SECORD-A SPECIALIST IN COVERT DEALS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201700001-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 13, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: March 29, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

SST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201700001-4 /
I - LOS ANGELES TIMES
49TIrLE APPEARED 29 March 1987
ON PULL-40dL-.ro
Skilled Secret Soldier
record - A
Specialist in
covert Deals
B BOB G ,
serer to W ter
WASHINGTON-When histori-
ans write the final analysis of the
Iran-contra scandal, perhaps they
should start with jkrArCy. Sq-
cord's 1972 master's thesis.
His topic: "Unconventional war-
fare/covert operations as an in-
strument of U.S. foreign policy."
His thesis director: the CIA adviser
to the head of the U.S. Naval War
College.
The CIA should be given "the
authority" to run all such opera-
tions, Secord wrote at the start of
the 55-page document. The Penta-
gon should be "removed from the
chain of command," and "parochial
outcries" from competing govern.
ment groups should be ignored.
'Dismiss Obstacles'
"Bureaucratic obstacles should
be dismissed out of hand," he
wrote. So should opposition from
"the press, Congress, academia and
others." A high-level group,
"probably the National Security
Council," should "develop and im-
plement the required programs."
That Secord . wrote a virtual
outline 15 years ago for the NSC
and CIA role in the Iran arms
affair-and that he is a pivotal
player in the still unfolding histori.
cal drama-comes as no shock to
his friends. To them, Secord re-
mains the very model of a modern
major general.
A West Point grad. A hero of the
Congo. A veteran of 285 combat
flights in Indochina. A manager of
the secret CIA air war in Laos, A
skilled secret soldier and covert
operations artist. Winner of a pres-
idential medal. A proud patriot and
warrior who practiced what he
preached.
There is the public Secord. He
was the rising Pentagon star, the
young two-star general appointed
as the first non-civilian to serve as
a deputy assistant secretary of
defense in one of the most sensitive
posts in the Pentagon. He testified
before Congress; hobnobbed with
Mideast potentates, and oversaw
$30 billion in Air Force sales to
about 80 countries.
'Minion ImposdbW
"I thought he was going to be one
of our top generals and probably
chief of staff of the Air Force," said
retired Brig. Gen. Harry C. Ader-
holt, a longtime friend.
There is the professional Secord.
He was the can-do pilot who once
followed CIA orders to dump a
planeload of dishwasher detergent
along the Ho Chi Minh trail so
trucks and troops would slip and
slide off in the rainy season-and
did it in broad daylight so the CIA
could take pictures.
"He's like a character from Mis-
sion Impossible,"' said David Hen-
ry, a former Air Commando who
flew with him.
There is the private Secord. He
was the no-nonsense, tight-lipped
student who learned strict West
Point discipline from now-presi-
dential candidate Alexander M.
Haig Jr. He was the pudgy pilot
they called "the Fat Man," the
cool-as-ice officer who stopped a
domestic argument by pulling a
gun away from an angry airman.
Even his friends say they barely
know him.
"We're talking cold blue steel,"
said Noel C. Koch, a former deputy
secretary of defense who met with
him recently.
There is the suspect Secord.
Never indicted, he bitterly quit the
Pentagon in 1983 complaining that
he had "been tarred" by a two-year
federal investigation into his ties to
renegade CIA agent Edwin P.
son and two men wfOl ompany
bilked the Pentagon out of $8
million.
"He was one of the focuses of the
investigation," said Theodore S.
Greenberg, an assistant U.S. attor-
ney in Alexandria, Va.
And there is the businessman
Secord. He was the privateer and
international arms dealer, the spe-
cialist in secret shipping, shell
companies and Swiss bank ac-
counts. He was a supply master to
the Nicaraguan resistance forces,
once even selling them $2.5 million
in AK-47 ammunition from a sur-
prising source.
Purchase From China
"Secord engineered the purchase
ftom China," said contra leader
Adolfo Calero. "I don't know how."
