Document 28.8 Oliver North, Testimony to Congress, July 1987

Document 28.8

Oliver North | Testimony to Congress, July 1987

As the Iran-Contra affair intensified, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North appeared before the joint congressional committee in the summer of 1987 and admitted his role as a chief operator in the Iran-Contra affair. He also confessed that he had lied to Congress and had shredded incriminating documents, but he defended himself as a soldier in service to his country. North was eventually indicted and convicted on three felony counts, though his conviction was overturned on appeal.

QUESTION: Is it correct to say that following the enactment of the Boland Amendment, our support for the war in Nicaragua did not end and that you were the person in the United States Government who managed it?

ANSWER: Starting in the spring of 1984, well before the Boland proscription of no appropriated funds made available to the D.O.D. [Department of Defense] and the C.I.A. etc., I was already engaged in supporting the Nicaraguan resistance and the democratic outcome in Nicaragua. I did so as part of a covert operation. It was carried out starting as early as the spring of ’84, when we ran out of money and people started to look in Nicaragua, in Honduras and Guatemala, El Salvador, and Costa Rica for some sign of what the Americans were really going to do, and that that help began much earlier than the most rigorous of the Boland proscriptions. And yes, it was carried out covertly, and it was carried out in such a way as to insure that the heads of state and the political leadership in Nicaragua—in Central America—recognized the United States was going to meet the commitments of the President’s foreign policy.

And the President’s foreign policy was that we are going to achieve a democratic outcome in Nicaragua and that our support for the Nicaraguan freedom fighters was going to continue, and that I was given the job of holding them together in body and soul. And it slowly transitioned into a more difficult task as time went on and as the C.I.A. had to withdraw further and further from that support, until finally we got to the point in October when I was the only person left talking to them. . . .

QUESTION: Do you know whether or not the President was aware of your activities seeking funds and operational support for the contras, from third countries?

ANSWER: I do not know.

QUESTION: Were you ever—

ANSWER: I assumed that he did.

QUESTION: . . . What was the basis of your assumption?

ANSWER: Just that there was a lot going on and it was very obvious that the Nicaraguan resistance survived—I sent forward innumerable documents, some of which you’ve just shown us as exhibits, that demonstrated that I was keeping my superiors fully informed, as to what was going on.

Source: “Iran-Contra Hearings: ‘I Came Here to Tell You the Truth’; The Colonel States His Case: Country and Orders above All,” New York Times, July 8, 1987, A8.