Thaw in East Europe Finds No Warm Spot in Col. North’s Heart

It is a comfort to know that in an astonishing world where political tornadoes have swept from Eastern Europe to Panama in the span of half a year, some things do not change.

Oliver L. North, among them.

That sturdy foe of all manner of communists, and the retired Marine officer convicted of shredding government documents in the Iran-Contra contretemps, North was playing the same tune when he took the lectern Tuesday before hundreds of members of the Hollywood Radio and Television Society at its Newsmakers Luncheon.

Be wary, he warned. Be alert. Soviet arms are still reaching Nicaragua. Soviet “affection” is still reaching Libya and Syria. “The American people understand well that the musician in Moscow has changed. They also know that while the lyrics are new, the song is not--in other words, Gorbachev is saying one thing and doing another,” said North, his hair grayer, his posture no less Marine-like in a suit of dark blue civvies.

“I do not believe that the world is better today because Gorbachev was declared by Time magazine to be Man of the Decade. I will not believe that the changes that have occurred in Eastern Europe are the result of his control of events, because I believe what he has done is take credit for those things he could not control.”

That made them look up from their fruit custard tarts.

“It surprised me--it’s the first time I’ve heard anyone espouse that point of view,” acknowledged Scott Siegler, president of television at Columbia Pictures. “But then, I’m not used to hearing a right-wing speaker.”

Not since October, when Ronald Reagan, North’s former boss and the man he tried unsuccessfully to summon to testify at his trial, spoke to this same group and apologized for defending Sony Corp.’s purchase of Columbia Pictures by saying Hollywood should look to Japan to bring “decency and good taste” back to movies.

North waived his speaking fee--at last report $25,000--as had Reagan, Lee Iacocca and others before him. This was a freebie in exchange for an influential audience with Hollywood’s billion-dollar power people.

Familiarly, they called him “Ollie” in their news releases, and why not? As congressional witness and the subject of a miniseries, he ran longer on their networks than a second-generation sitcom spinoff. In return, North, whose house was for months the site of a reporters’ camp-out jamboree, acknowledged his audience with droll jokes: His security men, he said, were “deeply concerned that behind me are members of the Fourth Estate, and I’m not wearing my armor vest.”

And then, with the earnest vibrato of a stump speech, North sounded the basso profundo of the 1st Amendment, applauding the media as “an absolutely vital platform for disseminating the truth. I would not be here today knowing that I have the support and the prayers of millions of Americans if I had not had the opportunity to state my case and tell truth as I know it.”

He wove that silkily into twinned themes of anti-communism and a need for an American reassertion of the Marine motto “semper fidelis,” faithfulness in a commitment on issues from drugs to morality.

In summing up for his media audience, North slightly misquoted Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln, said North, called America “the world’s last, great hope.” Lincoln actually called it “the last, best hope of Earth.”

Outside, afterward, Siegler waited for his car.

“I think Ronald Reagan’s a better performer,” he said. “I also thought that Reagan’s material was better.”

Tough house.

BACKGROUND

Oliver L. North was convicted last year of felonies stemming from his Iran-Contra activities, including obstructing Congress, taking an illegal gratuity from a confederate, and unlawfully mutilating government documents. He was given a three-year suspended sentence, fined $150,000, and ordered to perform community service. The case is on appeal. The U.S. Senate voted to allow the retired Marine lieutenant colonel to receive his annual pension in spite of the conviction.