SECORD LED SECRET ANTI-TERROR UNIT, PROBERS SAY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302540003-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 26, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: March 8, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302540003-8
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ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE IA
VH1LADELeHIA LNQLLKEK
8 March 1987
Secord led secret anti-terror unit, probers say
Frank Greve .
Inquirer Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON ? President Reagan
in 1984 authorized an ultra-secret
U.S. counterterrorism unit, whose
leaders included retired Air Force
Maj. Gen. Richard V. Ses_ord_that was
intended trbypirss- normal govern-
ment controls, according to inter-
views and recent government inves-
tigations.
As a leader of that unit. Secord
often dominated White House aide
Lt. Col Oliver L. North, who has been
generally depicted as the driving
force behind the Iran-contra affair,
associates of both men and federal
investigators say.
Memos released by the Tower com-
mission show that North frequently
communicated with Secord, but
rarely curbed, commanded or con-
trolled him. More often, the memos
show that North simply asked his
superiors to support Secord's views
and proposals, particularly on trad-
ing arms to Iran for American hos-
tages.
Secord and his business partner.
Albert Hakim, were described by the
Senate Intelligence Committee as "al-
most co-equal lieutenants" with
North in the Iran-contra affair.
A Pentagon special operations offi-
cer who has worked with North and
Secord went further. "Hakim had
money; Secord had ideas; North got
captured," he said.
? Secord, a private citizen with a
personal financial stake ? and no
public accountability ? thus influ-
enced some of the U.S. government's
most sensitive national-security deci-
sions.
Federal investigators have docu-
mented that Secord played a large
role in the Iran-contra affair: He de-
livered arms to Iran, opened Swiss
bank accounts for the transactions
and supplied weapons to the Nicara-
guan rebels.
Secord and North have refused to
be interviewed and pleaded the Fifth
Amendment before the Senate Intel-
ligence Committee. White House
spokesman Dan Howard said, "Every-
thing North and others did is cur-
rently under investigation, and we
will not be commenting on that."
The ultra-secret anti-terrorist task
force that Secord helped run was set
up to report directly to the National
Security Council at the White House,
a former Secord associate at the Pen-
tagon said.
It was intended to take tough, "pro-
active" approaches to terrorism, he
said, bypassing what Reagan admin-
istration officials considered reluc-
tant, slow, leak-prone bureaucracies
at the State Department, Central In-
telligence Agency and Defense De-
partment. The Pentagon kept the
unit's existence such a secret that its
name could not be learned.
The idea for such a task force de-
veloped in informal discussions
among administration officials in
1982 and 1983, the source said. Presi-
dent Reagan approved the arrange-
ment on April 3, 1984, when he
signed a National Security Decision
Directive drafted by NSC aide North,
according to sources in the Penta-
gon.
One essential part of the directive
authorized the Defense Intelligence
Agency ? the Pentagon's version of
the CIA ? to employ intelligence
agents to collect information con-
cerning terrorism.
Unlike the CIA, the DIA is not re-
quired to report certain sensitive op-
erations to Congress.
According to the former associate.
Secord, a stocky S-foot-9 fighter pilot
and veteran air commando, led the
anti-terrorist task force as one of "a
small group of government employ-
ees and consultants ... experienced
people from the Middle East and
Southeast Asia ... absolutely trust-
worthy, low-profile people who won't
talk."
Secord had retired from the mili-
tary the year before, in 1983, and was
eager for the new counterterrorism
assignment, according to the former
Pentagon associate, a Secord loyalist.
No longer on active duty, the source
now does business with the Penta-
gon and asked not to be identified.
The Tower commission report of-
fers evidence supporting the ac-
count, as do interviews with Secord's
former Pentagon colleagues and par-
ticipants in contra-aid efforts.
The report revealed for the first
time that Secord, North and North's
boss at the time, White House na-
tional security adviser John M. Poin-
dexter, seriously considered a com-
mando raid in Lebanon last June to
free hostages held by radical Mus-
lims.
The raid was conceived as an op-
tion if talks and arms trades failed.
Secord at one point told the negotia-
tors for Iran that they might "pro-
vide us with current intelligence of
their Ithe hostages'l location," and
U.S. commandos would take it from
there, the report said.
Secord had recruited 40 Druse mili-
tiamen with the aid of Israeli govern-
ment counterterrorism specialist
Amiram Nir, according to a North
memo to Poindexter. In a phrasing
that implies Secord's authority,
North wrote Poindexter that "Dick
rates the possibility of success on
this operation as 30 percent, but
that's better than nothing."
In another memo, North wrote that
available resources for such an as-
sault included "one ISA officer in
Beirut," although more could be in-
filtrated. The initials ISA probably
refer to the Intelligence Support Ac-
tivity, a secret U.S. counterterrorist
commando unit that Secord helped
organize in 1980.
