SECORD SAYS HIGH OFFICIALS HELPED HIM SUPPLY CONTRAS DESPITE BAN ON U.S. ARMS AID

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605580005-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 2, 2012
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: May 6, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605580005-6
11 1
ARTICLE APPE4RW
ON PAGE
NEW YORK TIMES
6 May 1987
SECORD SA YS HIGH OFFICIALS
HELPED HIMSUPPLY CON T R A S
DESPITE BAN ON U.$. ARMS AID
ByT)AVID.E. ROSENBAUM
Spec-iai a 1fie New York Lima
WASHINGTON, May 5 - The first
witness at the Conglressional hearings
on the Iran-contra , Maj. Gen.
Richard V. Emzd. testoday that
-Government officials including Wil-
liam J. Casey, then Director of Central
inteu MIM, ielped in the operation to
supply weapons to the Nicaraguan
rebels after Congress had prohibited
such aid.
General Secord also testified that
only about $3.5 million of the $12 mil-
lion in profits from the sale of arms to
Iran was actually spent on behalf of the
contras. More than half of the money,
he said, was kept by his business part-
ner, Albert Hakim, and part of the rest
was used for a secret project unrelated
to Iran or Nicaragua that he did not
identify.
"We believed our conduct was in the
furtherance of the President's poli-
cies," General Secord asserted,speak-
ing of himself and his colleagues in the
various transactions. "I also under-
stood that this Administration knew of
my conduct and approved it."
First Account by Participant
This was the first detailed, public ac-
counting by an actual participant in the
operation of how the proceeds from the
arms sales were used.
General Secord's testimony is to re-
sume Wednesday. Today, he made
these other points:
qHe was first asked by Lieut. Col.
Oliver L. North in 1984 to work with the
National Security Council's covert pro-
gram to obtain and supply weapons for
the contras.
9He believed he was working on be-
half of and with the full backing of the
Reagan Administration.
9Officials of the C.I.A and the State
Department in Central America as-
sisted his efforts to supply the contras
with weapons.
He was told, but did not know first-
hand, that Vice President Bush was ap-
prised of the contra-supply operation.
Last year, Government officials in
El Salvador voiced objections about
the use of their country in the supply
operation.
He worked extensively with Israeli
arms merchants to arrange an arms
shipment to Iran.
General Secord, who is retired from
the Air Force and who was a Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense early in
the Reagan Administration, was testi-
fying voluntarily. He began his testi-
mony this afternoon after a morning
session devoted to solemn speeches by
the members of the investigative com-
mittees.
General Secord said he had origi-
nally refused to testify because he felt
"abandoned" by Attorney General
Edwin Meese 3d and other top officials
of the Administration, and because his
"instincts were self-protective."
"With the passage of time," he said,
he reconsidered.
Spectators Lined Up
The Senate Caucus Room, the stage
for the Senate Watergate hearings and
many other memorable political
events, was jammed for the opening
session. Hundreds of spectators lined
up for the 50 or so unassigned seats,
hoping to witness an important chapter
in American history.
"These hearings," said the chairman
of the Senate panel, Daniel K. Inouye,
in his opening address, "will examine
what happens when the trust which is
the lubricant of our system is breached
by high officials in the Government."
'The story is not a pretty one," he
continued. "As it unfolds, the American
people will have every right to ask,
'How could this have happened here?'
Indeed, it never should have happened
at all."
The committees, whose joint hear-
ings are expected to last at least
through the middle of August, called
General Secord as the first witness in
the hope that he could provide an over-
view of the whole affair.
Recalls Trip to Europe
He seemed prepared to comply. Tes
tifying with a steady, matter-of-fact,
tone, he told of being recruited in 19841
by Lieut. Col. Oliver L. North, then a
White House national security assist-
ant, to obtain weapons for the strug-
gling rebels in Nicaragua, He also de-
scribed how he was sent to Europe in
1985 to try to resurrect an arms ship-
ment to Iran that had gone awry.
