↩ the History · a speech, filed

I Misled the Congress

Lt. Col. Oliver North, questioned by John Nields · the joint Iran-Contra hearings, the Senate Caucus Room · July 7, 1987
text: Taking the Stand, the printed testimony of Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, proofed against the page photographs · a work of the United States government, in the public domain · the misled-the-Congress colloquy
the film: C-SPAN's cameras in the Caucus Room
colour carries the act's function; a dashed underline marks a predicted misfire; hover or focus any span for its filing

MR. NIELDS: Go back again now to the summer of 1986, Exhibit 122, is a resolution of inquiry. It relates to you and it seeks information about funding concerning the contras, military advice and asked specific questions about Robert Owen, General Singlaub, and a man named John Hull.

LT. COL. NORTH: Right.

MR. NIELDS: And there came a time, did there not, when you had an—an interview with members of the House Intelligence Committee—

LT. COL. NORTH: I did.

MR. NIELDS: —and staff?

LT. COL. NORTH: I don't remember if there was any staff or not. I defer to Chairman Hamilton; he convened his group in the White House Situation Room, and I met with him there.

MR. NIELDS: There's a memorandum which was done by staff, which is Exhibit 126. Do you have that in front of you?

LT. COL. NORTH: I do.

MR. NIELDS: And it's dated August 6, 1986. Is that at or about the time when you had this interview?

LT. COL. NORTH: I—again, I defer to the Committee and Chairman Hamilton. I had such a meeting. If that's when it was, I don't remember the date.

MR. NIELDS: And this was you personally talking to them?

LT. COL. NORTH: It was on instructions of the National Security Advisor. I was instructed to meet with Chairman Hamilton and, I believe, many of the members of the Committee.

MR. NIELDS: And they were interested in finding out the answers to the questions raised by the resolution of inquiry—

LT. COL. NORTH: Exactly.

MR. NIELDS: —your fund-raising activities—

LT. COL. NORTH: Precisely.

MR. NIELDS: —military support for the contras—

LT. COL. NORTH: That's right.

MR. NIELDS: —questions about Mr. Owen, General Singlaub, and John Hull?

(Long pause)

LT. COL. NORTH: Yes.

MR. NIELDS: The beginning of this memorandum that appears to be a description of what you said during that meeting, it says "from Boland Amendment on North explains strictures to contras." Is that true? Did you explain the strictures to the contras?

LT. COL. NORTH: I explained to them that there was no US Government money until more was appropriated, yes.

MR. NIELDS: And it says "never violated stricture. Gave advice on Human Rights Civic Action Program."

LT. COL. NORTH: I did do that.

MR. NIELDS: But I take it you did considerably more, which you did not tell the committee about.

LT. COL. NORTH: I have admitted that here before you today, knowing full well what I told the committee then. I think—and I'm—I think we can abbreviate this in hopes that we can move on so that I can finish this week. I will tell you right now, counsel, and all the members here gathered that I misled the Congress. I mis—

MR. NIELDS: At that meeting?

LT. COL. NORTH: At that meeting.

MR. NIELDS: Face-to-face?

LT. COL. NORTH: Face-to-face.

MR. NIELDS: You made false statements to them about your activities in support of the contras?

LT. COL. NORTH: I did. Furthermore, I did so with a purpose, and I did so with the purpose of hopefully avoiding the very kind of thing that we have before us now and avoiding a shutoff of help to the Nicaraguan resistance and avoiding an elimination of the resistance facilities in three Central American countries—

MR. NIELDS: We—

LT. COL. NORTH: —where—wherein we had promised those heads of state. On my specific orders, I had—on specific orders to me, I had gone down there and assured them of our absolute and total discretion.

MR. NIELDS: We do—do live in a democracy, don't we?

LT. COL. NORTH: We do, sir. Thank God.

MR. NIELDS: In which it is the people, not one Marine Lieutenant Colonel, that get to decide the important policy decisions for the nation.

(Long silence)

LT. COL. NORTH: Yes. And, I—

MR. NIELDS: And, part of the democratic process—

LT. COL. NORTH: And, I would point out that part of that answer is that this Marine Lieutenant Colonel was not making all of those decisions on his own. As I indicated in my testimony yesterday, Mr. Nields, I sought approval for everything that I did.

MR. NIELDS: But, you denied Congress the facts—

LT. COL. NORTH: I did.

MR. NIELDS: You denied the elected representatives of our people the facts upon which they needed—

LT. COL. NORTH: I did.

MR. NIELDS: —to make a very important decision for this nation.

LT. COL. NORTH: I did because of what I have just described to as our concerns, and I did it because we have had incredible leaks, from discussions with closed committees of the Congress. I, I, I was a part of, as people now know, the coordination for the mining of the harbors in Nicaragua. When that one leaked, there were American lives at stake, and it leaked from a member of one of the committees, who eventually admitted it. When there was a leak on the sensitive intelligence methods that we used to help capture the Achille Lauro terrorists, it almost wiped out that whole channel of communications.

