David Hackworth on Oliver North

David Hackworth on Oliver North:

LET ME TRY to describe Oliver North in a few fast bursts. He's a jackass. He is so preposterous that there is a temptation to laugh at him. He's smarmy, a flatter, a brownnoser.

He's also a twisted impostor, a drugstore Marine with an apparent compulsion to bullshit just about all the time.

But while he tries to fool people with his fantasies, he is also very easy to fool. He boasts that he was an can-do guy when he was in the White House, but the record spells no-can-do. North did terible damage to the U.S. until he was caught. One thread runs through his performance--getting conned.

The Iranians conned him, the contras conned him, the crooked arms dealers conned him and even Manuel Antonio Noriega conned him.

North is also one of the most dangerous men in America today. I've talked with him only once, by telephone on Michael Jackson's radio talk show on KABC in Los Angeles. I had done my homework and wasn't surprised when North put on his usual act.

By the time I debated him I had talked with dozens of Marines and soldiers who knew him, as well as with former National security Coucil staff colleagues.............

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