole new area for me,” he said.

Owen testified under a grant of limited immunity. Conservatives and some liberals praised his speeches before the House and Senate committees on the Iran-Contra scandal. Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) chairman of the House committee, noted that “all of us . . . respect your conviction and your sincerity and your dedication.”

At the conclusion of his testimony, Owen read a poem to North and concluded: “I love Ollie North like a brother.” Owen’s own brother, Dwight, a U.S. foreign aid official, was killed in Vietnam in 1967.

Owen said Wednesday that he did “nothing I’m ashamed of” and still believes his role was morally and legally proper and in the best interests of the country, although he added that he would be “reflecting” on it for many years to come.

“None of us ever thought it would go on 2 1/2 years and grow into this. There is no question North was not a lone cowboy,” he said. “He was following out what was expected of him.”

Owen said his testimony was “misconstrued” by some to imply that President Reagan had approved of North’s actions. In fact, North referred only vaguely to “superiors” who knew of and approved of his work, Owen said.

About the suspended sentence and fine handed North on Wednesday, Owen said: “The sentence Ollie

was given was one I would have been pleased with if I were him--not having to serve time in jail. . . .

“In May, 1984, when I first started working with Ollie, he said he would be the designated fall guy if things went bad. No one realized how far things would fall.”

Owen’s role in the Iran-Contra affair was not a factor in the decision to hire him, both Tolson and Owen said.

Schuller “knows what I was about,” Owen said. “It was never an issue. That’s one of the things I liked about him. He’s made a point of staying away from politics.”

Tolson noted that no charges were ever filed against Owen, and “so there was nothing there we needed to consider as heavy baggage.”

Owen, a graduate of Stanford University, worked in private schools, including The Brentwood School in West Los Angeles, as director of admissions. After moving to Washington, he worked as a staff member for the Senate Republican Conference, was an aide to Vice President Dan Quayle while the latter was a senator from Indiana, and was employed by the public relations firm Gray & Co. He quit that job to volunteer for the Contras with North.

Later, Owen obtained a contract with the State Department to provide medical aid to war-weary Nicaraguans. At the same time, he continued to work for North, he said.

Owen has contributed to Schuller’s “Hour of Power” television program for “many years,” Tolson said, adding that he belongs to the Eagle Club.