Thus, both his friends and ene-
mies say, Dick Secord was uniquely
prepared in temperament and
training when National Security
Council aide Oliver L. North wrote
hint on Nov. 19, 1985 to ask for
heAccording to North, a secret plan
to trade 120 Israeli HAWK anti-
aircraft missiles to Iran for five
American hostages was collapsing.
Portugal was refusing transship-
meat rights. The CIA had fouled
up. White House officials were
frantic.
"Your discrete [sic] assistance is
again required in support of our
national interest," North wrote his
longtime friend, according to the
Tower board report. ". . . As in the
past, you should exercise great
caution that this activity does not
become public knowledge. You
should ensure that only those
whose discretion is guaranteed are
involved."
Secord quickly chartered a jet to
fly 18 HAWKS to Iran under cover
of a "humanitarian mission."
"One hell of an operation," North
crowed. Except that the Iranians
later claimed that they had been
cheated, that the HAWKs were too
few, too old, and too expensive-
and none of the hostages were
released.
Over the next year, Secord be-
came North's top lieutenant. In-
vestigators say he was the "black-
ops" jack-of-all-trades whose op-
erations included coordinating
arms shipments to Iran, controlling
Swiss bank accounts for the trans-
actions, and allegedly using the
profits to supply weapons to the
contras at a time when U.S. mili-
tary aid was illegal.
"A man of many talents, of
Secord is," North wrote in appreci-
ation. He "deserves a medal."
Last week, a U.S. Senate com-
mittee saw Secord's talents another
way.
On Wednesday, the select com-
mittee investigating the Iran-con-
tra scandal asked a federal court to
force Secord to release his foreign
bank records or face jail for con-
tempt.
The Justice Department has sep-
arately asked Swiss authorities for
Secord's bank records, citing fraud
and abuse of power.
Continilod
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The Tower Doara reported that
at least $32 million from the Iran
arms deals, and up to $40 million in
alleged contributions for the con-
tras, were funneled through Se-
cord's accounts. What happened to
most of the money remains a
mystery.
"If I could chose just one person
to come in here and tell us every-
thing, I would choose Secord," Sen.
David L. Boren (D-Okla.), chair-
man of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, told reporters.
So far, however, Secord has
invoked his Fifth Amendment
rights to remain silent before two
congressional committees and said
little in public.
"Any portrait that would be
painted of him as a profiteer would
be absolutely erroneous," his law-
yer, Thomas Green, told Senate
investigators. Secord and his busi-
ness partner, Albert A. Hakim, felt
they were "doing the Lord's work,"
he said.
But others said Secord has only
lived up to his own shadowy repu-
tation.
"I'm not surprised," said E. Law-
rence Barcella, a former federal
prosecutor who investigated Se-
cord's role in the CIA scandal. "I
don't find it a surprise at all."
One of three children, Richard
Vernon Secord was born July 6,
1932, in La Rue, Ohio, a central
Ohio farming town on the Scioto
River. His father, Lowell, was a
truck driver. His mother, Wahneta,
said in a brief telephone interview
that she is "definitely proud" of her
son. "He's done nothing illegal. I'm
very honored to be his mother."
Secord attended South High
School in Columbus, where records
show he drew A's and Be and had a
perfect attendance record. His good
grades helped him win a congres-
sional appointment to the U.S.
Military Academy at West Point in
1951, moving into a cramped bar-
racks over Grant Hall.
In those days, the Point separat-
ed its students by height. Short and
stocky, Secord was assigned to 1st
Regiment's Company M-1-for
those under 5-foot-8.
"We were called the runts,"
recalled freshman roommate
Frank J. Robertson, now a retired
Army colonel.
Secord's first year at the Point
was his worst.
"When Richard first came to
West Point, he was not very hap-
py," Robertson said. "He didn't
study. He was failing in his sub-
jects. We even got into a wrestling
match about it. I was highly in-
censed. I felt he had taken an
appointment and was squandering
it away. He became very upset.
