Oliver's army under scrutiny

At least one American was not impressed by Lt Col Oliver North's performance in the Irangate witness box. Brian Dooley reports.
ONE American who has not been impressed with Col Oliver North's testimony is Fr Lawrence.Martin Jenco, one of the men whose release, it is widely believed, was secured in the "arms for hostages" deal struck between North and Iranian kidnappers.
Although Fr Jenco has not been named as one of the three Americans who were freed following the arrival of three shipments of arms to Iran, his release in July is generally accepted as having been procured by the illegal activities of North and the would-be disobedient members of the National Security Council.
Fr Jenco claimed last week that if he had known that his freedom had been part of an arms deal he would have remained a hostage. "Some people don't believe me when I say that, but they don't know Lawrence Martin Jenco," he said, and attacked Oliver North's claims that the motive for deceiving Congress was pure.
"If the means are immoral, the end is immoral. That's basic Christian teaching," he said, and continued: "He (Oliver North) is saying that the end justifies the means, but that is absolutely not right. It is immoral".
Fr Jenco was head of the Catholic Relief Services' Beirut bureau when he was kidnapped in January 1985, and since returning to the United States has helped to form an organisation to serve as a support group for hostages and their families. He has decried the image which Oliver North has projected in his television appearances during the Iran-"contra" hearings, and claimed that North had done the nation a tremendous disservice by presenting a "terrible" image of American values.
"There are lies and lies and more lies, and young people begin to see it as something acceptable. This bothers me," he said.
Depsite North's admission that he lied to Congress to cover up the arms deal and the subsequent diversion of profits to the Nicaraguan "contras", his popularity with the American public has soared.
There have been the inevitable "011ie for president" T-shirts, and an ABC News Poll reported that 92 per cent of Americans thought that the colonel had done a good job of defending himself, while 64 per cent believed him to be a victim rather than a villain.
Such a military hero has not caught the public imagination since General MacArthur was fired by President Truman in 1951 for pursuing the Korean war too vigorously. North might not have been given the tickertape welcome lavished on ,MacArthur, but in radio polls all over the States he has emerged a clear winner.
One Republican congressman described North as "representing the old morality", and the White House switchboard claimed that during the week when North was appearing on television with his testimony, there were over 2,000 calls registered in support of North, and 83 against.
The focus has shifted from the contravention of law in supplying Iran with arms, and covertly funding the "contras" to North's ability to be frank about his lying. The morality of sending weapons to the country which held scores of American hostages and which brought down an American president in 1980 is no longer the central issue.
Fr Jenco said that he was upset over the original deal, and believed that it was ridiculous for millions of dollars worth of arms to be exchanged for "a single person, with no wife or children, arms that will be used to keep a war going between Iran and Iraq, a war in which millions of women and children are going to be killed."
He continued: "I've got to the point where I find it difficult to approve of any kind of war, even what we used to call a 'just war'. I don't see any just wars. Violence accomplishes nothing."
Fr Jenco's disgust deepened when it was revealed that some of those involved in the deal had pocketed some of the money, and that the rest went to fund the "contras". His outrage is apparently not shared by all of his compatriots, however, many of whom believe North to be the anti-communist martyr he has presented himself as.
Since his return to America, Fr Jenco has begun work at the Catholic Relief Services in Manhattan, and always carries a watch given to him by Terry Waite, which, he says, has been his "prayer bracelet" since his release.