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Raw Blame History

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West Point, the Air Commandos and Laos

Secord was appointed to West Point in 1951 from the twelfth district of Ohio and was commissioned in the Air Force on graduating in 1955.³ He ranked 193rd in a class of 470, and the tactical officer of his company was Capt. Alexander Haig.¹ After flight school he served three years as a single-engine jet instructor in Texas and in 1959 was posted to Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma. In August 1961 he volunteered for a special tactical group forming at Hurlburt Field in Florida and became an Air Commando, with tours in South Vietnam and Iran over the next four years.¹

In less than a year he flew more than 200 missions in AT-28 fighters in South Vietnam while serving officially as an adviser to Vietnamese pilots, and Pentagon records show at least four combat air medals in 1962.¹ The Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh counted 285 combat missions in Southeast Asia during the 1960s.⁴ In November 1964, according to a study published in 1980 by the National Defense University, Secord was assigned to help fly Belgian paratroopers to Stanleyville in the Congo for the hostage rescue, and he made an emergency landing in a C-130 after a wing panel opened and an inflated life raft fouled the tail controls.¹ He received a Distinguished Flying Cross for the mission.⁶

In 1965 he attended the Air Force's Air Command and Staff College in Montgomery, Alabama. In August 1966 he returned to Saigon and was then assigned to a classified CIA unit at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand. For two years he coordinated clandestine flights by Air America and other CIA airlines to dozens of remote airfields in Laos, and a former CIA officer who worked with him said: "He was responsible for the air sector."¹ In September 1968 he returned to Hurlburt Field and commanded the 603rd Special Operations Squadron there until he left Florida in 1971.¹

In his 1987 testimony he said he served in Vietnam War and in Laos over quite a number of years throughout the 1960s.³ He said he first met Tom Clines in 1968 and that the two "served together in Laos in combat for a several year period."⁷ The The Wall Street Journal reported in 1982 that Clines and Secord had been close friends since both served in covert operations in Southeast Asia in 1967.⁸ The joint congressional report places both men at the CIA station in Laos in the late 1960s.⁹ Asked in 1987 whether he was aware that the Central Intelligence Agency had contracted Air America before and during the war to place supplies inside Vietnam, Secord answered that he "used to be in charge of a major section of it," and he called Air America "a government proprietary."¹⁰

Naval War College and the Pentagon

From 1971 to 1972 Secord attended a one-year George Washington University graduate program at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, one of 16 Air Force officers in a class of 203.¹ His 1972 master's thesis, "Unconventional warfare/covert operations as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy," was directed by the CIA adviser to the head of the college. In the first pages of its 55 pages he wrote that the CIA should be given "the authority" to run such operations and that the Pentagon should be "removed from the chain of command."¹

Promoted to colonel in 1972, he became the Pentagon desk officer for Southeast Asia, and in 1973 he became aide to the director of the Defense Security Assistance Agency, which manages foreign military sales and assistance.¹ The joint congressional report states that when Secord returned from Laos and was stationed at the Pentagon, Clines introduced him to a number of Clines's CIA associates, including Rafael Quintero, and to Edwin Wilson.⁹ Newsweek reported that Secord received his first general's star at the age of 43.⁶

Iran, 1975 to 1978

From September 1975 to July 1978 Secord was chief of the Air Force section of the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group in Iran.⁴ He told the committees that he commanded the Air Force mission to Iran during the Shah's rule and spent a total of four and a half years in the country.³ The Los Angeles Times reported that he was chief Air Force salesman to the Shah, whose air force was being built to about 500 combat aircraft, and that he helped negotiate the sale of AWACS aircraft, F-4, F-5 and F-14 aircraft; the Washington Post obituary states that he arranged 17 billion dollars in arms deals for the Shah.¹² The joint report says that in the mid-1970s he "exercised substantial influence over purchasing decisions of the Iranian Air Force."⁹

Secord testified that he met Albert Hakim in 1976 or 1977 when Hakim, an Iranian businessman selling electronic intelligence systems to the Iranian Air Force, came to his office to protest the Air Force mission's recommendation to discontinue a 23 million dollar project that duplicated a U.S.-Iranian program called IBEX.¹¹ The joint report states that Hakim and Secord claimed that they first met on unfriendly terms in 1976 or 1977, when Secord recommended against a contract that Hakim proposed to the Iranian government.⁹ The same report states that Hakim's Iranian operations included payoffs to Iranian Air Force and Army generals through "bearer letters" and numbered Swiss accounts, and that in a May 1987 deposition Hakim said Edwin Wilson had infiltrated his organization through Hakim's associate Frank Terpil, and that he removed both from it in 1976 or 1977.¹² According to CIA files cited in the report, in August 1976 Ted Shackley tried to arrange for Secord to assist Hakim in obtaining security contracts with the Iranian government in return for Hakim providing intelligence to the CIA, with Clines to introduce Hakim to Secord; a CIA official rebuffed the proposal in part because Hakim had sold the Iranians "unneeded over sophisticated equipment at exorbitant price[s]."¹³ The Los Angeles Times reported that in a 1983 deposition in Connecticut Hakim admitted using Swiss bank accounts to funnel millions of dollars in payoffs to Iranian military officers in this period.¹

