North Exposure : Ollie Enters Stage Right to Share Campaign Spotlight With Herschensohn

CONCORD, Calif. —  Ollie North gripped a Bible, stood tall and squinted into the afternoon sun spilling over the Contra Costa County hills. Flashing a Steve Martin-like smile, he cracked: “It’s an honor for me to be in anyplace that’s got the word Contra in its name.”

Lt. Col. Oliver L. North USMC (Ret.) looked and sounded like the high-riding Ollie of yore as he toured California with Los Angeles television commentator Bruce Herschensohn to promote Herschensohn’s candidacy for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Democrat Alan Cranston.

Introducing North at appearances in Studio City, Newport Beach and Concord on Thursday, Herschensohn anointed him as an American hero akin to the British swashbuckler Lawrence of Arabia, “who went above the heads of the bureaucracy” to get a job done.

T. E. Lawrence fought his own war in the sand of the Middle East three-quarters of a century ago. North was the central figure in the Iran-Contra affair, illicitly selling arms to Iran in an effort to free Western hostages, and then secretly channeling the profits to the Contra rebels in their battle with the ruling Sandinistas in Nicaragua. He was convicted in connection with the scandal, but his conviction was overturned on appeal.

“He was much more than Lawrence of Arabia,” Herschensohn told an airport rally audience of about 75, most of them waving little American flags and quite a few clutching copies of North’s book, “Under Fire: An American Story,” available at a folding table for $24 each.

“That’s why I am very proud to present to you: Ollie of America,” Herschensohn said.

With retirement, the 48-year-old North has traded his Marine greens for a conservative--what else?--navy blue suit and button-down shirt. North, interviewed during the cramped Learjet flight from John Wayne Airport to Concord, said his book has sold 1.4 million copies in hardcover. The paperback edition is just out. And his body-armor business is thriving, he said.

In his speeches, North rails against big government, Congress and bureaucrats. But he added that only “we, the people” can take back government by electing people like Herschensohn.

“Bruce Herschensohn is not a man who will tell you one thing in the mail he sends to you and vote another way,” North said. “He is a man with an established record of where he stands on issues.”

In Studio City, North and Herschensohn addressed a breakfast attended by refugees from the former communist empire. One of those at the head table was Yacob Yankelevich, a portly man with beetling gray eyebrows and eight medals pinned to his considerable chest, earned as a captain in the Soviet Army during the war against Hitler’s Nazis. He came to the United States 16 years ago.

Yankelevich was to lead the pledge of allegiance, but turned his back to the audience and whispered to another head table guest, singer Pat Boone. Boone then explained that Yankelevich was embarrassed that his accent was so heavy. “Let’s say it all together,” Boone added. Yankelevich beamed shyly.

North opened his speech by saying, “I want you to know how honored I am to be here in a room full of freedom fighters.”

At a Newport Beach mansion, North got in a crack at Herschensohn’s major opponent in the GOP primary, Rep. Tom Campbell of Stanford, whom Herschensohn repeatedly attacks as too liberal for most Republicans: “What’s happened in Washington is a travesty . . . that people like Tom Cranston--uh, Tom Campbell--it’s so easy to confuse them . . . “

But Herschensohn is not a 100% orthodox conservative Republican. He prefers the label “Constitutionalist.”

At Concord, a silver-haired woman approached Herschensohn to divulge her fears about a world government conspiracy being concocted by the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations. Some hard-line conservatives believe fervently that such a conspiracy exists.

Herschensohn said he has read enough about the groups to start a library, adding, “I do not believe in a conspiracy. A a lot of good people have been in the CFR from different political ilks, from conservative to liberals.”

Still, the woman’s face was clouded by a frown and she said: “Oh, I hope not, because it scares me half to death.”

Herschensohn eschews the standard line when asked about opinion polls. Candidates often try to dismiss polls as meaningless, particularly if they are trailing. Some still use the old line that “the only poll that counts is the one taken on Election Day.”

On Thursday, after learning he was trailing in the new California Poll by one percentage point, Herschensohn said, “I always want to be ahead in every poll, and in all honesty, when I read a poll I’m not ahead in, I’m not happy about it, I have to admit that.”

And Herschensohn declined to say whether he thought his tough law-and-order statements on the Los Angeles riots might help his candidacy.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I always say if people agree with me they should vote for me and if they don’t, vote for someone else. If I’m going to pick up or lose votes by it (the riot)--I don’t know, nor should I care in one respect.”

This year, Herschensohn is spending far more time in Northern California than he did in 1986, when he lost the GOP nomination to Ed Zschau, a northerner like Campbell. But the north still remains somewhat uncharted territory for him. At Concord, he talked of raising $60,000 at a successful fund-raiser in Rapid City.

“Where?” a San Francisco reporter asked.

“Rapid City,” Herschensohn said.

The reporter suggested that he meant Redwood City, south of San Francisco, not Rapid City, S.D.

“Oh yeah,” Herschensohn said. “Redwood City.”