The briefing took place in the old Executive Office Building, next door to the White House, in a darkened room impressively furnished with comfortable chairs and an elevated desk facing large screens on what appeared to be soundproof walls. An electronic console a few feet behind the chairs was manned by a technician who controlled a slide projector and the lighting.
McFarlane turned me over to a boyish-looking aide sitting quietly by his side: Oliver North. I noted his civilian suit, that closely cropped haircut, confident manner and the name Oliver, and thought, "Preppie, probably Yale." When he told me he was a marine colonel, I was thrown a bit, but then the National Security Council is good duty for ambitious young military men.
North asked that I not identify him by rank or name, since his involvement with this operation, as he described it, would put him at some risk. A request for anonymity is not unusual for a White House official, but I was puzzled by his reference to personal risk. As the briefing went along, I decided it was a byproduct of his flair for the melodramatic. He was given to lines such as: ''Not so long ago, I fought in a far-off war we were not allowed to win; I vowed it would never happen again."
The briefing was in two parts, the first half featuring grainy black and white aerial photographs of what North described as military facilities in Nicaragua. In a low-key conversational style, he described Nicaragua as a ''major asset of the Soviet bloc," calling up photos that to my untrained eyes seemed to be clusters of conventional buildings, maybe a runway, possibly training facilities.
I couldn't be sure because the photographs lacked sharp definition, and not one of them showed troops or people of any kind. North, on the other hand, saw "barracks built like Cuban or Soviet military garrisons," or "mobile medical headquarters . . . principally supported by East German equipment, but there have been Soviet doctors."
He was especially concerned about Bluefields, a port on the Caribbean coast. North said Bulgarians and Cubans were "turning it into a major military garrison." He went on: "This thing will rival Cam Ranh Bay (the big American military port in Vietnam) when it's done." He then looked directly at me and said: "You'll recall some problems we identified prior to October of 1983 on an island called Grenada? This is a parallel situation."
North was also eager for me to see what appeared to be a major military camp in northwestern Nicaragua. As it flashed onto the screen, North said: ''We believe this facility is run by Cubans, probably with Soviet advisers - and is used principally to train El Salvador guerrillas."
He showed me a familiar outline, and said: "The interesting thing here is the baseball diamond. Nicaraguans don't play baseball. Cubans play baseball." I looked to see if he were kidding. He was not. His declaration, I thought, will come as a surprise to the Nicaraguans who have made it to the major leagues. Dennis Martinez of the Montreal Expos is the only Nicaraguan-born player currently in the majors, but when I arrived in Nicaragua, baseball diamonds were everywhere, and the players were Nicaraguans.
North called for some color slides of people he had photographed during personal trips to Contra camps. One showed a group of youngsters, including a somber little girl. He said: "I talked to her for two days and I just couldn't get her to smile. Later, I heard Sandinistas invaded her home and killed her mother, father and uncle."
North plainly believed the Contras would prevail if they received enough help. He called them "some of the bravest people I ever saw." In retrospect, he seemed to be most animated when describing the Contra operations, almost as if he missed the combat experience in jungle terrain. He obviously believed the Soviet Union represented a major threat in Nicaragua. But was he also driven by a personal zeal to settle old scores, to achieve through the Contras in Nicaragua what the United States failed to do in Vietnam? Perhaps.
That day, however, he seemed mostly a young gung-ho marine colonel, an energetic worker in the NSC vineyard. As we parted, I made a note of his name, thinking that later he might be a useful source.
That was in April 1985. We have since learned that North's role in Central American involved a lot more than briefing me. Within two months of the interview, he was allegedly deep in discussions about the Iran arms sales. Oh, the questions I should have asked!
