Iran-contra: still trying - Oliver North's sentence

National Review, August 4, 1989

So, AFTER two and a half years of to-do and the wrecking of our Central American policy, Oliver North gets a fat fine, 1,200 public-service hours in a drug program, and two years' probation. Pretty light for a shredder of the Constitution; even murderers in New York City get more.

As far as liberals are concerned, the pickings from Iran-Contra get slimmer and slimmer. Many of them tried to put a brave face on things. Judge Gesell's characterization of North as a "low-ranking subordinate" "continues to point the finger of responsibility upward," as the New York Times put it (and allows investigations to continue onward, as the subtext put it). Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, the impresario of investigation, appeared to have a more realistic view. "Sentencing," he said, in what the papers called a "terse" statement, "is uniquely a matter for the judgment of the trial judge. We had full opportunity to present our views. We have no further comment." If you can't say anything nice, say something terse.

The special prosecutor-an entity that careens through the judicial system like a rogue asteroid-was set in motion with the expectation, and the hope, that misdeeds might lead, Watergate-like, all the way to the top. The prospect seems more and more remote. A jury found North guilty of only three of the indictments brought against him (and they were three of the most trivial). The most serious conspiracy charges never even made it to the indictment stage. John Poindexter will spend many sweaty months, but almost certainly no one else (Judge Gesell called North the subordinate of only "a few cynical superiors").

The fact remains that the whole farce could have been cut short by an early presidential pardon. If they did not connive with Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office, Poindexter and North also were not acting in a vacuum. The Administration was plainly, and properly, dedicated to supporting the Contras, and to thrusting the Sandinistas from power. The admiral and the colonel took steps-whose unconstitutionality in the eyes of Jim Wright does not render them so sub specie aeternatis-to further those goals. They deserve better of their Commanders-in-Chief than an okay day in court.