The Hostage Rescue Task Force

Walsh found that Secord was promoted to major general in May 1980 and was the ranking Air Force officer in charge of rescue efforts for the American hostages held in Iran during 1980 and 1981.⁴ Secord testified in 1987 that he served as deputy commander of the hostage rescue task force established after the failed April 1980 attempt (Operation Eagle Claw) at Desert One, that the force was combat ready by August 1980, and that in October 1980 an intelligence briefing he called the "Eureka Briefing" claimed to have located the hostages; he said the CIA refused to disclose its sources and methods, and that the location was later shown to be wrong when the hostages were debriefed in 1981.¹⁴ He testified that his role ended in December 1980.¹⁵ Maj. Gen. James Vaught, the Delta Force commander planning the mission, told the Los Angeles Times: "He was my deputy."¹

Secord also testified that in 1980 he gave Hakim's name, among a number of Iranian names, to U.S. intelligence personnel for vetting and possible use in the rescue operation, and that Hakim was contacted, vetted and volunteered his services.¹¹

Deputy Assistant Secretary and the AWACS Sale

From 1978 to 1981 Secord headed the Air Force International Programs Office in the Pentagon, directing Air Force security assistance programs and foreign military sales worldwide; the Los Angeles Times described a business of 30 billion dollars in programs in about 60 countries.¹¹¹ In April 1981 he was appointed deputy assistant secretary of defense. Walsh gives the post as deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs from 1981 to 1983; the Los Angeles Times gives it as the Near East, Africa and South Asia, about 40 countries; and Secord testified that his responsibility was the Middle East, Africa and southern Asia.¹⁴¹¹ The City Club of Cleveland's forum listing for October 9, 1981 gives the title as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, International Security Affairs, for his appearance on the debate over selling Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft to Saudi Arabia. The listing reports that he argued the sale would make a significant contribution to U.S. security and the security of its allies, and that this was the president's central reason for approving it.¹⁶

Secord told the committees that he was the senior Pentagon representative on the interagency group charged with shepherding the proposed AWACS sale to Saudi Arabia through Congress, and that "this project consumed most of 1981."¹⁷ He said his first recollection of meeting Oliver North came in 1981, when North was on the National Security Council staff and was involved in scheduling the group's meetings.¹⁷ Secord later testified that he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal "at the request of the President" after the Senate narrowly approved the sale, and Newsweek reported that he and North had teamed up to lobby Congress for the approval.¹⁶

Edwin Wilson, the Justice Department Inquiry and EATSCO

Called by Wilson's lawyers at Wilson's trial over the shipment of C-4 explosives to Libya, on February 3, 1985, Secord testified that he had first met Wilson in 1971, then twice in Tehran in 1976 and 1977 and twice in Brussels in 1979 and 1980, and that at one meeting Wilson offered to provide a Soviet MiG-25: "I was interested," Secord said, according to the transcript.¹ Prosecutors said Secord had visited Wilson's Mount Airy Farms estate in Virginia several times, frequently borrowed his private plane and sold him a house in Fairfax County, Virginia.¹ The joint report states that Wilson provided Secord with nearly exclusive use of a private plane for almost a year, and that Clines arranged for Wilson to buy a townhouse that Clines had originally sold to Secord, so that Secord could recover his investment.¹⁸

The Wall Street Journal reported in October 1982 that Secord bought the townhouse from Clines for 56,500 dollars in 1977 while an adviser in Iran and that Wilson took it for 69,000 dollars in September 1978; that Secord piloted a twin-engine Beechcraft that Wilson had bought, from the fall of 1978 until mid-1979, paying for fuel but not for the aircraft's use; and that in January 1979, around the time Wilson arranged a 500,000 dollar loan for Clines, Secord and the Pentagon arms-sales chief Erich von Marbod dined in London with Wilson. Sources close to Secord told the Journal that the dinner was purely social, and Secord's lawyer Thomas Green said the house transactions were innocent and that his client had not profited from them.⁸

The joint report states that in 1981 Secord and Clines became subjects of a Justice Department conflict-of-interest and bribery investigation stemming from their relationship with Wilson, a former CIA officer later convicted of smuggling arms to Libya, and that in 1982 Clines became a target of a separate investigation into fraudulent overbilling of the government by the Egyptian American Transport Company (EATSCO), 49 percent of which he owned.⁹ The Wall Street Journal reported that a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, was studying how EATSCO won Pentagon approval and whether its billing was proper, and that prosecutors were examining the conduct of Secord and von Marbod, who had helped oversee the Egyptian sales; it reported, citing a Pentagon official, that Secord had been suspended for three months in 1982 after the Pentagon learned of his ties to Wilson and was reinstated after he agreed to a lie-detector test of his assertions of innocence, a test never given.⁸ A Washington Post report of the same year stated that prosecutors investigating Wilson had received allegations that Wilson may have held an option to invest in EATSCO through other companies owned by Clines; Clines's lawyer said Wilson had never had any interest in it.¹⁹