With the exception of Colonel North
and perhaps Rear Adm. John M. Poin-
dexter, President Reagan's former na-
tional security adviser, no other wit-
ness is likely to have evidence of so
many different aspects of the affair.
General Secord said he was not
"ashamed" of anything he had done,
and he said "unconventional methods"
were necessary "because conventional
wisdom had been exhausted "
He said that .he met on-thre.=CAL-.
sions with Mr. Casey, the Director of
Central Inteuiaence until he became ill
last December. and that Mr. Casey had
encouraged his activities.
The general to toad received in-
tel ence information or other support
or the effort to supply arms to con-
tras from senior officials m
Costa Rica and Honduras % received
"moral sucmort from nited
States Am sa rs in Costa Rica and,
El Salvador. He also said senior United
ta~tary officers in El Salvador,
gative committee, General Secord teas
tsfied that he understood Vice Presl.
dent Bush had been told about the con-
tra supply operation during a meeting
in Washington
.
General Secord said that Fe
dr Sjg1,.a former C.I.A. operative who
served as a liaison between him and
the Nicaraguan rebels, became dissat-
isfied with the operation and came tq
Washington to complain.
Mr. Rodriguez, according to the Gen-
eral, met with Vice President Bush's
national security adviser, Donald
Gregggg General Secord said he was
'f61 6M did not have first-hand knowl-
edge, that Mr. Rodriguez then met with
Mr. Bush as well
But a spokesman for the Vice Presi-
dent said Mr. Bush did not attend the
meeting IFTU-e-sffon. Mr. Bush has said
repeatedly that he was unaware of the
covert program to supply the contras.
Gener Secord was not
)Our_ h Ling of intelligence Ilia Mr
Casey provided, but he said it was not
Continued
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 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605580005-6
a.
as much as he wanted.
"I was never able to get the profes-
sional intelligence product I was accus-
tomed to having," he testified.
General Secord said he took his or-
ders from Colonel North, who was dis-
charged from the White House staff
last November after the arms sale and.
the diversion of proceeds to the contras
became known.
He said Colonel North had given him
and those working with him sophisti-
cated code machines that look like lap-
top computers. Several messages be-
tween General Secord and Colonel
North that were written on the ma-
chines were submitted into evidence to.
day, an indication of the extensive'
documentary material the investiga-
tors have accumulated.
One of those messages involved the
purchase of a ship to be used in a
United States Government project not
related to Iran or Nicaragua.
General Secord did not identify the
Project, although some people said
they believed it involved Libya. "The
mission they had for the ship was ex-
tremely dangerous," General Secord
said. Slightly more than $1 million
frpm the Iran arms sales was used to
buy the ship, he said.
General Secord testified without im-
munity from prosecution. He said he
had legal opinions that his contra sup-
ply. operation was within the law, but
other authorities have suggested other-
wise.
A person close to the general said
that after invoking his Fifth Amend-
ment right against self-incrimination
and refusing to testify in other Investi-
gative forums, he decided to come for-
ward because he thought it would help
his legal position if he cooperated.
Under questioning from John W.
Nields. Jr., chief counsel for the House
committee, General Secord described
what happened to the $30 million paid
by Iran for American missiles and
other wea
About 12.3 million, he said, was
given to the United States Treasury to
pay for the arms. Another $8 million is
still in a Swiss bank account or in a fi-
duciary account for the "benefit" of
Mr. Hakim, he said. Mr. Hakim, who
arranged most of the financial transac-
tions, is a partner with General Secord
in a Virginia-based company called
Stanford Technology Trading Group.
About $3.5 million was diverted to as-
sist the contras, $3 million went for ex-
penses connected with the delivery of
the arms to Iran, slightly more than $1
million was used to buy the ship for the
=,=n
project in a third country
unidentified projects, and
about $2.5 million is still unaccounted
for.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605580005-6