It was a classic courtroom confrontation: defendant and prosecutor, both decorated Marine veterans of Viet Nam, locked in a bitter cross-examination. The Oliver North who endured four days of acerbic questioning by prosecutor John Keker last week did not come across as a selfless patriot used by superiors to carry out a covert plan for assisting the Nicaraguan rebels in defiance of a congressional ban. Instead, North emerged as an evasive witness with a selective memory and unusual personal finances.
The most curious tale in North's testimony concerned the "family fund": a stash of up to $15,000 in cash that North...