The Verdict of History Vs. a Presidential Pardon

MALIBU — In the latest tangle of the Iran-Contra proceedings, U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell has informed Lt. Col. Oliver L. North that he cannot wrap himself “in the President’s cloak” at his forthcoming trial. At the same time, the judge rejected a Justice Department contention that the prosecution threatens the doctrine of separation of powers. In effect, he is brusquely reminding both North and the Reagan Administration that the issue is not political but criminal.

It will be interesting to see what effect Gesell’s remarks will have on the President himself, as in the weeks remaining of his presidency Ronald Reagan ponders whether or not to pardon North and his fellow defendant, former National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter. No matter how he decides, the fallout will be political--and historical.

Ronald Reagan thinks, as he must, about the history books. The question of pardons for North and Poindexter cannot be wished away, and it offers the President a choice only of evils. A pretrial pardon for either or both would be widely perceived as a cover-up, while allowing the men to go on trial in a blaze of media attention would lead to damaging reminders--and perhaps even more damaging disclosures.

Nor can Reagan leave the pardons to George Bush. To load such political baggage on the next President, as Richard M. Nixon once burdened Gerald R. Ford, would be poor recompense for eight years of obsequious loyalty forced upon Bush by the nature of the modern vice presidency. If there are to be pardons, they must be signed by Reagan himself.

Although the Poindexter-North cases are superficially similar, in truth they are as disparate as the behavior of the two men before the select committees of Congress investigating the Iran-Contra scandal.

Rear Adm. Poindexter testified that he, and he alone, illegally authorized diversion of profits from the also illegal sale of arms to Iran, in order to send arms to the Nicaraguan Contras. This testimony, offered by a man who “wouldn’t cross the street without orders,” as a brother officer remarked, was greeted with skepticism by congressmen, the press and public opinion.

But, in fact, whether or not “Admiral Incredible” told the truth was quite irrelevant. He told the nation what the nation wanted to hear. Nobody really wanted another Watergate, another process of impeachment, another fallen President. The Democrats on the committees made this clear, not only in so many words, but when they scrupulously failed to follow up on questions that could have threatened the presidential jugular. Poindexter’s testimony allowed the country to persuade itself, with a vast sigh of relief, that there was no “smoking gun,” and that its popular President was not guilty of this crime.

In terms of a pardon, however, the question of whether or not Poindexter told the truth becomes crucial. If he really did usurp presidential powers, then Reagan owes him no pardon, whereas a pardon would be seen by most people as a clear indication that the admiral had gallantly fallen on his sword in order to save his President.

A possible pardon for North hinges on answers to two questions: What does Reagan owe North? What does North owe Reagan?

The first is easy enough to answer. A convincing case could be made that North, single-handed, rescued the Reagan presidency from the slough of despond. When he took the witness stand, Reagan’s coating of Teflon was wearing thin, as poll after poll revealed a drop in popularity. Reagan had entered a plea of total ignorance of his staff’s shenanigans, what some unkind critics called the “dunce defense.”

But within a few days, North changed everything. With the aid of a brilliant script provided by his defense attorney, he turned the hearing upside down.

A solemn inquiry into Administration blunders and crimes was magically transformed into a propaganda blitz for the Contra cause, along with a footling argument among the congressmen over the President’s alleged exclusive constitutional right to conduct foreign policy, a right the Constitution itself strangely fails to mention.

The country had been hungering for somebody to root for in this squalid drama, especially a winsome underdog; the handsome, articulate Marine officer was perfectly cast in the role. Showing up in full uniform with all his decorations, North fired up a groundswell of Ollie-mania across the United States, even while he admitted having lied, having destroyed evidence and having accepted a gratuity.

Since the new public idol was careful to express nothing but devotion to his President--that was attorney Brendan V. Sullivan Jr.’s master stroke--a bipartisan hearing was yanked into the arena of big-time politics. In this revised drama, the Democrats and their majority counsel suddenly found themselves cast as villains of the piece. As Ollie-mania magnified, it took only Poindexter’s testimony that the buck had stopped on his desk--not where the Constitution says it should--and, presto, Ronald Reagan was declared exonerated and guiltless of sin.

In fact, Reagan owes much to Oliver North. Perhaps more important, what does North owe Reagan?

From the beginning, he was the designated fall guy. True, his President called him a hero. But at the same moment, the hero was being bounced out of his job, without courtesy of personal notification, and then he was subjected to a barrage of vilification by White House public relations functionaries--as a disloyal subordinate running wild, a loose cannon, a rogue elephant and a Fifth Amendment criminal. Asst. Atty. Gen. Charles J. Cooper testified before the investigating committees that he wouldn’t believe North under oath. A Republican member of the panel, Rep. Bill McCollum of Florida, even went so far as to accuse him of treachery.

As a result, North owes the Reagan Administration nothing, and that leaves a situation pregnant with peril for the President. Thrown to the wolves by his own Administration, at the hearings North resorted to the classic Nuremberg defense: His only crime was to obey orders. He was the good soldier, who would, in his own colorful phrase, “go stand in the corner and sit on my head,” if ordered by his commander in chief.

That will be his defense in the criminal trial. His attorneys have indicated as much in their demands for secret documents to be presented as evidence that their client was merely carrying out official policies of the government, policies North believed had been approved by the President himself. The quondam fall guy will no longer be concerned with Administration causes, but with his own need to stay out of prison. And the sympathies of the country will probably be with him, not with Reagan.

North’s guilt or innocence will hinge on how members of the jury respond to several questions. Was he bound by official orders, or was he not? Were his orders legal? If not, where does the responsibility lie? And finally, if only by inference, did the President himself, to borrow the language of the Constitution, honor his oath of office and take care that the laws were faithfully executed? Even the asking of such questions in open court has serious historical implications for the President.

Today’s polls show that the President is almost as popular as he was before the scandal erupted. But history is not swayed by such ephemera as popularity polls. Those who believe Iran-Contra is the worst of all scandals to have blighted Republican presidencies--more damaging to the nation than the Wall Street speculation sins in the Grant Administration, Warren G. Harding’s Teapot Dome and even Nixon’s Watergate--are beginning to be heard from again, reminding us that Iran-Contra was not a question of mere greed, corruption or presidential dishonesty, but a conspiracy to subvert the Constitution itself.

Should no pardons intervene, the criminal trials of Poindexter and North will not only produce their own verdicts, they may determine history’s verdict on the presidency of Ronald Reagan.