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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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071789
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07178900.020
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1990-09-17
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NATION, Page 65American NotesIRAN-CONTRAOllie Learns His Fate
U.S. District Court Judge Gerhard Gesell is known as a tough
sentencer, but he turned surprisingly lenient last week. Though
Gesell could have sent former Lieut. Colonel Oliver North to prison
for ten years for his role in the Iran-contra affair, the judge
declined to do so. Instead, after listening to North softly declare
that he had grieved over his "mistakes," he handed North three
suspended sentences, two years' probation, $150,000 in fines and
1,200 hours of community service in an antidrug program for
inner-city youths. (The Navy promptly suspended North's
$23,000-a-year pension but recommended that the Comptroller General
restore it when the matter comes before him.) Incarceration, Gesell
explained, would only harden the "misconceptions" that had led
North into wrongdoing. In Gesell's sight, North was a "low-ranking
subordinate" ordered into illegal activity by "cynical superiors"
in the White House's "elite isolation." Said Gesell: "You're not
the fall guy for this tragic breach of public trust."