A panel discussion this evening will expose the turbulent history of Oliver North, a panelist says.

But one of the College Republicans, the group bringing North to SIUC Tuesday, says the panel will have a biased view of past events because it does not include any North supporters.

The discussion, Oliver North:Patriotism Never Looked So Bad, will begin at 7 tonight in the Museum Auditorium of Faner Hall. The discussion will focus on retired Col. Oliver North, who will speak Tuesday evening at Shryock Auditorium. No more tickets are available for North’s speech.

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Chris Biswell, a graduate student in history who helped organize the panel discussion, said the panel was created to inform people about the history behind North.

We want to inform people about what Oliver North did in the Iran-Contra Affair, he said, and essentially how his renown today is based on this (the affair).

North is best known for his involvement with the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980s. Critics of North’s actions demanded he expose himself as an instrumental figure in the installation of a top-secret, financial pipeline, through which illegal funds obtained from the sale of high-tech weaponry to Iran were funneled to Nicaraguan Contra rebels.

North eventually was exonerated in the affair on a technicality, and after resigning from the military, he unsuccessfully ran for a U.S. Senate seat in Virginia in 1994.

Erik Woehrmann, chairman of the College Republicans, said he is unhappy that the panel does not include someone who agrees with North.

This panel is an outrage, he said. We’ve been excluded from the panel and heard from the organizer that our point of view is not wanted.

The panel discussion was organized by some SIUC history graduate students and is sponsored by the Southern Illinois University National Lawyers Guild, the Southern Illinois Peace Coalition, the Social Action Committee of the Carbondale Unitarian Fellowship and the SIUC Department of History.

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Woehrmann said the College Republicans tried to have someone with a pro-North stance on the panel and were refused.

It’s appalling to me that these people who fought the establishment 30 years ago are now the establishment, he said. We’re at an institution of higher learning and people can’t get both points of view.

Biswell said the panel members were not excluded or selected because of their stance about North.

None of the panel members were approached because of the pro- or con-North status, he said. It was based on their knowledge of a particular area that would involve Oliver North.

We just think people should know what he (North) did to get where he’s at.

One of the seven panelists is Lillian Adams, a Carbondale resident and member of the Witness for Peace program.

Adams traveled to Nicaragua with six other Carbondale residents during the Iran-Contra affair with the program to discuss press censorship and the lack of information traveling back to the United States.

Adams was asked to speak at the panel and was eager to do so when she found out North was coming to SIUC.

I offered to speak as soon as I knew North was coming, she said. He’s billed as a super-super patriot, and he’s a super-super traitor.

The panel discussion will take place at 7 p.m. in the SIUC Museum Auditorium.

North will speak at Shryock Auditorium Tuesday evening at 7 p.m. No more tickets are available for his speech.