Oliver North

Early life

North was born in San Antonio, Texas on October 7, 1943, the son of Ann Theresa (née Clancy) and Oliver Clay North, a U.S. Army major. He grew up in Philmont, New York, and graduated from Ockawamick Central High School in 1961. He attended the State University of New York at Brockport for two years.

While at Brockport, North spent a summer at the United States Marine Corps Platoon Leaders Class at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, and gained an appointment to the United States Naval Academy in 1963. He received his commission as second lieutenant in 1968, having missed a year due to serious back and leg injuries from an auto accident in which a classmate was killed. One of North's classmates at the Academy was future secretary of the Navy and U.S. senator Jim Webb, whom he beat in a middleweight championship boxing match at Annapolis. (North had shown films of this match to Marine Medical Corps officials to prove that he had fully recovered from his serious accident and could endure the rigors of midshipman training.) Their graduating class included Dennis C. Blair, Michael Mullen, Charles Bolden and Michael Hagee.

U.S. Marine Corps career

North served as a platoon commander during the Vietnam War, where during his combat service, he was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star Medal, and two Purple Heart medals. At the time of his Silver Star, Second Lieutenant North was a Platoon Commander leading his Marines in Operation Virginia Ridge. North led a counter assault against the North Vietnamese Army, as his platoon took on heavy machine gun fire and rocket propelled grenades. Throughout the battle, North displayed "courage, dynamic leadership and unwavering devotion to duty in the face of grave personal danger". He then became an instructor at The Basic School in Quantico, Virginia.

In 1970, North returned to South Vietnam to testify as a character witness at the trial of LCpl Randall Herrod, a U.S. Marine formerly under his command who, along with four others, had been charged with the murder of sixteen Vietnamese civilians in the village of Son Thang. (North claims Herrod had previously saved his life. Herrod and one other were acquitted.) North was promoted to captain in 1971 and served as the commanding officer of the U.S. Marine Corps' Northern Training Area in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan.

After his duty in Okinawa, North was assigned for four years to Marine Corps Headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. He was then promoted to major and served two years as the operations officer of 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, commanded by then LtCol John Southy Grinalds, 2nd Marine Division in Camp Lejeune at Jacksonville, North Carolina. He attended the Command and Staff Course at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and graduated in 1981.

North began his assignment to the National Security Council (NSC) in Washington, D.C., where he served as the deputy director for political–military affairs from 1981 until his reassignment in 1986. In 1983, North received his promotion to lieutenant colonel, which would be his last.

During his tenure at the NSC, North managed a number of missions. This included leading the hunt for those responsible for the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 299 American and French military personnel, an effort that saw North arranging a midair interception of an EgyptAir jet carrying those responsible for the Achille Lauro hijacking. While also at the NSC, he helped plan the U.S. invasion of Grenada and the 1986 Bombing of Libya.

During his trial, North spent his last two years on active duty assigned to Headquarters Marine Corps in Arlington, Virginia. He resigned his Marine Corps commission in 1990 following his indictment for conspiring to defraud the United States by channeling the profits from US arms sales to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. After his trial and his appeal, all charges were dismissed.

Military awards

North received the following military awards and decorations:

Iran–Contra affair

North came into the public spotlight as a result of his participation in the Iran–Contra affair, a political scandal during the Reagan administration, in which he claimed partial responsibility for the sale of weapons through intermediaries to Iran, with the profits being channeled to the Contras in Nicaragua. It was alleged that he was responsible for the establishment of a covert network which subsequently funneled those funds to the Contras. Congress passed the Boland Amendment (to the House Appropriations Bill of 1982 and following years), which prohibited the appropriation of U.S. funds by intelligence agencies for the support of the Contras. The money was passed through a shell organization, the National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty, to the Palmer National Bank of Washington, D.C., and then to the Contras.

In an August 23, 1986 e-mail to National Security Advisor John Poindexter, North described a meeting with a representative of Panamanian General Manuel Noriega: "You will recall that over the years Manuel Noriega in Panama and I have developed a fairly good relationship," North writes before explaining Noriega's proposal. If U.S. officials can "help clean up his image" and lift the ban on arms sales to the Panamanian Defense Force, Noriega will "'take care of' the Sandinista leadership for us."

North told Poindexter that General Noriega could assist with sabotage against the ruling party of Nicaragua, the Sandinista National Liberation Front. North supposedly suggested that Noriega be paid one million dollars in cash, from Project Democracy funds raised from the sale of U.S. arms to Iran—for the Panamanian leader's help in destroying Nicaraguan economic installations.

In November 1986, as the sale of weapons was made public, North was dismissed by President Ronald Reagan. In an interview with Cigar Aficianado magazine, North said that on February 11, 1987, the FBI detected an attack on North's family from the Peoples Committee for Libyan Students, a sleeper cell for the Islamic Jihad, with an order to kill North. His family was moved to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and lived with federal agents until North retired from the Marine Corps the following year.

In July 1987, North was summoned to testify before televised hearings of a joint congressional committee that was formed to investigate the Iran–Contra scandal. During the hearings, North admitted that he had lied to Congress previously, for which and other actions he was later charged. He defended his actions by stating that he believed in the goal of aiding the Contras, whom he saw as freedom fighters against the Sandinistas and said that he viewed the Iran–Contra scheme as a "neat idea." North admitted shredding government documents related to these activities, at William Casey's suggestion, when the Iran–Contra scandal became public. He also testified that Robert McFarlane had asked him to alter official records to delete references to direct assistance to the Contras and that he had helped.

