Reagan Library Nixes Ollie North Appearance

The rift between Nancy Reagan and Oliver North continues.

The retired Marine colonel and star of Fox News Channel's "War Stories" was set to be the guest speaker at a planned March 25 dinner for the Pacific Legal Foundation, to be held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California.

But when Library execs got word that North was coming, they told the Foundation to drop him or find another venue.

The hostility between Mrs. Reagan and North goes back to the Ronald Reagan presidency and the embarrassing Iran-Contra affair.

North coordinated the illegal sale of weapons to Iran to fund the Contra rebels fighting to topple the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Reagan denied he knew about the deal and he fired North in 1986. Still, North was hailed as a hero by conservatives for keeping the Contras' struggle alive - one that eventually led to Nicaragua holding free elections.

North later wrote a book, "Under Fire: An American Story," in which he claimed that Reagan must have known about the deal. Sources says Mrs. Reagan was incensed by the claim.

When North ran for the Senate from Virginia in 1994, she told a reporter on the eve of the election that North had lied to her husband about the Iran-Contra affair. North lost the election.

According to Dick Bradley, a spokesman for the Pacific Legal Foundation, Reagan Library officials told the Foundation that Col. North was simply not welcome at the Library.

Bradley said former Reagan speechwriter Peter M. Robinson - who wrote the famous speech in which President Reagan told Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this [Berlin] wall" - is the new speaker, replacing North.

A Library official, Robert Cuillard, flatly denied that Col. North was barred from appearing at the dinner, and referred us to a Library public relations spokeswoman, Melissa Geller, who we were unable to reach.

Col. North was not available for comment.