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.