In November 1981 Douglas Schlacter, a former Wilson aide, told CBS News that Secord had shared profits from Wilson's illegal arms sales, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation opened an investigation.¹ Secord sued Schlacter for libel and slander, and in April 1983 a federal judge in Washington awarded him 2 million dollars in a default judgment; Schlacter had entered the federal witness protection program and neither contested the suit nor paid. At the hearing Secord testified: "No matter what I have done, I can't get rid of this shadow that's been hanging over me."¹ Newsweek reported that Wilson claimed he had taught Secord about turning government experience into private profit, and that Wilson claimed Secord, Shackley and von Marbod were silent partners in EATSCO; all of them denied it.⁶ Wilson and his secretary also claimed that Secord was a silent partner in EATSCO, and Secord denied any improper ties.¹

Secord retired from the Air Force in May 1983, and the joint report states that he did so because "the Wilson story and the ongoing Justice Department investigation had placed a cloud over his military career."⁹ The Air Force pension was 3,800 dollars a month, and he remained on an Air Force advisory panel on unconventional warfare policy until August 1986.¹ Two months after his retirement EATSCO pleaded guilty to criminal and civil overbilling charges; the Los Angeles Times put the overcharge to the Pentagon at 8 million dollars. Clines, on behalf of the corporate entity that held his interest, paid a 10,000 dollar criminal fine and a 100,000 dollar civil fine. The Justice Department closed the EATSCO case in July 1984 and closed the Secord and Clines inquiry in January 1986, and the joint report states that no indictments or other prosecutorial action followed.¹⁹ In 1984, when Clines needed 33,000 dollars toward the civil fine, Secord lent him 33,000 dollars through a cashier's check carried by Glenn Robinette.²⁰

In May 1987 Secord told the committees that he had been investigated for almost three years, was cleared, and was given a letter by Justice; Senator David Boren answered that the finding was that he had not broken the law and that it was not a certification that the use of the plane of a person like Wilson was appropriate.²¹ The Washington Post obituary states, of the Wilson association, that Secord "was never charged with any wrongdoing."²

Wilson was convicted in 1983 in the Eastern District of Virginia of exporting firearms, in the Southern District of Texas of plastic explosives offenses and in the Southern District of New York of conspiracy to murder federal witnesses, as Boren put the record to Secord in 1987.²² The Fourth Circuit's 1983 opinion describes the Virginia conviction by jury of seven offenses involving the export of an M-16 rifle and four revolvers.²³ The Los Angeles Times reported in March 1987 that Wilson was serving a 52-year federal prison sentence.¹ In 2003 Judge Lynn Hughes of the Southern District of Texas, in an opinion on the Texas conviction, recorded sentences of 17 years in Texas (imposed February 18, 1983), 10 years in the Eastern District of Virginia and 25 years in the Southern District of New York to run consecutively, and wrote that the conviction would be vacated because the government had knowingly used false evidence against Wilson and suppressed favorable evidence.²⁴

Nugan Hand, the Christic Institute Suit and INSLAW

The Christic Institute filed a 22 million dollar federal suit in Miami in May 1986 alleging that Secord and 27 others took part in a worldwide scheme of assassinations, terrorism, embezzlement and drug smuggling, and in December 1986 its lawyer Daniel Sheehan filed an affidavit saying Secord "secretly smuggled . . . large suitcases" of money from opium sales in Laos to an Australian bank. Secord denied all the charges in the suit.¹ The joint report states that the lawsuit brought by the journalists Tony Avirgan and Martha Honey named Secord.²⁵

The New York Times reported in March 1987 that the Australian Commonwealth-New South Wales Joint Task Force on Drug Trafficking, in a report completed in March 1983, named Secord, Shackley, Clines and Quintero as men close to Michael Hand, a co-founder of the Nugan Hand Bank who served in Laos in the late 1960s with Air America in the period when, the Times wrote, Secord played a large role in directing Air America's operations. The Times wrote that the study does not demonstrate that Secord and the others smuggled weapons or narcotics, and that a 1985 Australian royal commission disputed some of the task force's conclusions. According to the report as the Times described it, a witness stated that in April, when a travel case left at Wilson's Geneva office by Nugan Hand's Bernie Houghton was opened in the presence of Clines and Quintero, Secord's name was mentioned and Clines said: "We've got to keep Dick's name out of this."²⁶

INSLAW's Third Supplemental Submission in its bankruptcy-court litigation states that an affidavit by Richard Babayan recounted the alleged involvement of Secord in the Iraqi acquisition of the PROMIS software.²⁷

Stanford Technology Trading Group International

Hakim, who had kept in touch with Secord after Secord left Iran, tried to recruit him to revive Hakim's security-sales company, Expantrade, by offering security systems to foreign governments; Hakim said that by doing so "you have a deep penetration in that government and therefore you can do a lot of business." Secord joined Hakim in May 1983 as an equal partner.⁹ Secord testified that he went into business as president of Stanford Technology Trading Group with Hakim as an equal shareholder, 50 percent each, headquartered in Vienna, Virginia.²⁸