It was intended to improve U.S.
counterterrorist capability after the
failed 1980 mission to rescue U.S.
hostages in Iran, according to con-
gressional testimony. Secord, who
had served in Iran between 1975 and
1978, was principal airlift planner for
that ill-fated attempt.
Indeed, of the roughly 30 former
military officers and crewmen who
helped airdrop arms to contra rebels
last year, at least 13 hadliken part in
the attempted rescue of U.S. Embassy
hostages in Tehran, according to in-
terviews with the crewmen.
The ISA was supposedly deacti-
vated in 1983, the same year Secord
retired. A year later, the New York
Times reported that the ISA was pro-
viding "both equipment and person-
nel to the CIA for its covert opera-
tions in Central America."
Following his retirement, Secord
remained in a position to oversee
covert activities. He served as a non-
salaried member of the Pentagon
Special Operations Policy Advisory
Group until October 1985, according
to Pentagon records. SOPAG was cre-
ated in 1984 as a panel of retired
commando generals to advise Noel
Koch, then deputy assistant defense
secretary in charge of special opera-
tions, counterinsurgency and coun-
terterrorism.
Secord also performed other sensi-
tive tasks as a civilian, suggesting a
continuing action role in secret
counterterrorism operations. In Jan-
uary 1986, for example, he served as
the CIA's ''purchasing agent" for
Iran-bound TOW missiles taken from
Pentagon stocks despite resistance
by Defense Secretary Caspar W.
Weinberger, the Tower report said.
In August 1986, the Tower report
revealed, Secord turned up in Brus-
sels, Belgium, "arranging a pickup
for our friends in a certain resist-
ance movement" ? probably arms
for Afghanistan's anti-communist
rebels, according to one former Se-
Contmueo
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cord associate at the Pentagon. As
early as 1982, the source said, Secord
had been ordered to arrange deliv-
ery of small arms to the Afghan reb-
els via Pakistan.
In a recent interview, Koch de-
scribed Secord as one of the few
people who understand (covert mili-
tary action( and are qualified to do
it." He said organizers of the Iran-
contra affair "were lucky to get
him."
When it came to retaliating against
terrorists and rescuing hostages,
Koch said, little was done because
the CIA "figured the Pentagon had
responsibility for action." But the
Pentagon did not want the job either,
according to Koch. "The generals
were covering their asses," he said.
"The people this troubled," Koch
said, "were the people with responsi-
bility for seeing something get done
? people like Dick (Secordl, wh
read the President's promise of 'swift
and effective retribution' against ter-
rorists and said, 'Let's act.'"
Secord was uniquely qualified: He
was expert in counterterrorism and
covert operations, and his connec-
tions in the Middle East were impec-
cable. He had served in Iran and had
close ties to the royal family of Saudi
Arabia, for whom he had helped win
from Congress the AWACS early-
warning system, the cornerstone of
Saudi military security. Until he re-
tired, Secord also was the Pentagon's
most influential expert on the Iran-
Iraq war.
Both Secord and Saudi King Fahd
feared fallout from the Iran-Iraq war.
A victorious Iran might overrun
Saudi oil fields near the Persian
Gulf, while an Iran on the ropes
might launch terrorist attacks
against them.
Congressional investigators now
believe, despite official denials, that
the Saudi royal family contributed
up to $31 million to aid U.S. efforts
against Iranian terrorism and on be-
half of anti-communist groups.
Several of the retired Air Force
officers assembled by Secord to drop
arms to the contras were offered
some financial help by Saudi inter-
ests, according to interviews with
officials of firms who said they were
encouraged by Saudi leaders to hire
the officers.
Most of these officers shared a
common background. They had
worked in the Air Force Office of
Special Plans, which reported to Se-
cord from 1981 to 1983.
In an interview, retired Air Force
Maj. Gen. George J. Keegan Jr., for-
mer chief of Air Force intelligence,
explained, "It was an office set up to
facilitate CIA requests to the Air
Force for covert air-taxi services.
They have missions they conduct
around the world, including ex-
tremely sensitive missions involving
the support of rebel factions, guer-
rilla movements and the secret air-
lift of arms and personnel, which the
White House and/or the CIA desire
supported and which are of a nature
that cannot be made public."
The office's duties, Keegan said,
include "responsibility for certain
types of covert operations, including
foreign military sales that are of a
clandestine or covert nature."
Ile said it was "sometimes" possi-
ble for the office to act on a White
House request without notifying the
secretary of defense.
"We can regret the fact that such
business goes on 'til hell freezes
over," he observed, "but it is far
more effective to carry out and con-
duct and implement certain types of
limited foreign policy by secret and
covert means than it is to wage open
war. That's what it boils down to."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302540003-8