Oliver North holds up a copy of the U.S. Constitution while making a point during his April 14 lecture in Statler Auditorium. Denise Weldon/University Photography
Key Iran-Contra figure Oliver North proved Monday, April 14, that he can still attract as much controversy in 1997 as he did in the 1980s.
North's evening lecture in Statler Auditorium, titled "A New Conservative Covenant" and sponsored by many of Cornell's conservative organizations, including the Cornell College Republicans and the Cornell Review, as well as by the Office of the Dean of Students, drew about as many detractors as it did supporters.
Half an hour before North was scheduled to speak, the capacity crowd alternated between waving small American flags and reading anti-North pamphlets that had been passed out. Minutes before he took the stage, two women bearing placards referring to North's alleged involvement in CIA cocaine sales to fund the Nicaraguan Contras marched up and down the aisles to cheers from about half the audience.
It was in this heated atmosphere that Susan Murphy, vice president for student and academic services, took the stage to remind students of the university's campus code regarding responsible speech and expression.
"You have the freedom to protest peacefully," Murphy said, "but you cannot prevent the speaker from speaking regardless of your views as to the legitimacy, intelligence, morality or offensiveness of the speaker."
North's reception, however, was largely warm, and his introduction by Christopher Marquis '00, chairman of the College Republicans, was received with enthusiastic applause.
North thanked Marquis for his introduction and, in the first of many pointed references to China's alleged role in Democratic presidential finances, he said, "I wouldn't have missed that for all the contributions in China."
Stating that his goal was to provoke some questions, North began his speech by telling the audience that April 14 was the 11th anniversary of the raid he led as a lieutenant colonel on Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi's terrorist camps.
He moved on to a discussion of the United States Constitution. Contradicting the notion that the Constitution confers rights on Americans, he argued, "The Constitution doesn't give you a single, solitary right whatsoever. Our rights are given by God and bear homage to God almighty." Then he added, jokingly, "Now, I know that I'm saying this at a land-grant school and may have just violated some law."
North held forth on what he sees as various governmental Constitutional abuses, such as inner-city curfews, confiscation of private property by the Environmental Protection Agency and unannounced inspections suffered by black mothers in federally funded housing projects.
"Somehow we've gotten out of hand when someone in Washington can declare your private property no longer so," he said.
North told the audience that he uses the Internet daily to obtain information for his radio program, and then he came down firmly against the Federal Communication Decency Act, arguing it's his job, not the government's, to protect his children against the likes of Larry Flynt.
Describing what he perceives as America's moral failing, North said, "We've pretty much replaced God as a part of our society; we've replaced it with government."
During the question-and-answer session, North fielded hostile as well as friendly questions. In reply to one question about the infringement of individual rights involved in denying a woman's choice on abortion, North insisted that someone had to speak for the unborn child. Then he enraged part of the audience by saying that most abortion advocates had had a husband or father walk out on them. Other students, from various political leanings, asked questions about the environment, the legalization of marijuana and the legitimacy of U.S. intervention in foreign affairs and about the IRS, term limits and his stance on North Korea.
North didn't refer to the Iran-Contra hearings that had catapulted him into the national spotlight until one of the placard-bearing women who had fired up the audience before the lecture stood and held her sign aloft as a silent question. North dismissed any involvement with drug trafficking.
"Communism was a very real threat, it was the first toehold of Communism in our continent," averred North, referring to Nicaragua.
After the speech, Ying Ma '97, a former editor of the Cornell Review, expressed consternation at the questions asked of North.
"It is always amazing to me that the left wing has the tendency to prolong questions that are hostile to the speaker," she said.