Secord and Hakim founded Stanford Technology Trading Group International (STTGI) in 1983. Hakim was chairman, Secord was president, and the company was wholly controlled by the two of them.²⁹ It was distinct from Stanford Technology Corporation, which Hakim had founded in 1974. The partners formed further shell companies in Switzerland with related names, including StanTech Services S.A. and Scitech S.A.²⁹ The Geneva fiduciary Compagnie de Services Fiduciaires (CSF), controlled by the American tax lawyer Willard Zucker, managed the Enterprise's money. Zucker had provided Hakim with financial services since the mid-1970s.²⁹ Walsh wrote that "by 1986, the business of STTGI was the Enterprise."²⁹ In mid-1984 the partners represented Marwais Steel Company of Larkspur, California, in pursuit of a 100 million dollar aircraft-shelter contract from the United Arab Emirates, which an Italian company won.¹

The Enterprise: Contra Supply

Secord testified that in January or February 1984, after he retired, a mutual friend asked him to join a visit to North, and that in about July 1984 North telephoned him and named retired General John Singlaub among the others he was approaching.¹⁷ After the Boland Amendment barred CIA aid to the contras in October 1984, William J. Casey was instrumental in pairing North with Secord as a contra-support team, according to the Independent Counsel, who also found that Casey supported the North-Secord combination in the Iran arms sales despite deep reservations about Secord within the CIA hierarchy.³⁰ In the fall of 1984 North introduced Secord to the Contra leader Adolfo Calero, to help Calero buy arms with money from Saudi Arabia. The Saudis gave 32 million dollars for the contras during the period when the Boland Amendment barred U.S. aid.²⁹

Secord's first contra sale was arranged late in 1984 through the Canadian firm TransWorld Arms, headed by Emanuel Weigensberg, whose supplier was the Portuguese arms firm Defex; Defex arranged the purchase of a shipload of weapons from the People's Republic of China, which reached Central America in April 1985. The contras paid 2.3 million dollars; of 720,400 dollars in profit, Weigensberg and the Washington lawyer Thomas Green, who had introduced Secord to the firm, each received a third, and Secord and Hakim split the remainder.²⁹ Secord then recruited Clines and Rafael Quintero for a second order, filled from Defex Portugal in January and March 1985 with air transport arranged through Richard Gadd, a former subordinate of Secord in the Air Force, who enlisted the Miami charter company Southern Air Transport. The contras paid 1.235 million dollars, with profits of 310,840 dollars divided 40 percent each to Secord and Hakim and 20 percent to Clines. A third shipment, carried on the Danish freighter Erria and delivered in June 1985, cost the contras 6.407 million dollars and produced profits of 1.5 million dollars on the same terms.²⁹ The profit draws from the contra sales between April 1985 and September 1986 totaled 4.579 million dollars.²⁹

In late June 1985, North and Secord told Calero and the contra commander Enrique Bermudez in Miami that private donors would pay the Enterprise directly for weapons. In July 1985 CSF created a Liberian shell company named Defex S.A., whose name resembled the supplier's, so that the Enterprise's markups would appear to have been paid to the supplier. Walsh wrote that the account's purpose was to hide the Enterprise's profits. That summer the partners also created Lake Resources, into which the funds from Energy Resources International were transferred. Walsh wrote that "after Lake was formed, all Enterprise receipts were effectively commingled in that account, regardless of their origin."²⁹

The resupply operation that flew arms to the contras from Ilopango Airbase in El Salvador drew much of its aircraft and maintenance through Southern Air Transport, a Miami charter company used in both the contra and Iran operations. The Enterprise paid Southern Air Transport 1,935,596 dollars for contra-related services in 1985 and 1986, and paid it 200,000 dollars for a Jetstar aircraft that Secord and others used for contra travel.³¹ In the spring of 1986 Secord asked Robert Dutton, who had replaced Gadd as manager of the resupply operation, to prepare a description of Enterprise assets for possible sale to the CIA. Dutton valued the assets at 4.089 million dollars, listed 25 salaried employees, gave Ilopango the code name "Cincinnati," and proposed that the CIA either buy the assets or lease them for 311,500 dollars a month.³² According to Dutton, the purpose of a later reorganization of the operation was to disguise the roles of Secord and North, because the Avirgan and Honey lawsuit had named Secord, and North and Secord were concerned that Felix Rodriguez, who had become disaffected, was giving information about the operation to the plaintiffs. Dutton also stated that Rodriguez and his associate Ramon Medina coordinated with the Ilopango commander and oversaw the local fuel account.³³

On October 5, 1986, a resupply aircraft was shot down over Nicaragua and Eugene Hasenfus was captured. Walsh wrote that the Enterprise had effectively ceased its Central American activities after the shootdown.⁴ Before it, Secord and Hakim at North's request had three checks issued to pay outstanding contra grocery bills. Afterward Secord told Quintero to set aside a second check for 75,000 dollars and a third for 50,000 dollars to establish a defense fund for Hasenfus.³¹