"Then one night he came home
from supper ... and he said: 'I
want to tell you something. I've
decided to stay,"' Robertson con-
tinued. "And it was amazing. His
academics zoomed to the top. By
the second year, he was wearing
stars, which means he was in the
top 10%."
A Tough Tactical Officer
Part of the change, friends say,
was due to the company's tough
tactical officer, then-Capt. Haig,
who went on to become a secretary
of state and candidate for the 1988
Republican presidential nomina-
tion. Haig was in charge of M-1's
daily military training. He drove
his boys hard but was fair, class-
mates say, occasionally issuing de-
merits to Secord for minor infrac-
tions.
Fellow cadets say Secord spoke
little of his family. He was prim and
private, "a very serious kind of
guy" who kept to himself, class-
mate Donald C. Poorman said. He
rarely- joined student high jinks,
and kept his distance from & group
known as the "bad guys" who
drank shaving lotion and once
tossed a locker down stairs. He
double-dated with Robertson in
New York, joining stiffly in eve-
nings on the town.
"He always sat very tall,' Rob-
ertson recalled. "He Was obviously
enjoying himself, but it was diffi-
cult to know it unless you knew
him."
But Secord was loyal to his
friends. In his sophomore year,
Secord testified before a regimental
review board on behalf of a friend
accused of barring a Jewish hand-
ball team from playing on campus.
'They Dropped All Charges'
"Dick volunteered to help out,"
the friend recalled. "It wasn't
something he had to do. And they
dropped all charges."
Although friends invariably de-
scribe him as "brilliant," Secord
was not an exceptional student.
When he graduated in 1955, he
ranked 193rd in a class of 470.
"He worked hard and he got
through," recalled Thomas P.
McGrevey, Secord's roommate for
two years. "That's what's impor-
tant."
Secord's yearbook picture shows
an intense, unsmiling man with jug
ears and a thick brown, brush-cut
hair style that hasn't changed in 32
years. Something else hasn't
changed. "His cold, calculating
weekend mannerisms will be with
us always," says the inscription.
But Secord had guts. At Air
Force flight school after gradua-
tion, one classmate recalled, Secord
outmaneuvered everyone in a
mock dogfight. Later, the students
discovered Secord had drained his
fuel tanks to lower the plane's
weight and make it easier to con-
trol.
Met His Future Wife
After three years as a single-en-
gine jet instructor in Texas, Secord
was assigned in 1959 to Tinker Air
Force Base in Oklahoma. There he
met Jo Ann Gibson, his future wife.
But with newly inaugurated Pres-
ident John F. Kennedy issuing
stirring calls to "bear any burden"
in defense of liberty, Secord longed
for action.
In August, 1961, he volunteered
for a special tactical group being
formed at Huriburt Field, part of
the giant Eglin Air Force Base
complex in Florida's steamy pan-
handle. He became an elite Air
Commando, serving tours both in
South Vietnam and Iran over the
next four years.
Most Americans had never heard
of Vietnam then. Secord got to
know it well, flying more than 200
missions across the country in
AT-28 "Jungle Jim" fighter planes
in less than a year. Officially, he
was an "adviser," helping the Viet-
namese pilots. In reality, Secord
was a top gun.
'Dick Got a Lucky Hit'
"He and Tom Temple were in the
lead for who had the most kills,"
recalled Aderholt, the retired gen-
eral. "Sampans, boats, hootches,
gooks, or whatever. Sometimes just
palm trees. But Dick got a lucky
hit. He apparently hit an ammuni-
tion depot. The whole area blew
Up "
Pentagon records show he won
at least four combat air medals in
1962. One citation says he faced
"constant danger" and was exposed
to "frequent ground fire from Viet
Cong Communist guerrillas." Ex-
plained a fellow pilot: "His plane
took a lot of holes."
