The defining image of Oliver North is that of the lieutenant colonel standing straight, right hand raised about to testify in the Iran Contra hearings. It was 1987.
Americans are as divided as ever on North.
Is he a hero or a criminal?
There was no question among those lined up to see him Tuesday afternoon at Barnes & Noble in Lake Sumter Landing.
“Somebody had to take the fall,” said Keith Llewellyn of the Village of Virginia Trace. “He was very credible and I believed everything he said.”
North is touring in support of his book, “Counterfeit Lies.”
He joked about writing his 13th book.
“It’s simple. I have a wife and a mortgage,” he said.
Ninety-three-year-old Bill Cumbaa, a platoon leader with the 1st Marine Division on Okinawa in the final battle of World War II, waited in a wheelchair to see North.
But when he reached North, he beckoned Cumbaa to stand up with him for a photograph.
Cumbaa was once featured on the Fox News program “War Stories with Oliver North.”
Richard Tuthill of the Village of Collier received a copy of North’s latest book from his daughter for Father’s Day. She had had it autographed by North at a booksigning in Lynchburg, Va. She sent it to her Dad who proudly brought it with him to North’s Villages booksigning.
“He’s an American hero,” Tuthill said.
