Close Encounter with Oliver North

     So, one fine day Paul emailed me to say that Oliver North would be dropping by his show and did I have any questions that I'd like to ask him? Hell, yeah. For 15 years I've wanted to hear Oliver North's explanation for why he was banned from Costa Rica.

     In case you never heard (and the odds are that you haven't. This is one of the most under-reported stories of all time and, as far as I know I'm the first person ever to ask Lt. Col. North about it), in 1989 Oliver North (Along with Richard Secord, John Poindexter and a few others was banned from Costa Rica when a Costa Rican government committee concluded that the contra re-supply network that North was running out of the White House was doubling as a drug smuggling operation.

    It seems that the narcotics commission was looking into the possible drug smuggling activities of a US-born Costa Rican rancher named John Hull and his relationship with Oliver North. By the way, North's personal notebook mentioned" the necessity of giving Mr. Hull protection." Speaking of entries in Oliver North's notebook, here's one of my favorites from July 12, 1985: "$14 million to finance [arms] came from drugs."

     The commission also held North responsible for Gen. Manuel Noriega's (remember him?) participation in the contra supply network, which opened the door to at least seven pilots who trafficked in drugs while supplying arms to the contras.

     While I was on hold, waiting to ask Mr. North about all of this, I heard Paul ask Ollie how he felt about Senator John Kerry. Ollie said that he didn't quite care for John Kerry because of Kerry's involvement with several anti-war groups back in the Sixties.

     OK. But maybe LT. Col. North has another reason for disliking Senator Kerry. Kerry's Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism and International Operations found significant evidence of contra-connected drug smuggling. This information came from a convicted drug smuggler named George Morales. Morales, who had passed a lie detector test, gave detailed testimony that four contras and "southern front" coordinator Hull [see above] were involved in an arms and drugs operation between 1984 and 1985. Initially, I wasn't planning on mentioning the findings of Kerry's subcommittee, but Paul had opened the door and Ollie had put out the welcome mat.

     So, at 3:30 on a Wednesday afternoon - after 15 years of waiting - I got to ask Mr. North if the Contras were involved in smuggling drugs. The bad news is that I had called into Paul's show on my cell phone so I had a hard time hearing Mr. North. Although, judging by the tone of his voice, he didn't seem too happy. Oddly, the only words that I could make out were "The problem with people like you, Rodney, is" to which I wanted to reply "Yes, Ollie, exactly what is my problem? That I ask valid questions?" but the show's producer, perhaps fearing that Ollie would explode, cut me off.

     Later, when I got home, Paul called me up and played Mr. North's response to my questions over the phone for me. It wasn't much of a response. He never answered my questions. Instead of talking about Costa Rica, he felt it necessary to talk about Nicaragua. He also made some sort of weird claim that my information had come from a Mexican Communist newspaper.

     People, I don't hate Oliver North. Lt. Col. North served this country in Vietnam and that took more guts than I'll ever have. But the evidence seems to show that the contras, and - by extension - the Reagan-Bush administration (The "Just say 'no'" folks), were involved in drug smuggling. By the way, shortly after the Iran-Contra hearings, Oliver North went on the lecture circuit - speaking to campus audiences on the evils of drugs and pledging to do anti-drug work in serving out his criminal sentence of 1500 hours of community service.