Washington's Cowboys

As news of secret U.S. dealings with Iran began to appear last week, attention inexorably turned to a cluster of suites in the Old Executive Office Building next door to the White House. They house a select band of globe- trotting staffers of the National Security Council, the executive agency that coordinates U.S. defense and foreign-affairs activities. Known for its bravado and love of derring-do, the small group conceived and ran the secret talks with Iran. While the group is part of a crisis-management team within the 46-person NSC staff, its freewheeling style has led Washington insiders to call its members the "cowboys."

The most prominent is Lieut. Colonel Oliver North, 43, a Marine who earned the Silver Star and two Purple Hearts -- among other medals -- in the Viet Nam War. He is deputy director for political-military affairs on the NSC. A close friend and military comrade of former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, North arouses strong emotions in people. "Nobody can be indifferent to Ollie," says the wife of a top foreign diplomat. "Either you love him, or you hate him with a passion."

Since he joined the NSC in 1981, North has handled many highly sensitive missions. After the 1983 Beirut bombing that killed 241 U.S. Marines, North led the hunt for those responsible. The chief suspect, however, managed to escape. When terrorists seized the Achille Lauro cruise ship off the coast of Egypt last year, North arranged the midair interception of an EgyptAir jet carrying Abul Abbas, the mastermind of the hijacking, to safety in Tunisia. North helped plan the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada and last April's Libyan air raid. It was not surprising that North turned up in Cyprus last week just when Released Hostage David Jacobsen arrived there. "Oliver North is the prototype of the modern American hero," says a friend and colleague. "Wherever and whenever Americans are in trouble, sooner or later you will see him at the scene."

Yet North's global troubleshooting has sometimes landed him in trouble. As head of NSC operations in Central America, he organized a private supply network that provided aid to the contra rebels seeking to oust the Marxist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Senate and House committees investigated North's role last year, but found no proof that he had violated a U.S. law regulating aid to the contras. The colonel's name briefly surfaced again last month when Gunrunner Eugene Hasenfus was captured in Nicaragua after his plane was shot down while he was flying weapons to the contras. A card found in the wreckage belonged to a businessman thought to have links to North.

A confirmed workaholic, North regularly puts in 16-to-18-hour days while in Washington. He dislikes paperwork, and once groused to a friend, "Every time a terrorist fires a bullet, we have to fill out a pile of papers." Colleagues quip that North's real power comes from two office computers hooked into the major U.S. intelligence-gathering agencies, and from a secure telephone line that he uses for classified conversations. For his own protection, the slender officer is rarely photographed or quoted in news accounts. "He is there to serve the President, and that is it," a colleague says.