In September 1986 Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin discussed with North an Israeli transfer of Soviet bloc weapons to the Contras and suggested that North's ship, the Erria, dock at Haifa to be filled from a recently seized PLO shipment. John Poindexter sanctioned the offer: "It can be a private deal between Dick [Secord] and Rabin that we bless.... Keep the pressure on Bill [Casey] to make things right for Secord."³⁴

The Enterprise: The HAWK Shipment of November 1985

A letter dated November 19, 1985, which North signed with his own name for the national security adviser Robert McFarlane, asked Secord, described as a retired U.S. Air Force general officer, to proceed to a third-country transit point and arrange the transfer of "sensitive materiel" being shipped from Israel.³⁵ The Tower Commission recorded that Dewey Clarridge of the CIA told the U.S. official trying to obtain flight clearance to be in touch with a man named "Copp," whom Clarridge was told was an alias for Secord, and that a CIA field officer attributed the failure of the arrangements to the amateurish way in which Secord and his associates approached officials in the government from which landing clearance was needed.³⁶³⁷ The Israelis transferred 1 million dollars on November 20, 1985 to the Enterprise's Lake Resources account to pay for airlifting the missiles; after 18 HAWKs were delivered and the Iranians rejected them, about 870,000 dollars remained in Lake Resources, commingled with other funds and used for the contras and other purposes.³⁸ Clines accompanied Secord to Europe in late November 1985 to facilitate the shipment.³⁹ Secord testified that the Israelis did not ask for the money back, and that North told him "we could use it for whatever purpose we wanted. We actually expended it on the Contra project."⁴⁰ Secord quickly chartered a jet to fly the 18 HAWKs to Iran under cover of a humanitarian mission, according to the Los Angeles Times.¹

The Enterprise: Iran Arms Sales and Swiss Accounts

More than 47.6 million dollars from the Iran and contra operations flowed into the Enterprise's Swiss accounts. The largest share went to Lake Resources Inc. (31.5 million), with Energy Resources International (11.3 million) and Hyde Park Square Corporation (4.8 million) receiving the rest.²⁹ Lake Resources was controlled by Hakim and later pleaded guilty to the corporate felony of theft of government property for diverting the proceeds of the arms sales.³⁰ The Enterprise transferred 12.2 million dollars to a CIA Swiss account for weapons sold to Iran.²⁹

Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian exile and former CIA informant whom the agency had discredited as a fabricator, was a driving force behind the proposals to sell arms to Iran.⁴¹ On January 17, 1986, President Reagan signed a covert-action Finding that authorized direct U.S. sales to Iran, with Secord acting as an agent of the CIA. Under the Finding, Secord was to collect payment in advance and deposit the Defense Department's cost in a CIA account.⁴¹ In January 1986 North and Secord negotiated on behalf of the United States the sale of 4,000 TOW missiles to Iran, at 10,000 dollars per missile for an initial 1,000. In February 1986 Adnan Khashoggi deposited 10 million dollars into Lake Resources to finance the first sale; on February 10 and 11, 3.7 million dollars went from Lake to a CIA account, and the surplus on the sale was 5.6 million dollars.⁴¹ In February 1986 Secord, using the alias Major General Adams, requested alias documentation from North, and on February 20 he met Ghorbanifar in Frankfurt with North, Amiram Nir and a CIA officer.⁴² In May 1986 about 16.7 million dollars in Iranian and Israeli payments for HAWK parts and TOW replenishment went into Lake Resources, leaving a surplus of 9.2 million dollars.⁴¹ When Robert McFarlane flew to Tehran on May 25, 1986, Secord and one communicator remained in Tel Aviv.⁴³ A further 500 TOW missiles were sold in October 1986, and the Enterprise cleared 1.463 million dollars on that sale.⁴¹

Walsh's trial-proof estimate of the diversion of arms-sale proceeds to the contras was 3.6 million dollars, and he judged the figure to be at least 1.1 million dollars low. Walsh wrote that North pressed Secord to send money from the Iran operation to the contra operation, and that Secord "claimed he did not view this as a diversion."⁴⁴ In July 1986 the Enterprise paid Defex Portugal 2.6 million dollars and paid the Syrian arms dealer Monzer Al-Kassar 500,000 dollars for contra weapons; Walsh left the Al-Kassar payment out of his diversion estimate because Al-Kassar "was not available to testify."⁴⁵

Secord's Personal Receipts

Walsh found that Secord personally received 1.037 million dollars in cash from the Enterprise in 1985 and 1986, of which about 34,000 dollars was accounted for as legitimate expenses or withdrawals from his profits. Three payments totaling 796,000 dollars were unaccounted for. Secord said he gave two cash payments, of 225,000 and 260,000 dollars received on May 15 and 21, 1986, to the Israeli official Amiram Nir, and a further 311,000 dollars in July 1986 to the Iranian arms dealer Ghorbanifar. He produced no documentation for any of them, and Ghorbanifar denied receiving the 311,000 dollars. The Independent Counsel stated that Nir had died and that the Israelis denied their government ever received the funds.⁴⁶