North was tried in 1988. He was indicted on 16 felony counts, and on May 4, 1989, he was initially convicted of three: accepting an illegal gratuity, aiding and abetting in the obstruction of a congressional inquiry, and ordering the destruction of documents through his secretary, Fawn Hall. He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Gerhard Gesell on July 5, 1989 to a three-year suspended prison term, two years probation, $150,000 in fines, and 1,200 hours of community service. North performed some of his community service within Potomac Gardens, a public housing project in southeast Washington, D.C. However, on July 20, 1990, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), North's convictions were vacated, after the appeals court found that witnesses in his trial might have been impermissibly affected by his immunized congressional testimony.

As North had been granted limited immunity for his congressional testimony, the law prohibited a prosecutor from using that testimony as part of a criminal case against him. To prepare for the expected defense challenge that North's testimony had been used, the prosecution team had—before North's congressional testimony had been given—listed and isolated all of its evidence. Further, the individual members of the prosecution team had isolated themselves from news reports and discussion of North's testimony. While the defense could show no specific instance in which North's congressional testimony was used in his trial, the Court of Appeals ruled that the trial judge had made an insufficient examination of the issue. Consequently, North's convictions were reversed. After further hearings on the immunity issue, Judge Gesell dismissed all charges against North on September 16, 1991.

Politics

In the 1994 election, North unsuccessfully ran for the United States Senate as the Republican Party candidate in Virginia. Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia endorsed Marshall Coleman, a Republican who ran as an independent, instead of North. North lost, garnering 43 percent of votes, while incumbent Democrat Charles Robb, a son-in-law of President Lyndon B. Johnson, won reelection with 46 percent. Coleman received 11 percent. North's candidacy was documented in the 1996 film A Perfect Candidate.

In his failed bid to unseat Robb, North raised $20.3 million in a single year through nationwide direct-mail solicitations, telemarketing, fundraising events, and contributions from major donors. About $16 million of that amount was from direct mail alone. This was the biggest accumulation of direct-mail funds for a statewide campaign to that date, and it made North the top direct-mail political fundraiser in the country in 1994.

Books and media

North was lampooned as "The Mute Marine" during the 1986 season of Saturday Night Live.

North has written several best-selling books including Under Fire, One More Mission, War Stories—Operation Iraqi Freedom, Mission Compromised, The Jericho Sanction, and The Assassins.

His book American Heroes was released nationally in the United States on May 6, 2008. In the book, "North addresses issues of defense against global terrorism, Jihad, and radical Islam from his firsthand perspective as a military officer and national security advisor and current Middle East war correspondent." He writes a nationally syndicated newspaper column through Creators Syndicate.

On November 5, 2013, North's American Heroes on the Homefront, was released. This is a nonfiction book that gives a firsthand account of the American volunteers who have volunteered to join the United States Army. The book was a collection from the dozen years North and the Fox News Channel have traveled the frontlines of the War on Terror. During those years North and his team have profiled hundreds of soldiers and chronicles what it means to be a hero. In the book he continues the journey by following these soldiers from the battlefield back to the home front.

In 1991 North appeared on the first season of The Jerry Springer Show. From 1995 to 2003, he was host of his own nationally syndicated radio program on Radio America known as the Oliver North Radio Show or Common Sense Radio. He also served as co-host of Equal Time on MSNBC for a couple of years starting in 1999. North was the host of the television show War Stories with Oliver North and is a regular commentator on Hannity, both on the Fox News Channel. North appeared as himself on many television shows including the sitcom Wings in 1991, and three episodes of the TV military drama JAG in 1995, 1996, and 2002 as "Ollie", a close friend of the deceased father of Tracey Needham's character Meg Austin.

In addition, he regularly speaks at both public and private events. North appears in an episode of Auction Kings to have his Marine Corps sword returned after it was lost and presumably stolen in 1980. North was credited as a military consultant in the 2012 video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II and voiced himself in one level of the game. In 2014 he received story credit for an episode of the TV series The Americans where the protagonist Soviet spies infiltrate a Contra training base in the United States.

Freedom Alliance

In 1990, North founded the Freedom Alliance, a 501(c)(3) foundation "to advance the American heritage of freedom by honoring and encouraging military service, defending the sovereignty of the United States, and promoting a strong national defense." The foundation's primary activities include providing support for wounded combat soldiers and providing scholarships for the sons and the daughters of service members killed in action.

Beginning in 2003, Sean Hannity has raised over $10 million for the Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund through Freedom Concerts and donations from The Sean Hannity Show and its listeners. The charity has been criticized by conservative blogger Debbie Schlussel for distributing too little of its funds for charitable purposes. Hannity, North, and other charity spokespersons say that all of the net proceeds from the Freedom Concerts are donated to the fund.

Personal life

In 1967, North married Betsy Stuart; they have four children. Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith of his mother, North has long attended Protestant or evangelical services with his wife and children.

North is a board member in the NRA and appeared at NRA national conventions in 2007 and 2008.