Oliver North is a fixture on Fox News and host of the program War Stories. He has always come across to me as a self-righteous, self-aggrandizing character. To really illustrate what is wrong with the state of our country, one need only note the fact that Gary Webb, a real reporter who documented the Contra/cocaine connection, was professionally ruined, and Oliver North, who was at the center of the whole thing, went on to be a highly-paid "journalist." Americans like Gary Webb are the real patriots.

Jack Blum, an investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee, testified that “The Contras moved drugs not by the pound, not by the bags, but by the tons, by the cargo planeloads.” Oliver North knew what was going on. To cite just one entry from his personal notebooks (July 9, 1984):

Call from Clarridge- Call Michel re Narco Issue- RIG at 1000 Tomorrow (Q0384)- DEA Miami- Pilot went talked to Vaughn- wanted A/C to go to Bolivia to p/u paste- want A/C to p/u 1500 kilos- Bud to meet w/ Group (Q0385)

The paste referred to was, of course, cocaine paste. Clarridge was Duane "Dewey" Clarridge, a senior CIA official.

For more see The Oliver North File: www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/