Mr. NIELDS: But you asked General Singlaub, did you not, to go back and ask them to proceed with their offer?

Mr. NORTH: Yes. But again, I think what is important, counsel, is the words "their offer." I get the sense that somehow or another, we have tried to create the impression that Oliver North picked up his hat and wandered around Washington and foreign capitals begging for money and I didn't do that. I didn't have to do it. Because others were more willing to put up the money than the Congress, because they saw well what was happening to us in Central America and the devastating consequences of a Contra wipeout and an American walkaway and write-off to what was going to happen to this country and to democracy elsewhere in the world. I didn't have to wander around and beg. There were other countries in the world and other people in this country who were more willing to help the Nicaraguan Resistance survive and cause democracy to prosper in Central America than this body here, and that is an important factor in all of what you do, counsel, and in what this committee is going to do. It has got to be part of your assessment as to why is it that other countries in the world were willing to step up and help in a desperate cause when we were not willing to do so ourselves? That has got to be something that is debated not just by pulling people before this group and hammering at them and haranguing them and reducing it to pettiness. It has got to be something that the American people come to understand how desperately important it was, not just to us, not just to Ollie North, and not just to President Ronald Reagan. It was important to these other people who put forth that money, and I didn’t beg them. They offered. And that is important, sir.