SECORD-RELATED COMPANY KEPT $520,000 FROM SWISS ACCOUNTS USED FOR IRAN ARMS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605530004-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 20, 2013
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: May 8, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

-Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/02/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605530004-2
ON PAQE-7-ift- WALL STREET JOURNAL
8 May 1987
Secord-Related Company Kept $520, 000
From Swiss Accounts Used for Iran Arms
..By_DAVm RoGzns and EDWARD T. POUND
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET .JOURNAL
WASHINGTON-More than $520,000 was
transferred in 1985 and 1986 from Swiss ac-
counts used in the Iran-Contra affair to a
Virginia-based company in which retired
Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard Secord holds
a major financial interest.
Gen. Secord told the House and Senate
committees investigating the affair that
the money was a loan. But under question-
ing, he acknowledged that he has made no
repayments and that he hasn't been
charged interest. More than two-thirds of
the funds were transferred since February
1986, when direct U.S. arms sales to Iran
began.
The payments represent the strongest
evidence yet contradicting Gen. Secord's
assertion that he didn't benefit personally
from the U.S. weapons sales to Iran. A
congressional staff investigator said, that
Swiss records indicate an estimated $150,-
000 was paid in February 1985 to Mr. Se-
cord's company, Stanford Technology
Trading Group, and $370,823 followed in a
nine-month period beginning Feb. 1, 1986.
The disclosure came as the congres-
sional hearings took a more combative
tone, with the Senate committee's counsel,
Arthur Liman, following a line of question-
ing that challenged Gen. Secord's repeated
claims that he never profited from his in-
volvement in the Iran-Contra affair. Apart
from the direct transfers of funds to Gen.
Secord's company, Mr. Liman cited evi-
dence indicating that profit margins were
built into payments to Stanford Technology
for the use of one of its employees working
in the Contra network.
The Senate counsel also made public
previously undisclosed testimony by two of
Gen. Secord's past associates that appears
to contradict the general's claim that he
never planned to sell assets, built up dur-
ing the two-year Iran-Contra covert opera=
tion. to the Central n e igence gencv or
millions of dollars.
"I didn't come here to be badgered ...
Let's get off the subject," Gen. Secord
snapped at one point.
"You're making the rulings?" Mr. Li-
man shot back.
"No, sir," answered the general, his
voice dropping.
Beyond exploring the issue of profits,
the committees yesterday probed the fi-
nancial relationships between Gen. Secord
and two other principal players in the Iran-
Contra affair, former National Security
Council aide Oliver North and businessman
Albert Hakim.
Gen. Secord played a lead role-in the
sale of U.S. weapons to Iran and the covert
airlift of arms to Nicaraguan insurgents.
He often took directions from Marine Lt.
Col. North in this enterprise and delivered
instructions to Mr. Hakim.
Mr. Hakim, a partner of Gen. Secord in
Stanford Technology Trading, oversaw the
elaborate financing behind the operation
through a series of Swiss accounts, and he
till
s
controls an estimated. $7.7 million
from the proceeds of U.S. to
Democrat asked Gen. Secord why, if he
wasn't part of the government, he said he
had felt "betrayed" when Attorney Gen-
eral Edwin Meese revealed the diversion
of funds from the arms sales to the Con-
tras last November.
"It was my belief that the president
was well aware of what we were doing,"
said Gen. Secord. "That is why all of us
felt betrayed."
Meanwhile, President Reagan, asked by
reporters about Gen. Secord's testimony,
insisted that he hadn't known about diver-
sion of funds to the Contras. "I did not
know about it ... I'm still waiting to know
where did that money go," the president
said during a White House ceremony.
"I know Mr. Secord as a private citizen
i 1986
Gen.
. share of profits 1 the t twotrying to get aid to the Contras, and so
earned c r s s
d's and 1985 fpro the sale o forth, and there's nothing against the law
arms to the Nicaraguan Democratic in that,that said M Reagan. " I'm very in '. Force, the dominant Contra group. Pleased t the American people felt that
These profits amounted to at least sev- way.
eral hundred thousand dollars: Gen. Secord from the three estimated US.S. million was generated
has testified that he foreswore these funds weapons sales to Iran
in 1986, but another $17.7 million flowed
in 1985. But evidence disclosed by the com through the accounts used by the operation
mittees yesterday indicates Mr. Hakim going back to 1984 and 1985.
may still be holding them in a Swiss ac- Of that $17.7 million, an estimated $11.3
count in the name of Korel Assets Inc million represented payments for arms
which investigators believe was set up
., sold to Nicaraguan insurgents. $4.5 million
originally for Mr. Secord. came as private donations directed to ben-
Gen. Secord described the payments to efit the Contras, and another $1.2 million
Stanford Technology as a loan from Cie. was received from the sale of arms to the
des Services Fiduciares, a financial serv- CIA last fall, shortly before the operation
ices firm in Geneva. But at the same time closed down, according to information pro-
the payments were made, CSF was acting vided by the office of Senate Intelligence
as Mr. Hakim's agent in administering the Committee Chairman David Boren (D.,
multitude of accounts and shell companies
used to run the Iran-Contra operation.
Moreover, according to records cited by
Mr. Liman, one of these shell companies
helped finance an unsuccessful venture in-
volving Gen. Secord and Mr. Hakim in
manufacturing submachine guns.
Gen: Secord acknowledged that on four
occasions in 1986 he examined the books
kept. or the Iran-Contra operation. But he
portrayed himself as largely unaware of
the details of how Mr. Hakim managed the
money.
While Gen. Secord cast himself as oper-
ating separately from the government, Mr.
Liman cited testimony by a Secord associ-
ate indicating the general and Col. North
were virtual partners in operating the co-
vert airlift begun in 1985 to assist the Con-
tras. And, according to the general's own
testimony, it was Col. North who later
helped bring him into the Iran initiative.
Gen. Secord insisted that he hadn't in-
tended to circumvent legal prohibitions
against U.S. military aid to the Contras,
but House Intelligence Committee Chair-
man Louis Stokes said the general's opera-
tion in effect substituted for the govern-
ment. In a pointed exchange, the Ohio
Okla. .
The new $47 million figure for the total
money used in the covert operation is de-
scribed in a deposition Mr. Hakim made
last month when he met with investigators
in Paris.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/02/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605530004-2