Thunder to the Right

The speeches were dramatically illustrated with slides and maps of Central America. The case for Nicaragua's contra rebels was presented starkly, with powerful emotion. "All we offer (them) is a chance to die for a cause they believe in," Lieut. Colonel Oliver North told a rapt audience in Nashville. "If we fail to provide the support that is so necessary for these people, this country, which last year had 23 of its citizens killed by terrorism around the world, will very soon find its citizens being gunned down on its own streets."

North, it became clearer last week, was not only the point man in a clandestine effort to support the contras; he was also a hot speaker on the private contra fund-raising circuit. The National Security Council aide began briefing private groups on Central America in 1983 at weekly sessions organized by the White House Office of Public Liaison, and he was soon in demand among conservative groups nationwide. His remarks in Nashville, quoted from a tape obtained by the Washington Post, were to the Council for National Policy, a group of about 500 influential conservatives including Colorado Brewer Joseph Coors, Texas Millionaire Nelson Bunker Hunt and the Rev. Jerry Falwell. "Ollie let you know what is really going on in Central America," says Bradley Keena, political director of the Leadership Foundation, another conservative lobby. "Nobody really knew like Ollie knew."

Some suggest that North may have done more than just rally the right to the contra camp. The Lowell (Mass.) Sun charged last week that $5 million from the sales of U.S. arms to Iran, which North had helped engineer, had been funneled to right-wing groups that included the relatively unknown National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty. The money, said the Sun, was used "to boost conservative candidates in the U.S. and to oppose critics of the Reagan Administration's Central American policy." No other news organization has confirmed the story, which the endowment's director, Carl ("Spitz") Channell, denounced as "outrageous, libelous lies."

Channell, 41, runs a total of nine foundations and political-action committees for right-wing causes. He has raised money from such well-known conservative donors as Ellen Garwood of Austin, who once gave a helicopter to the contras. At a dinner in Washington's Willard Hotel on Nov. 11, North presented Channell with a thank-you letter from Ronald Reagan, expressing the President's appreciation for Channell's pro-contra efforts. When Congress was debating a resumption of military aid to the contras, earlier this year, Channell's Liberty endowment boasted that it would spend more than $2.5 million "in support of our President's accurately reasoned policies regarding the threat that Communist Nicaragua now poses." Last week Channell declared that all of his organizations' funds were "solicited from patriotic American citizens."

Few White House staffers believe North would have involved himself in specific political campaigns. His expenses on the speech circuit were usually paid for by his private hosts. Members of these organizations say North would leave before the fund-raising pitches began. The White House aide seemed careful to keep within legal limits. "I can't tell you what you should do" was how he frequently prefaced his remarks. "You know what's out there, what the contras face."

L. Francis Bouchey, a Council for National Policy member, says North was a "very effective speaker" but not the master strategist for coordinating the private contra-aid efforts. "I would call Ollie and bounce ideas off him," says Bouchey, "but he was very busy and not really that helpful."