Walsh found that in July 1985 Secord had CSF delete his name from the Enterprise profit accounts, and that his profit distributions, totaling 1,457,568 dollars, were credited to a shell company, Korel Assets, whose documents he signed on September 20, 1985. Withdrawals from the Korel account paid for a small private airplane, a Porsche and a stay at a German weight-reduction spa. Walsh concluded that Secord personally received at least 2 million dollars from the Enterprise in 1985 and 1986. His 1985 return reported adjusted gross income of 147,000 dollars and answered "no" when asked about foreign financial accounts, and Walsh did not charge him with a tax offense because the Swiss records could not be used in a tax case.⁴⁷ Hakim received 2.06 million dollars from the Enterprise in the same years.⁴⁸

Congressional Testimony, May 1987

In December 1986 Secord was subpoenaed by the intelligence committees and refused to testify, invoking the Fifth Amendment. In February 1987 he refused to testify before the grand jury, and in March 1987 he appeared before Chief U.S. District Judge Aubrey E. Robinson Jr. in response to a corporate subpoena and denied having custody of Enterprise records. In late April 1987 he agreed to testify voluntarily.⁴⁹ He was the first witness before the joint House and Senate committees, testifying from May 5 to May 8, 1987, without immunity. He was recalled and deposed in June 1987.²⁴⁹ Newsweek wrote on May 5, 1987 that committee chairman Senator Daniel Inouye said Secord "feels sincerely that he has nothing to hide."⁶ Walsh's assessment was that Secord "provided an enormous amount of largely truthful information regarding the Enterprise's operational workings," but that his "responses to questions about its financial activities were much less candid."⁴⁹

On the first day Secord testified, according to the New York Times, that about 3.5 million dollars of 12 million dollars in profits from the sale of arms to Iran was spent on behalf of the contras, that more than half of the money was kept by his partner Hakim, and that part of the rest was used for a secret project unrelated to Iran or Nicaragua that he did not identify; he said: "We believed our conduct was in the furtherance of the President's policies," and "I also understood that this Administration knew of my conduct and approved it."⁵⁰ In his testimony Secord said that North told him several times that he had mentioned to President Reagan that it was "very ironic" that "some of the ayatollah's money was being used to support the contras"; Secord said, "Whether he actually said this to the president, or whether he was joking with me, I'm not sure," and that it was "not said to me in a way that I took it as a joke."⁵¹ He said he had no direct knowledge of what the president knew, and that he had spoken to officials including Casey, McFarlane and John Poindexter, some of whom told him the president was aware of what he was doing with the contras. He said that a White House aide told him on November 25, 1986 that "they'd already built a wall around the president," and that Edwin Meese's remarks that day "betrayed all of us, and it's unforgivable."⁵¹ On the third day he acknowledged that the Enterprise had amassed 12 million dollars in cash and assets in about two years, said the money was intended for future operations, and agreed that it had been set up at the request of Poindexter and North.⁵²

Walsh listed the statements on which the 1989 charges were based. Secord testified that he had waived all interest in Enterprise profits after July 1985, that Korel was not his company, that he had received no money from the Iran sales beyond his salary, that Defex was set up to hide the source of Enterprise funds from arms dealers, and that he held no beneficial interest in foreign accounts other than a British checking account. Walsh found each of these statements false. Walsh also found that the 500,000 dollars STTGI received from CSF was not a loan, as Secord had testified, and that STTGI in fact received at least 700,000 dollars. Walsh described Hakim, who had received limited use immunity from Congress, as the committees' chief source for Enterprise financial information.⁴⁹

Indictment, Plea and Sentence

The Independent Counsel indicted Secord on March 16, 1988, together with Poindexter, North and Hakim, in a 23-count indictment whose first count charged conspiracy to defraud the United States; Secord was named in six felony counts that included conspiracy and theft and three counts of illegal gratuities paid to North.⁵³⁰ The conspiracy and theft charges were dismissed because of problems with classified information, and the trials of the four defendants were severed. On May 11, 1989 a second indictment charged Secord with nine counts of obstruction, perjury and false statements.⁵⁴⁹

On November 8, 1989, five days before he was to stand trial on twelve felony charges, Secord pleaded guilty to one felony count of making false statements to Congress, admitting that he lied when he denied that North had received personal benefits from the Enterprise.⁴⁹ The Deseret News reported that the plea was taken before Chief U.S. District Judge Aubrey E. Robinson Jr.; that Secord told the judge he had answered "no" "in a misguided effort to prevent further criticism" of North and himself; that the offense carried up to five years in prison; and that Walsh's chief prosecutor in the Secord case, Reid Weingarten told the judge the government was prepared to prove that Secord provided North with a home security system costing almost 14,000 dollars and a Swiss bank account containing 200,000 dollars funded by arms profits.⁵³ Under the plea Secord agreed to cooperate in the pending trials and the Independent Counsel's investigation.⁴⁹

