CALIF. IRANIAN CALLED 'BRAIN' IN ARMS DEALS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504130016-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: December 4, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504130016-5
ARTICLE
ON N~
Calif. Iranian
Called 'Brain'
in Arms Deals
By ROBERT L. JACKSON
and GAYLORD SHAW,
Times Staff Writers
WASHINGTON-California
businessman Albert Hakim has
emerged as the suspected financial
mastermind of a secret operation to
aid Nicaraguan rebels with millions
of dollars in profits from the sale of
U.S. arms to Iran. sources familiar
with the investigation of the opera-
tion said Wednesday.
Hakim, a resident of Los Gatos,
south of San Jose, was enlisted in
the Iran arms network by a busi-
ness associate, retired Air Force
Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord, the
sources said.
Secord in turn served Marine Lt.
Col. Oliver L. North, a staff mem-
ber of the White House National
Security Council until he was fired
last week, as the "operational
head" of the clandestine weapons
shipments, the sources said. They
stressed that they knew of nothing
so far to indicate any illegal acts on
Hakim's or Secord's part.
Naturalized Citizen
"North's two biggest functionar-
ies were Secord, who handled op-
erational details, and Hakim, who
handled the financial details," one
source said. Hakim, 51, is a former
Iranian entrepreneur and a natu-
ralized U.S. citizen.
Attempts to reach Hakim for
comment were unsuccessful, and
Richard N. Janis, Hakim's Wash-
ington attorney, declined comment
on Hakim's activities and said he
would not provide any information
on his client's business career or
personal history. Secord declined
comment through his attorney.
A Swiss finance company to
which Hakim has financial ties
reportedly provided the banking
channels used to funnel profits
from the arms sales to the Nicara-
guan contras, the sources said.
They identified the firm as Com-
pagnie de Services Fiduciaires
S. A. of Geneva, also known as
CSF.
The Times of London, quoting
sources with knowledge of the
LOS ANGELES TIMES
4 December 1986
transactions, said $18 million from
the Iranian arms sales was paid into
CSF's account in the Cayman Is-
lands.
FBI agents have begun ques-
tioning U.S. government officials
about their knowledge of Hakim
and his international business deal-
ings, and other inquiries have been
made by staff investigators for the
Senate and House intelligence
cosunittees, the sources said.
Sources said North, Secord and
Hakim together know many of the
details of the Iran operation-some
of them unknown even to each
other. Among the three of them,
these sources said, they know more
about the operation than Vice Adm.
John M. Poindexter, North's boas as
President Reagan's national secu-
rity adviser before he resigned on
the same day North was fired, and
Robert C. McFarlane, whom Poin-
dexter replaced as national security
adviser exactly a year ago.
Hakim is chief executive of Stan-
ford Technology Trading Corp.,
which handles defense-related and
non-defense scientific work from
offices in San Jose; Vienna, Va., and
overseas.
Before the fall of the shah seven
years ago, the U.S.-educated Ha-
kim represented several American
firms in Iran, where he dealt
primarily in radar equipment. Se-
cord knew Hakim in the early
1970s when Secord was head of the
U.S. Military Advisory Group in
Tehran.
After the shah's fall, Hakim
moved to California and started
companies in the fields of interna-
tional trade and industrial security.
Secord, . after his retirement from
the Air Force, took an executive
position in Hakim's Stanford Tech-
nology Trading Corp.
California property records show
that Hakim bought a hilltop home
in Los Gatos for $500,000 after
leaving Iran. Two years later-in
1981-he purchased an office
building in San Jose for $368,000.
He is also listed as owning two
condominiums with a total value in
excess of $300,000.
A former associate said of Ha-
kim: "He's essentially a business-
man, a deal maker. He's not a
political animal."
Flit VL1
The ex-associate, who declined
use of his natne,.said: "I can't see
him being interested in the contras
as a political cause. But he knows
how to do business international-
ly-how to obtain letters of credit
and move money from one place to
another. For him, politics would
mainly be a vehicle to increase
business."
According to published reports,
Hakim was still in Iran when he
founded Stanford Technology in
1974, incorporating it in Switzer-
land and in Delaware. Through this
company, he negotiated a contract
to supply the shah's government in
Tehran with a computerized tele-
phone monitoring system believed
to be part of an effort by the shah to
check the loyalty of his military
commanders.
In the mid-1970s two former
CIA agents, F-09P F. n and
Francis E. Tervil, became associat-
ed wi Stanford ec no ogv and.
federal prosecutors said, used its
name in such ventures as attempt-
ing to sell arms to Libya. Wilson
was convicted on federal charges
and is serving a lengthy prison
sentence. Teroil is still a fugitive.
In an interview published last
summer by the San Joe Mercury-
News, Hakim said he dismissed
Teroil when he discovered what
was going on_ and later helped in
the federal prosecution of Wilson.
Last summer, Hakim and several
retired CIA and Defense Depart-
ment officials. including Secord,
were named as defendants in a
$23.8-million civil suit filed in Mi-
ami by two free-lance writers who
accused them of violating federal
law conspiring to supply arms to
a faction of the Nicaragua contras,
who arfighting to overthrow t hit
country's Marxist government.
Hakim told the San Jose newspa-
per at the time that the lawsuit's
assertions were "totally inaccu-
rate" and that it was filed for
political reasons. "We are simply
good targets for such people to
attack," he said. "I sincerely be-
lieve it is a political lawsuit....
Since they cannot get to the Ad-
ministration, they use the people
who cannot defend themselves."
Staff writers
also contributed to tf Is story.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504130016-5