North Says He’s Persecuted and Shunned by Ex-Friends : Upset Over First Lady’s Complaint

Lt. Col. Oliver L. North portrayed himself today as a lonely and persecuted figure, taking advice only from his attorney and getting comfort only from his family and the Lord.

Besieged by reporters before dawn in the driveway of his home in Great Falls, Va., North reacted sharply to First Lady Nancy Reagan’s complaint of the day before that her husband was “not told the truth” and that the President wishes North and his former boss, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, would tell what they know about the Iran arms- contra aid scandal.

North and Poindexter have invoked their Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, and Reagan has asked that they tell the full story “consistent with their constitutional rights.”

‘Individual Rights’ Cited

North, grim but stoic in his Marine Corps uniform behind the wheel of his car, said:

“The President has not asked me to do that. I don’t believe the President really wants me to abandon my individual rights under the Constitution. People have died face down in the mud all over the world defending those individual rights. It’s the thing that makes this country so much different than any other country in the world.”

North, the reputed planner of the diversion of Iranian arms sales profits to the Nicaraguan contras , was fired Nov. 25 from his post on the National Security Council staff. He reflected bitterly today:

“I have, over the last 23 days, found myself abandoned by former friends and so-called friends and colleagues. I continue to place my trust in the Lord. I refer you to Psalm 7, Verse 1. I continue to place my trust in the family I just left behind me (in his house), and I continue to take the advice of my counsel.”

Trust in God

The psalm of King David that North referred to says, “O Lord my God, in Thee do I put my trust: Save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me.”

White House spokesman Albert Brashear later agreed with North’s statement about Reagan’s position, saying, “The President has not asked anyone to give up their constitutional rights,” asking only that each key figure such as North “find a way within his constitutional rights” to tell what he knows.

“I don’t think the President has ever taken the position he’s on anyone’s side” in the dispute, Brashear added.

On Capitol Hill today, former White House aide Robert C. McFarlane stood by his testimony that the President approved in advance the first shipment of U.S. arms to Iran, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee said.

Contradiction Remains

Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) said that in testimony before the committee today that McFarlane did not resolve a contradiction between his insistence that Reagan approved the September, 1985, shipment in advance and statements by White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan that the President only learned about it after the fact.

DeConcini said McFarlane also held to his original testimony on Dec. 1 that when North told him during a mission to Tehran last May that the arms sale profits were being diverted to the contras , he assumed that it had approval “from higher authority.”

Asked which of the men, McFarlane or Regan, was telling the truth, DeConcini said, “I found it awfully hard to believe the chief of staff wouldn’t know” about both the shipment authorization and the diversion of profits from the sales to Nicaraguan rebels.

“I don’t want to call him a liar. I’m not calling him a liar,” DeConcini said of Regan.

But he said Regan’s “story doesn’t sit well with what seems to be the facts of how that White House operates.”

McFarlane testified before the committee for four hours and then left without stopping to talk to reporters.

Mrs. Reagan’s interview, Page 23.