Court Rulings on Ollie North Convictions

The recent decision (Part A, July 21) by two federal appeals court judges to suspend all three of Ollie North’s 1989 felony convictions, and reverse one of them outright, underscores the old adage that life is full of irony.

After the Iran-Contra scandal exploded in the press, Ollie North appeared before the congressional committees investigating that sordid affair, and “took the Fifth,” so that his testimony could not later be used against him in the criminal prosecution that would follow.

North and his arch-conservative supporters, who would later cheer when presidential candidate George Bush heaped scorn on the American Civil Liberties Union, had suddenly become civil libertarians themselves, true believers in the privilege against self-incrimination guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment of the United State Constitution.

North’s testimony demonstrated that, while he was a national security aide in the Reagan White House, he put our constitutional system of government at risk by operating what journalist Bill Moyers has called a “secret government,” unaccountable to the American people, which kept the devastating Contra war going in Nicaragua after Congress cut off military aid to the rebels.

North then shredded the evidence of his activities in a futile attempt to conceal his wrongdoing.

Although no one questions that North committed the acts for which he was convicted by a jury of his peers, two federal judges appointed by President Reagan now have doubts whether North’s immunized testimony was somehow used to convict him.

It is most ironic that a man like North, who all but shredded the Constitution, can benefit from the guarantees provided by that magnificent document. But that is the beauty of the constitutional system of government that he sought to undermine.

WILLIAM BOTHAMLEY

Jamul, Calif.