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The_Info_Web/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/First Intercontinental Development Corporation.md

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aliases tags category updated summary relations
FIDCO
First Intercontinental Development Corp.
Organization
Company
FrontCompany
NSC
NSA
PROMIS
Private Organization 2026-10-09 First Intercontinental Development Corporation was a company whose board of directors included prominent figures with ties to government and intelligence, and it was reportedly a National Security Council cutout.
type with reverse start fn
founded George K. Pender true 1970 2
type with reverse role start fn
director_of George K. Pender true director 1983 3

First Intercontinental Development Corporation (FIDCO) was a company whose board of directors included prominent figures with ties to government and intelligence, and it was reportedly a National Security Council cutout. It figures in Danny Casolaro's "The Octopus" investigation.1

Board of Directors

The Board of Directors of FIDCO consisted of individuals with significant backgrounds in government, intelligence, and business:

  • Robert Maheu, Sr.: Vice President, Director; former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and former CEO of Howard Hughes Operations.1
  • Michael A. McManus: Director, Vice President, and General Counsel to FIDCO; former Assistant to President Ronald Reagan at the White House.1
  • Robert Booth Nichols: Director, Senior Vice President, and Chairman of Investment Committee; CEO of R.B.N. Companies, International, involved in high technology electronics, real estate, construction, and international finance.1
  • George K. Pender: founder (1970) and president and chief executive officer according to his 1999 obituary;2 listed among the directors as of January 11, 1983 in a 2016 FOIA request;3 Seymour wrote that he was a Director and a former Director of the Pacific Ocean area of Burns & Roe, Inc., an international engineering and construction corporation.1
  • Kenneth A. Roe: Director; Chairman and President of Burns & Roe, Inc., involved in major projects like the United States Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor Plant.1
  • Frances T. Fox: Vice President and Director; former General Manager of L.A. International Airport and Director of Aviation for Howard Hughes Nevada operations (now Summa Corporation).1
  • Clint W. Murchison, Jr.: Director; owner of the Dallas Cowboys NFL football team, with family ties to powerful political and organized crime figures.1
  • William M. Pender: Director and Senior Vice President; licensed contractor in California.1
  • Glen R. Shockley: Director; consultant to Fortune 500 Companies and international financial consultant.1

Activities and Allegations

FIDCO was reportedly used as a NSC cutout in Lebanon to arrange the release of a prisoner. Peter Zokosky told Seymour in 2001 that FIDCO was an "NSA front corporation used in Lebanon," that its directors "contracted" with Nichols, and that he had been on it "briefly."4 According to Seymour, letters of the summer of 1983 between Michael A. McManus and George K. Pender concerned FIDCO's role in Lebanon. A follow-up letter from George K. Pender to Amin Gamayel, the president of Lebanon, indicated that transactions could be telexed to Robert Booth Nichols' address. The Arab Bank Limited in Amman, Jordan, responded positively to a potential financial transaction of "US$ three billion or more" for the reconstruction of Lebanon.1

The FBI reported no responsive documents on a 2016 FOIA request for FIDCO records, and the no-records finding was affirmed on appeal.3

An FBI Los Angeles airtel of December 3, 1990, captioned "Front Door; Major Case 90," reported that searches of FBI indices on George K. Pender, "Chairman of First Intercontinental Development Cooperation," produced three references, that investigation "revealed PENDER to be a self-employed consulting engineer," and that "The case was closed without any interview of PENDER."5 An INSLAW memorandum to the record dated July 18, 1990, reported Michael Riconosciuto's statement that for a 1980 mission to Iran Earl Brian "liaised with George Pender, whom we have later discovered was Chairman of the First Intercontinental Development Corporation (FIDCO)," and that Mr. and Mrs. Reagan owned shares in FIDCO through proxies held by Pender, his daughter or Michael McManus.6

Michael Riconosciuto claimed that FIDCO was a NSC corporate cutout and that he was a technical advisor for the organization. He also stated that FIDCO had a companion company called Euramae Trading, which operated throughout the Middle East and was involved in the drug trade, allegedly as a NSC-directed operation.1

Robert Booth Nichols used FIDCO to verify his credibility in proposed arms projects, including the construction of an R&D facility for weapons systems on the Cabazon Indian Reservation. Michael Riconosciuto also claimed that Robert Booth Nichols was involved in illicit activities through FIDCO, including attempting to take embargoed technology out of the United States.1

Nevada Charter Record

The filing index of Nevada charter C417-1961 lists an amendment on August 7, 1984 under the name First Intercontinental Development Corporation, with authorized stock of 10,000,000 shares at one cent par. The same charter's earlier amendments read Nevada Real Estate Investment Corporation (1972), Harbor Resources Incorporated (1979) and Western Smelting & Refining, Inc. (1982); its current record is under the name Meridian International Logistics, Inc., Robert Booth Nichols's holding company, with annual lists filed from 1998 to 2002, a 1992 registered agent in Las Vegas, and the status "Permanently Revoked."7 A separate California stock corporation named First Intercontinental Development Corporation (number 0871867) shows Franchise Tax Board suspensions in 1983, 1994 and 2000.8

Footnotes

  1. Seymour, Cheri. The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010. ↩︎

  2. College of the Holy Cross, Holy Cross Magazine, "In Memoriam," Summer 1999, entry for George K. Pender (died Jan. 6, 1999). Archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20040812105331/http://www.holycross.edu/departments/publicaffairs/hcm/summer99/in_memoriam/1927.html ↩︎

  3. Best, Emma. FOIA request "FIDCO," submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation through MuckRock, submitted February 9, 2016 (FBI number 1344462-000; appeal DOJ-AP-2016-002797, final disposition June 21, 2016). The board list as of January 11, 1983 is as stated in the request text. https://web.archive.org/web/20191224043712/https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/fidco-23873/ ↩︎

  4. Seymour, Cheri. The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal. TrineDay, 2010, chapter 22, interview of Peter Zokosky, February 14, 2001. ↩︎

  5. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Los Angeles, airtel to the Director, "Front Door; Major Case 90," December 3, 1990, released June 2019 in FBI file 1344385-002. https://cdn.muckrock.com/foia_files/2019/07/01/6-24-19_MR23694.pdf (pages 6 and 7) ↩︎

  6. INSLAW, Inc., Memorandum to the Record, July 18, 1990, in "Inslaw - Press Releases," Internet Archive item InslawPressReleases. https://archive.org/details/InslawPressReleases ↩︎

  7. OpenCorporates, record and filing list for Meridian International Logistics, Inc., Nevada company C417-1961 (retrieved October 8, 2026). https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_nv/C417-1961/filings ↩︎

  8. OpenCorporates, record for First Intercontinental Development Corporation, California company 0871867 (retrieved October 8, 2026). https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_ca/0871867 ↩︎