I mean, those kinds of things are devastating. They are devastating to the national security of the United States, and I desperately hope that one of the things that can derive from all of this ordeal is that we can find a better way by which we can communicate those things properly with the Congress. I'm not admitting that what happened in this is proper. I'm not admitting, or claiming rather, that what I did and my role in it in communicating was proper.

MR. NIELDS: Were you instructed to do it?

LT. COL. NORTH: I was not specifically instructed, no.

MR. NIELDS: Were you generally instructed?

LT. COL. NORTH: Yes.

MR. NIELDS: By whom?

LT. COL. NORTH: My superiors. I prepared draft answers that they signed and sent. And, I would also point out—

MR. NIELDS: What superior?

LT. COL. NORTH: Well who—look who sign—I didn't sign those letters to the—to this body.

MR. NIELDS: I'm talking about the last—I'm talking about the oral meeting in August of 1986.

LT. COL. NORTH: I went down to that oral meeting with the same kind of understanding that I prepared those memos in 1985 and other communcations.

MR. NIELDS: Well, you had a different boss, and in fairness, you ought to tell us whether he instructed you to do it, understood you to do it, knew about it afterwards, or none of those?

LT. COL. NORTH: He did not specifically go down and say, "Ollie, lie to the committee." I told him what I had said afterwards, and he sent me a note saying, "Well done."

Now I would also like to point out one other thing. I deeply believe that the President of the United States is also an elected official of this land. And by the Constitution, as I understand it, he is the person charged with making and carrying out the foreign policy of this country. I believed, from the moment I was engaged in this activity in 1984, that this was in furtherance of the foreign policy established by the President. I still believe that.

MR. NIELDS: Even—

LT. COL. NORTH: I'm not saying that what I did here was right. And I have just placed myself, as you know, counsel, in great jeopardy.

The divergences

"never violated stricture. Gave advice on Human Rights Civic Action Program." — this page files a Lie, the catalogue's first; a reader who allows only the two men in the room to act files a Report, counsel accurately reading an exhibit, and the archive never files a Lie at all. They part on orientation: reality, a document read into the record, or deception, an assertion made to a committee that was meant to work by not being found out. The words themselves settle nothing, which is why the filing has to rest on the speaker — and he supplies it three answers later, unprompted and under oath, in a sentence that names the body and the offense.

"He did not specifically go down and say, 'Ollie, lie to the committee.'" — the witness files an Assertion denying an instruction; counsel had asked about four relations between a superior and an act, and the same turn supplies a third. They part on scope. Read narrow the sentence is true and disposes of a form of words nobody alleged; read wide it is offered where a denial of authorization goes. The archive's Oval Office conversation of March 21, 1973 runs the identical structure from the other end: an arrangement assembled by two men in which nobody instructs anybody, the assignment completed by "I would think so too," and the closest thing to an order is three repetitions of the syllable "No."

"and he sent me a note saying, 'Well done.'" — filed here as a Report, a relay of another man's two words; the committee reading the same clause files the note as the ratification that makes the false statements the superior's act as much as the witness's. They part on function. What arrives is praise in writing, after the fact, naming nothing it praises — which is precisely what an authorization looks like when it has been engineered to be deniable, and precisely what a compliment looks like when it has not.

"In which it is the people, not one Marine Lieutenant Colonel, that get to decide the important policy decisions for the nation." — read narrow, a proposition about civics that no witness in that room could decline; read wide, it settles that everything the witness has spent the last four answers justifying was not his to decide. They part on scope, and the print marks the exact place where the two readings separate: a long silence, then "Yes.," then a qualification begun and cut off. The archive's Army-McCarthy exchange of June 9, 1954 turns on the same evidence, the print's record of what the room did, and there the stage direction that decides the reading is a recess.

"I will tell you right now, counsel, and all the members here gathered that I misled the Congress." — the witness files an Avowal, reflexive, constituting in the saying the man who will now be judged for it; the committee files an outward Assertion, dated, admissible, and sufficient without corroboration. They part on target. Both filings hold, and the page prices the difference in its last sentence: "I have just placed myself, as you know, counsel, in great jeopardy."

"Furthermore, I did so with a purpose" — the witness files a Frame-set under which false statements are protective measures and the question becomes what they protected; counsel files an Assertion about state of mind, volunteered, that supplies the element separating a false statement from a mistake. They part on motive. The word "Furthermore" is the tell: nothing in the question called for it, and what it adds is the only thing the witness could not be compelled to give.

"I sought approval for everything that I did." — supporters file an Assertion keyed to reality about how a chain of command works; the committee files it keyed to standing, since no approver is named anywhere on this page and the one superior discussed is described two turns later as having instructed nothing. They part on orientation. The archive's 1948 confrontation between Hiss and Chambers holds the other face of this: a record that proves a lie exists and cannot say whose it is. Here the man who told it is in the chair and says so, and it is the approval that has no author.