Pardoning North

So unregenerate former criminal Nixon thinks pardons are a good idea. Some surprise. NBC should be ashamed for airing this nonsense, and Reagan should be impeached if he follows the advice. RICHARD MILES Los Angeles

South Korean President Roh Tae Woo granted a special pardon Thursday to a North Korean woman condemned to death for placing a time bomb on a Korean Air jetliner that disappeared over Southeast Asia late in 1987 with 115 people aboard. Information Minister Choe Byung Yul said Kim Hyon Hui, 28, a confessed agent for Communist North Korea, will not be executed despite a March 27 Supreme Court ruling upholding her sentence.

As demonstrators outside the courtroom chanted "pardon North now," U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell announced the sentence of convicted Iran-Contra felon Oliver L. North. The former National Security Council assistant was ordered to pay a $150,000 fine, serve two years probation and perform 1,200 hours of community service. Now it is up to President Bush to decide if there is good reason to pardon him. In 17th and 18th Century Europe, monarchs did not worry about giving reasons.

Declaring that Oliver L. North was the "fall guy" for former President Reagan's "gutless advisers," an angry Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) on Wednesday urged President Bush to formally pardon North, the central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal. "Jimmy Carter pardoned draft dodgers, and they can all vote and run for office. . . . I serve with some of them in Congress," Dornan said as he stood outside the U.S.

About 1.5 million people have placed their names on a nationwide petition calling for a presidential pardon for Iran-Contra figure Oliver L. North, a spokesman for the Rev. Jerry Falwell said Friday. Falwell, who launched the petition drive in March, is seeking 2 million names, and his spokesman, Mark DeMoss, said the final 500,000 names could be obtained sometime this month. DeMoss said the names, obtained through a toll-free telephone number, have come from all over the United States.

The Times reported, cartooned and editorialized on Nixon's televised remarks covering a range of subjects, including what he considered his Administration's worst mistake i.e., failing to bomb strategic targets in North Vietnam and not mining Haiphong Harbor in 1969 (instead of waiting until 1972 to do it). The Times did not mention or comment on the most important thing Nixon said to us: If he had taken such military action then, we would have not only won the Vietnam War, but we wouldn't have the problem of Nicaragua today.