The gratuities concerned a 16,000 dollar security system installed at North's home in Great Falls, Virginia, after Secord introduced North to Glenn A. Robinette in the spring of 1986, and a 200,000 dollar Swiss account, the "B. Button" account, set up in 1986 to help educate North's children; Walsh wrote that the Independent Counsel could not prove that North accepted or received any of the money in that account.⁵⁴ A 1989 conviction of North on the gratuity charge was later overturned on appeal.⁵⁴

Robinson sentenced Secord on January 24, 1990, to two years' probation.⁵

Thomas Clines was indicted in February 1990 following the cooperation of Secord and Hakim, and was convicted in September 1990 of four tax felonies after a two-week jury trial in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. Secord, compelled to testify under a cooperation agreement, was a central prosecution witness; he admitted there that the Korel account was his own investment account, a fact he had denied before his plea.³⁹⁴⁷

Later Activity and the Memoir

Secord published the memoir Honored and Betrayed: Irangate, Covert Affairs, and the Secret War in Laos, written with Jay Wurts and published by John Wiley & Sons in 1992.⁵⁵ The Washington Post obituary says that in the memoir he maintained he joined the operation out of what he saw as patriotic duty, and that later disclosures suggested financial motives "played no small role."² In a 1987 interview with Playboy he said: "I feel I was betrayed."²

After leaving the Air Force, Secord was a top executive at Computerized Thermal Imaging, a computer imaging firm, and was president of the Air Commando Association.² He and his wife had formed Secord Associates in 1983 and bought three houses near their McLean, Virginia, home.¹

