North Discounts Mrs. Reagan’s Charge That He Lied to President

Nancy Reagan says Virginia Senate candidate Oliver L. North lied to her husband, but North refused Friday to take up the gauntlet, saying he wouldn’t “fight with a lady.”

North spoke the morning after former President Ronald Reagan’s wife became the latest in a string of former associates to question North’s truthfulness.

“I know Ollie North has a great deal of trouble separating fact from fantasy. And he lied to my husband and lied about my husband, kept things from him that he should not have kept from him,” the former First Lady said Thursday in New York.

North predicted that her remarks would have no effect on his race against Democratic Sen. Charles S. Robb and independent J. Marshall Coleman.

“My mother told me a long time ago never to get into a fight with a lady,” North said.

North said the records of President Clinton and Robb are more important issues than his participation as a Reagan White House aide in the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal.

“I don’t think any of this stuff is going to hurt me,” he said at a news conference in Washington.

At a news conference in Bristol, Va., Robb said Nancy Reagan’s comments about North are consistent with the views of others in the military and in the Reagan Administration who knew him. “Most people who have worked for her husband took a very strong position in opposition to his candidacy,” Robb said.

In his book, “Under Fire,” and in subsequent interviews, North has said Reagan knew about the secret operation to funnel money from arms sales to Iran to the Nicaraguan Contras.

Reagan fired North when Justice Department lawyers discovered North’s diversion of arms-sale proceeds. North was convicted in 1989 of three felony counts in the scandal. The convictions were overturned because a judge ruled his trial was tainted by testimony North gave previously to Congress.

In March, when North was seeking the GOP Senate nomination, Reagan said he was “getting pretty steamed” about North’s statements. “I never instructed him or anyone in my Administration to mislead Congress on Iran-Contra matters or anything else,” Reagan said.