Was North an overzealous pa-triot or a Machiavellian plotter? There was much in the public record to cast doubt about his character. While he admitted to lying before Congress and to shredding and falsifying documents to achieve a "higher purpose," his career seems to have been checkered with other untruths as well. Among other things, he failed in his NSC application to disclose a hospitalization for psychiatric reasons shortly after his return from Vietnam. NSC officials said that had they known this they would have denied clearance for North to serve. Many public statements that North made about his service in Vietnam, about his per-sonal relationship with Reagan, about missions and exploits supposedly carried out in Central America, the Falklands, and the Middle East, have been flatly denied by Reagan administration officials and his military superiors. Either North's clandestine operations had a longer history than the Iran-Contra affair or he invented.....
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