In November, 1964, Secord ap-
parently drew a special assignment
in Africa. Simba rebels had cap-
0Z
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tured hundreds of white hostages
in Stanleyville, a remote river town
in the Belgian Congo. Secord was
assigned to help fly in Belgian
paratroopers for the rescue, ac-
cording to a study published in 1980
by the National Defense Universi-
ty. He made an emergency landing,
however, after a wing panel opened
in mid-flight and an inflated life
raft wrapped around the C-130's
tail controls. the study reported.
Unconventional Warfare
In 1965, Secord attended the Air
Force's Air Command and Staff
College in Montgomery, Ala. His
specialty was unconventional war-
fare, and he helped the faculty
develop a course on "small wars,
low-intensity conflicts," recalls
one classmate. "Dick did an out-
standing job on that," he said.
. But Secord was bored. In August,
1966, he went back to Saigon, and
then to a classified CIA unit at
Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base
in northeast Thailand.
The CIA had-secretly trained and
supplied an army of nearly 40,000
hill-tribe guerrillas in neighboring
Laos. Scattered on craggy peaks
and steep ridges, the Meo troops
guarded radar installations and
beacons vital to U.S. bombers,
rescued downed American pilots
and battled Pathet Lao troops in
the field.
For two years, Secord coordinat-
ed clandestine flights by Air Amer-
ica and other CIA airlines to dozens
of remote airfields in Laos. "He was
responsible for the air sector," said
a former CIA officer who worked
closely with him. Secord didn't
remain on the ground, either. He
flew dozens of missions in spotter
planes and bombers. He still tells
friends of one of the wilder flights.
"When they decided to interdict
the Ho Chi Minh trail, the hobby
shop at the Agency decided to drop
Calgonite on the trail in the rainy
season, hoping to make the trail so
slippery that no one could pass on
it," recalled his friend Koch, the
former deputy secretary of de-
fense. "Dick was in charge. It was
asinine. He had to drop it in
daylight hours so people could take
pictures. And he did it."
Years later, Secord's Indochina
experience would come back to
haunt him. A public-interest law
firm called the Christic Institute
filed a $22-million federal suit in
Miami last May that alleges Secord
and 27 others participated in an
elaborate worldwide scheme of as-
sassinations, terrorism, embezzle-
ment and drug smuggling.
In December, the Institute's law-
yer, Daniel Sheehan, filed an affi-
davit saying Secord "secretly
smuggled ... large suitcases" of
money from opium sales in Laos to
an Australian bank. Congressional
investigators now are studying a
1983 Australian government report
that reportedly links Secord to the
bank, Nugan Hand Bank of Syd-
ney. The concern collapsed in 1980
amid charges that it had laundered
money from sales of weapons and
illicit drugs.
Denied All Charges
Secord has denied all charges in
the Miami suit. "I can't imagine
where the hell they got this kind of
junk," said a co-defendant, who has
discussed the case with Secord.
In September, 1968, Secord went
back to Hurlburt. He was quickly
made commander of the 603rd
Special Operations Squadron. His
cold, gruff mannerisms were still a
problem.
"He wasn't what you call Mr.
Personality," recalled Lee Griffin,
Secord's operations officer. One
pilot even complained to Aderholt,
the Air Commandos' leader.
"I said you're going to screw up a
hell of a good squadron by putting
this guy in," David Henry recalled.
"He doesn't have the personality to
handle a bunch of young airmen.
Well, Dick proved me wrong. He
had changed a lot."
Secord drew raves when he
bellied-in a disabled trainer jet on
the beach: barely scratching the
paint. Friends were touched when
he let the widow of a fellow pilot
live at his house. Secord wasn't the
stern, salutin' disciplinarian the
pilots had feared They called him
"the fat man" or "the round guy."
Secord used his Vietnam experi-
ence to change the training regi-
men. He introduced new midair
refueling techniques. He coordi-
nated special air shows for visiting
Pentagon brass, running spectacu-
lar midnight shows of rockets and
tracers, bombs and napalm.
"Dick was a very dedicated sol-
dier," said retired Maj. Gen. L.W.
