Ollie North Gets Celebrity Welcome at GOP Meeting

Former Lt. Col. Oliver North, a hero to conservatives despite his conviction in the Iran-Contra affair, retained his celebrity status Saturday in Orange County at a Republican Party-sponsored dinner, where he spoke of the evils of big government, communism and Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega.

Like some box-office-busting movie star, the fired White House aide was interrupted during dinner on several occasions as fans trickled up to his table to get autographs and have their picture taken with North, despite requests they remain seated.

“Please let the colonel eat,” said Bill Harrison, a director of the South Orange County Republican Assembly, which held the $50-per-person fund-raising dinner at the Southampton banquet hall.

North reacted with a smile and chuckle to Harrison’s remark. And after his 30-minute speech before 190 people, North good-naturedly posed for photos.

He briefly touched on the news that Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega on Friday had renounced a 19-month-old cease-fire with the Contra rebels and ordered the Nicaraguan army to resume offensive military operations next week.

“How could the major media be shocked that Ortega is throwing out the cease fire?” remarked North, who became a celebrity during Senate hearings on the Iran-Contra affair and his subsequent trial. “That government never had any moral authority.”

He also criticized the way U.S. citizens have warmly embraced Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. “Oh how I wish I had his (public relations) agent,” North said, calling Gorbachev “a media meister.”

“We ought not to succumb to the personality of one man who at any moment could cease to be on the scene,” North said.

Although North failed to draw a capacity crowd in the 300-seat banquet hall, the audience was peppered with notables such as state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) and Harold Ezell, former western regional director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

“When I heard Col. North was coming here, I was interested to hear what makes a man like that tick,” Ezell said. “This is a man who has done something for his country and got in trouble for it.”

Bergeson introduced North to the audience, saying, “What we need in the United States are more heroes, those people we can hold up to emulate the ideals that mean so much to all of us.”

But not everyone on the scene was an Ollie booster.

Bret Gross Johnson, 37, of San Clemente stood in front of the hall wearing a sandwich board sign plastered with various messages, among them: “Stop the Murder,” “No More Vietnams,” “Hands Off Central America” and “Question Authority.”

“I am concerned. A lot has happened in the Iran-Contra affair that may never come to light,” said Johnson, who was needled by several people entering the function.

Meanwhile, North told the audience that a bigger government would not solve the nation’s problems. Instead, North said, the populace should return to the ideals espoused by Thomas Jefferson of “God-given” life, liberty and justice.