Word: nsc
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...North used the memorandum of notification, says one source ^ who worked with him, "really explains Ollie's rise to prominence." Watching the gung-ho Marine employ such methods made at least some of his colleagues uneasy. "Oliver North is going to get the President in real trouble," an NSC aide told a friend two years ago. Last year, before the Iran-contra scandal became public, the aide repeated the warning: "Just remember -- it's going to happen...
...geopolitical justification of cultivating moderates in Iran to help swing a post-Khomeini government away from hostility to the U.S., and thus frustrate Soviet designs on a vital region. That justification was not much more than a rationalization for North, who initially horned in on the affair as the NSC's antiterrorist expert. His electronic messages to Poindexter spoke in the crudest terms of so many weapons to be traded for each American hostage freed. But the operation sadly - illustrates how the obsession with covert operations became self-perpetuating. Because the arms sales aroused bitter opposition even within the Government...
...posting, the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., that North caught the attention of Navy Secretary John Lehman, who was impressed by a paper the young major wrote about the uses of the modern battleship. Lehman recommended North to National Security Adviser Richard Allen, who hired him for the NSC's Defense Policy Staff...
North had arrived. Soon he was working on counterterrorism, then the contras. "Many NSC people took to their assignment passively," says one colleague. "North was aggressive from the start." The man of action turned into a fiend for paperwork and was often at his cluttered desk by 7 a.m. and still there after midnight. "I've seen a lot of workaholics in this town," said one associate, "and believe me, nobody outworked Ollie...
...contras, North became obsessed with the men he referred to as freedom fighters. He kept a shoe box filled with pictures of contra leaders and talked about how he did not want to lose Nicaragua the way he saw the U.S. lose Viet Nam. North had been in the NSC longer than many of his superiors, and he began to believe in his own indispensability. "Being in the White House is heady," says a colleague. "You start carrying the cross by yourself, and if you don't do it, democracy falls...