Svendsen Jr., who flew with Se-
cord then and has remained a
friend. "He pressed on until the
mission was accomplished. Dick got
the job done."
On weekends, Secord and a small
group of friends would fish for king
mackerel and amberjack. He
golfed. hunted a bit, and played a
fair game of tennis. He and Jo Ann
had a daughter, Julie, and twins
Laura and John. Friends kept their
barbecue busy.
And by the time Secord left
Florida in 1971, his squadron gave
him the highest compliment they
knew. "People said. 'The old man's
never wrong,"' Henry recalled.
Returned to School
Then-Lt. Col. Secord returned to
school, this time attending a special
George Washington University
one-year graduate degree program
at the Naval War College in New-
port, R.L He was one of only 16 Air
Force officers in a class of 203. He
clearly drew on his own experi-
ence.
His master's thesis cited exam-
ples from the Congo, Guatemala,
the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam and Laos.
Unconventional warfare/covert
operations are "a most valuable
tool among the array of foreign
policy instrumentalities available
to the U.S.," he wrote.
After that, Secord's career began
to take off.
"They keep referring to me as a
shadowy figure," Secord com-
plained to the Chicago Tribune in a
rare interview last January. "I've
held some of the highest-profile
jobs in the government."
Promoted to full colonel in 1972,
he moved to the Pentagon and was
desk officer for Southeast Asia as
the last U.S. ground troops with-
drew and the long war drew to a
torturous close. A year later, he
was aide to the director of the
Defense Security Assistance Agen-
cy, which manages foreign military
gales and assistance.
In September, 1975, Secord was
sent to Iran again. This time, he
headed the Air Force Military
Assistance Advisory Group. That
meant he was chief Air Force
'alesman to the shah of Iran. And
the shah was spending billions of
dollars to build an Air Force of
about 500 combat aircraft-bigger
than that of Israel, Germany or
France.
The shah's air force was de-
signed on the U.S. model. Most of
the officers were trained in the U.S.
They. spoke English in flight. Even
the squadron buildings were
American designed. And thousands
of American contractors roamed
the.country.
Conbmiad
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Under President Carter, Secord
helped negotiate the sale and de-
plorf[ent of the most sensitive and
sophisticated U.S. weapons to the
shah-including airborne warning
and control system (AWACS)
planes, F-4 Phantoms, F-5 Tiger
fighter bombers, and top-of-the-
line swing-wing F-14 Tomcats
equipped with long-range Phoenix
air-to-air missiles. His work won
the highest peacetime Air Force
medal.
'Worked Very Hard'
"Dick worked very hard there,"
said one colleague. "He did a lot of
flywith them, he spent a lot of
tinge at the shah's palace. Like
everywhere, he bloomed where he
wig planted."
meths before the shah fled and
th Ayatollah Khomeini took pow-
er. But two years later, he almost
went `back. When the first U.S.
rescue mission of 52 American
hostages ended in a fiery disaster
on the Iranian desert in April, 1980,
Setos'd was asked to help in a
littls3nown second rescue at-
temp
- He was my deputy," said retired
A'rmg. Maj. Gen. James Vaught, a
Delta Force commando leader who
was planning the mission. Aderholt
said Secord spent six months
"whipping that outfit into shape" in
Colorado. The operation was
scrubbed, he said, after an accident
caused "a few fatalities."
But Secord had plenty of work in
Washington. For three years, he
supertised foreign military sales
for the Air Force , responsible for
$30 billion in programs in about 60
countries. "It was a very large
volume business," he once said.
"He had the whole world," a
former Pentagon division chief ex-
plained. "Anything our Air Force
sold around the world, he had
responsibility for."
Secord also was politically sav-
vy. In April, 1981, he was appointed
as the first non-civilian to serve as
deputy assistant secretary of de-
fense for the Near East, Africa and
South Asia. It meant setting de-
fense policy toward India, Afghani-
stan, Iran, Israel, