Mr. LIMAN: And you then testified that you were given a task of
keeping the body and soul of the Contras together, correct?
Mr. NORTH: That's correct.
Mr. LIMAN: Whose words are "the body and soul"?
Mr. NORTH: As they were relayed to me, they were the words of
the President.
Mr. LIMAN: And did you understand those words to mean to keep
them together in the field as a fighting force until Congress turned
money back on?
Mr. NORTH: And more. To keep them together as a viable political opposition, to keep them alive in the field, to bridge the time
between the time when we would have no money and the time
when the Congress would vote again, to keep the effort alive, because the President committed publicly to go back, in his words,
again and again and again to support the Nicaraguan Resistance.
And I not only did that, but I went down and talked, as you now
know from my notebooks, with the heads of state of Central American and other countries, with the political leadership of those other
countries, in an effort to do just exactly that.
Mr. LIMAN: Now, did the job—
Mr. NORTH: And I also believe, sir, that that action, direction to
me as a member of the President's staff, was just as legal as that
proscription taking away funding.
Mr. LIMAN: And did you understand that that direction was emanating from the President of the United States himself?
Mr. NORTH: I did.
Mr. LIMAN: And did I read your expression correctly when you
winced yesterday when someone read from the Tower Report that
the President said that he didn't know that the NSC staff was helping the Contras?
Mr. NORTH: I don't know what you read in my wince. It may
have been that my back hurt.