North Calls Iran-Contra Charges ‘Badge of Honor’

WASHINGTON â€”  Retired Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, in his first major public appearance since being indicted in the Iran-Contra affair, declared Monday that the charges against him are “not a brand, they are a badge of honorâ€� and complained that he has been “vilifiedâ€� and subjected to “slander.â€�

Under scrutiny by congressional investigating committees and independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh, the former White House aide said he had been forced to “endure the largest investigation in the history of our republic, an investigation that has probed every aspect of my professional and personal life and that of my family.�

“My wife and children have been placed in a crucible of uncertainty,� he said.

The 35-minute speech before an enthusiastic commencement-day audience at the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., provided a vintage display of North’s oratorical skills and revealing insights both into his view of the charges against him and into the motivations that drove his zealous support for Nicaragua’s rebels.

Dressed in an academic gown and standing in front of a 600-square-foot American flag, North said he is facing criminal charges only because he was “caught in the middle of a bitter political dispute between the Congress and the President over the control of foreign policy.�

Congress, he charged, was “turning its back� on the “weary freedom fighter in Nicaragua� who “wears a cross around his neck (and) carries a prayer in his heart: Do not forget us, do not forsake us, do not fail us.�

Supporting the Contras

Failure to support the rebels fighting Nicaragua’s Sandinista government would, he told his audience, repeat the formative experience of his youth--Vietnam--where the United States found it could “win all the battles and then lose the war� because America’s “political leadership sent a generation of young men off to war,� then “lost its will (and its) faith in the ideals of freedom and democracy.�

“They betrayed millions of people to death and tyranny, and that cannot happen again,� he declared.

Appearing relaxed and confident, North received standing ovations as he mixed jokes and bitter remarks about his legal difficulties with patriotic themes in the earnest, well-modulated cadences that helped make him a favorite of conservative audiences while he was a National Security Council aide and that helped spark a brief national “Olliemania� when he testified before congressional investigators last summer.

Retired From Marines

Referring to his retirement from the Marine Corps, which became official Sunday, North joked that he is now “out of work for the first time in a quarter of a century. . . . I must say as I look at all the media gathered here in front of us, it’s nice to see the attention they’re paying to the plight of the unemployed.�

Later, he quipped that students looking for careers might want to think about becoming special prosecutors: “My case may still be around.�

But as he turned serious, North touched notes that made his address sound much like a stump speech by a conservative Republican candidate--something that some of his supporters would like him to be one day.

Urging students to vote in 1988, he told them that “we must not just choose the right President. We need a better Congress.�

Praises ‘Star Wars’

He proceeded to denounce communism and abortion, praise Reagan’s “Star Wars� space-based missile defense plan and declare that while he supports the separation of church and state, “there must never be a separation between religion and America.�

Falwell, introducing North, said he had no doubts about inviting a person accused of felonies to speak to his school’s graduates. “We serve a Savior who was indicted and convicted and crucified,� he said.

He then announced a toll-free telephone number for people to call if they wish to add their names to a petition urging President Reagan to pardon North. The petition currently has 600,000 names, Falwell said.

North received an honorary doctorate degree, but no fee, from the university. He did not make himself available to reporters after the speech and his lawyer, Brendan V. Sullivan Jr., refused through a secretary to comment on whether North would go on the lecture circuit in the coming months as a way of raising money to pay his legal bills.