ANNOUNCER: Bringing you the world for 20 years, this is CNN.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Oliver North's criminal trial finally began. The jury...</s>CHARLES BIERBAUER, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: It was about illegally funding the Contras in their battle against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. If only it were that simple. It also involved armed shipments to Iran, which were prohibited, exchanges of money, diversions of funds from the Iranian sales to the Contras. It involved the Israelis, it involved arms moving clandestinely all around. The image that we best recall of Ollie North is the Marine officer, ramrod straight, standing in front of the congressional committee saying, I was just the Marine officer who saluted smartly and charged up that hill, as if to say, I was just following orders. The question, of course, then, is: Were these Ronald Reagan's orders to conduct this clandestine operation to fund the Contras with money derived from selling guns and other weapons to the Iranians with the complicity of the Israelis and all else that this entailed? And the answer was, Ollie North was convicted of this. But because his testimony to the Congress was immunized, the conviction was subsequently overturned, and Ollie North went on to have a career as a radio talk show host.
CNN 20: Oliver North Trial Begins, February 21, 1991