1943-
Marine Officer, National Security Council Staffperson

Iran-Contra.

Of all the individuals charged in the Iran-Contra scandal none gained more notoriety or prominence than Oliver North, a career marine officer who had been detailed as a staff assistant to the National Security Council (NSC), ironically against his wishes, at the beginning of the first Reagan administration. Fearing at first that this assignment would harm his career, North came to see his work in the NSC as an opportunity to become a central figure in the crusade against communism revived by Reagan. He envisaged a once-in-a-lifetime chance to help set his nation's course straight again in the wake of what he perceived as the erosion of the American creed after Vietnam and Watergate. A former Catholic altar boy, North epitomized the patriot of the "my country right or wrong" variety in opposition to the flabby liberalism he...