North Given $20,000 and Award

Dozens of flag wavers waited in the hallways of the Anaheim Hilton and Towers Hotel on Saturday, hanging onto placards reading “Proud to Be a North American” and “I’m a Contra Too.”

The group, including Young Americans for Freedom and College Republicans and guests from a wedding reception next door, was planning a rally for the nation’s best-known indicted patriot, fired White House aide Oliver L. North.

But they were disappointed. Security guards--some traveling with North, some hired by the hotel--whisked him from a private reception to a waiting room before he spoke to a group honoring him as “an American hero.”

Herschensohn’s Group

North had flown from Washington to receive the Liberty Award from Leadership to Preserve America, an organization led by conservative KABC-TV commentator Bruce Herschensohn. He posed for photos but refused to talk to reporters.

More than 500 supporters paid $200 each to see a smiling North receive praise, a bronze eagle statuette and a $20,000 check at the award ceremony.

A huge American flag draped behind him, Herschensohn compared North to Lawrence of Arabia and dubbed him “Ollie of America.”

The former White House aide has been accused of arranging sales of arms to Iran in exchange for hostages and then diverting money from the arms sales to Nicaraguan Contras. A federal grand jury indicted him in March on 16 criminal charges, including theft, conspiracy, fraud, lying and obstruction of Congress.

North visited Orange County early last month to lend his support to C. Christopher Cox and Dana Rohrabacher, both of whom won Republican congressional primaries June 7.

Dedication Cited

Herschensohn said North was chosen for the award because of “his dedication throughout his life to liberty and for trying with every fiber of his body to see to it that liberty would come to Nicaragua.”

North told the group that he appreciated their generosity. He said he is facing a “ruinous” financial situation to “defend my service to this country.” Using a steady, urgent tone and often referring to his Christian beliefs, North defended the cause of conservatism, calling for a new Congress and a Republican president.

Despite the “warm words” of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, whom he called “the man with the ink blot on his head,” the United States is “a nation at risk in a dangerous world,” North said.

The audience applauded freely, with one woman calling out, “God bless you, Ollie!”

Herschensohn, a controversial conservative who last week angered striking Hollywood writers by quitting his television union, compared North to Lawrence of Arabia, who “overrode the bureaucracy” of Great Britain to “do those things for his country unable to be done by the stagnation of others.”

Herschensohn said he is unsure where the rest of the estimated $100,000 in proceeds from the event will go, but he denied that the money will help him finance a second GOP Senate bid in 1992. He ran unsuccessfully for the nomination in 1986.

He said he hoped to set aside some of the proceeds for the next Liberty Award.