Court Rulings on Ollie North Convictions

The article by Fein was a waste of valuable column space.

North told the congressional committee and the TV audience all the facts: that he violated laws that he did not approve of; that he violated other laws that he accepted, but had to violate in order to save his own neck; that he endangered his loyal secretary by having her assist him in violating the law; that, when the chips were down he copped out putting the finger on his superiors, John Poindexter and President Reagan.

North did the nation a great service by telling us all this, and more, since our need to know about the bizarre goings-on in dark corners of an executive branch gone wild was greater than our need to prosecute North.

North also did himself a great favor, of course; he “took the Fifth� when asked to testify before the committee, and then, being immunized and forced to testify, he bathed himself in this immunization in order to raise the question of contamination of evidence at any future trial.

It would have been nice to read Bruce Fein, a constitutional scholar, on the question of how, if at all, government can both force testimony and also conduct a trial, within the construct of our Constitution.

ROBERT VULCAN

Los Angeles