Footnotes

Los Angeles Times, March 29, 1987, "Secord: A Specialist in Covert Deals" ("Skilled Secret Soldier"), CIA Reading Room CIA-RDP90-00965R000201700001-4, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000201700001-4. ↩︎
Bill Hewitt, "Richard V. Secord, general embroiled in Iran-contra affair, dies at 92," Washington Post, Oct. 16, 2024, text reprinted by the National Security Archive, https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/media/32473/ocr. ↩︎
Testimony of Richard V. Secord, Iran-Contra Investigation: Joint Hearings, 100th Cong., 1st sess., May 5-8, 1987 (Hearings 100-1), p. 46, https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152829_0342. ↩︎
Lawrence E. Walsh, Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, vol. I (1993), pt. V, ch. 9, "United States v. Richard V. Secord," pp. 173-178, https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_09.htm. ↩︎
Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, "Summary of Prosecutions," entry for Richard V. Secord (indicted March 16, 1988; second indictment May 11, 1989; plea November 8, 1989; sentenced January 24, 1990 by Chief Judge Aubrey E. Robinson Jr. to two years' probation), pp. xxiii ff., https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/summpros.htm. ↩︎
"The Secret World of General Secord," Newsweek, May 5, 1987, CIA Reading Room CIA-RDP90-00965R000605790003-5, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000605790003-5. ↩︎
Secord testimony, Hearings 100-1, p. 303. ↩︎
Edward T. Pound and Walter S. Mossberg, "Weapons Windfall: Obscure New Shipping Company Profited Handsomely From U.S. Arms Sales to Egypt," Wall Street Journal, Oct. 1, 1982, pp. 1, 18, CIA Reading Room CIA-RDP09S00048R000100020015-5, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp09s00048r000100020015-5. ↩︎
Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, H. Rept. 100-433 and S. Rept. 100-216 (1987), ch. 21, "The Enterprise," pp. 326-327, https://archive.org/details/reportofcongress87unit. ↩︎
Secord testimony, Hearings 100-1, p. 343 (questions by Rep. Courter). ↩︎
Secord testimony, Hearings 100-1, p. 47. ↩︎
H. Rept. 100-433, ch. 21, pp. 327-328. ↩︎
H. Rept. 100-433, ch. 21, n. 23, citing CIA files (C7 147-59) and Shackley deposition, Sept. 21, 1987, at 284-300. ↩︎
Secord testimony, Hearings 100-1, pp. 148-149. ↩︎
Secord testimony, Hearings 100-1, p. 318. ↩︎
City Club of Cleveland, "Major General Richard Secord," forum of October 9, 1981, https://www.cityclub.org/events/major-general-richard-secord. ↩︎
Secord testimony, Hearings 100-1, p. 48. ↩︎
H. Rept. 100-433, ch. 21, n. 24, citing FBI report on Wilson's aircraft used by Secord, FB393, 389-90. ↩︎
Al Kamen and Scott Armstrong, "Cost of Transporting Arms to Egypt Probed by Justice," Washington Post, 1982, CIA Reading Room CIA-RDP09S00048R000100020016-4, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp09s00048r000100020016-4. ↩︎
H. Rept. 100-433, ch. 21, n. 30, citing Senate committee staff memorandum on the EATSCO fine, Oct. 12, 1987, and Robinette testimony, Hearings 100-6, June 23, 1987, at 27-29. ↩︎
Secord testimony, Hearings 100-1, pp. 213-214 (aircraft and appointment exchange) and p. 214 (investigation and Justice letter). ↩︎
Secord testimony, Hearings 100-1, pp. 212-213 (questions by Sen. Boren). ↩︎
United States v. Wilson, 721 F.2d 967 (4th Cir. 1983), https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/427533/united-states-v-edwin-paul-wilson/. ↩︎
United States v. Wilson, 289 F. Supp. 2d 801 (S.D. Tex. Oct. 27, 2003) (Hughes, J.), https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2430886/united-states-v-wilson/. ↩︎
H. Rept. 100-433, ch. 3, p. 67. ↩︎
Keith Schneider, "North's Aides Linked to Australia Study," New York Times, Mar. 8, 1987, CIA Reading Room CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740024-7, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000605740024-7. ↩︎
INSLAW, Inc., Third Supplemental Submission in Support of Its Motion to Take Limited Discovery, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Columbia, Case No. 85-00070, Adv. Proc. No. 86-0069, summarizing the Babayan affidavit (Exhibit 3), https://archive.org/details/InslawAffairInBriefSupportingDocs. ↩︎
Secord testimony, Hearings 100-1, pp. 47-48. ↩︎
Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, pt. V, ch. 8, "The Enterprise and Its Finances," pp. 159-172, https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_08.htm. ↩︎
Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, "Executive Summary," pp. xiii ff., https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/execsum.htm. ↩︎
Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, ch. 8, pp. 159-172 (Southern Air Transport, Jetstar and Hasenfus defense-fund passages). ↩︎
Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, ch. 8, pp. 159-172 (Dutton outline of the resupply operation, dated July 21, 1986). ↩︎
H. Rept. 100-433, ch. 3, pp. 66-67. ↩︎
Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, S. Rept. No. 100-216, H. Rept. No. 100-433 (November 1987), ch. 3, pp. 75-76, "North Expands His Special Operations," citing North's notes and Poindexter's messages of September 1986. ↩︎
The Tower Commission Report (Bantam/Times Books, 1987), p. 32, https://archive.org/details/towercommission00unit. ↩︎
The Tower Commission Report, p. 162. ↩︎
The Tower Commission Report, p. 73. ↩︎
Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, ch. 8, pp. 159-172 (Phase IV and November 1985 HAWK shipment), citing the Israeli Financial Chronology, Apr. 26, 1987. ↩︎
Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, pt. V, ch. 11, "United States v. Thomas G. Clines," pp. 181-184, https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_11.htm. ↩︎
Secord testimony, Hearings 100-1, p. 95; cited in Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, ch. 8, n. 32. ↩︎
Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, ch. 8, pp. 159-172 (Direct U.S. Arms Sales to Iran; February 1986, May-August 1986 and October-November 1986 sections). ↩︎
The Tower Commission Report, pp. 248-249. ↩︎
The Tower Commission Report, p. 296. ↩︎
Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, ch. 8, pp. 159-172 (The Iran/Contra Diversion), citing Secord, FBI 302, Mar. 12, 1988, p. 4. ↩︎
Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, ch. 8, pp. 159-172, and n. 51. ↩︎
Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, ch. 9, pp. 173-178 (Secord's Finances), citing Secord, OIC Interview, Mar. 9, 1988, pp. 106-07, Secord, Grand Jury, Jan. 22, 1988, pp. 150-51, and Ghorbanifar, OIC Deposition, Dec. 10, 1987, p. 94. ↩︎
Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, ch. 9, pp. 173-178 (Secord's Finances; Korel perjury charge; Secord, Clines Trial Testimony, Sept. 5, 1990, p. 193). ↩︎
Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, pt. V, ch. 10, "United States v. Albert Hakim," pp. 179-180, https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_10.htm. ↩︎
Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, ch. 9, pp. 173-178 (Secord's Testimony to Congress and Independent Counsel; Secord Indicted; Obstruction, Perjury and False Statements). ↩︎
David E. Rosenbaum, "Secord Says High Officials Helped Him Supply Contras Despite Ban on U.S. Arms Aid," New York Times, dateline May 5, 1987, CIA Reading Room CIA-RDP90-00965R000605580005-6, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000605580005-6. ↩︎
"North Said He Mentioned Diversion to Reagan, Secord Says," Washington Post, May 7, 1987, CIA Reading Room CIA-RDP90-00965R000504550012-3, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000504550012-3. ↩︎
Dan Morgan and Walter Pincus, "Secord Testifies Unspent Money Was for Future Operations, Not His Use," Washington Post, May 1987, CIA Reading Room CIA-RDP90-00965R000504550011-4, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000504550011-4. ↩︎
"Secord guilty of lying to Congress," Deseret News, Nov. 8, 1989, https://www.deseret.com/1989/11/8/18831419/secord-guilty-of-lying-to-congress/. ↩︎
Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, ch. 9, pp. 173-178 (Gratuities to North: The Basis for the Guilty Plea; The North Security Fence; The "B. Button" Account; n. 13). ↩︎
Richard V. Secord, with Jay Wurts, Honored and Betrayed: Irangate, Covert Affairs, and the Secret War in Laos (John Wiley & Sons, 1992), ISBN 0471573280, https://archive.org/details/honoredbetrayedi0000seco. ↩︎

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