American Notes WASHINGTON

With lawyers to intercept his mail and bodyguards to screen his movements, the fugitive managed to elude the U.S. Capitol police for ten days. Finally, a stakeout caught him at a stoplight near his home in Great Falls, Va. Running in a half crouch, Sergeant Tom Moore sprinted past a backup car of security men, reached through the auto's open window and slapped his quarry on the chest with a congressional subpoena. "O.K., you got me," the captive conceded.

A drug kingpin? No, the fugitive was Oliver North, whose disdain for congressional investigators is legendary. This time a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee is demanding to see North's diaries, which may mention drug dealers who were mixed up with the Nicaraguan contras. In spite of the subpoena, North refused to surrender: he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.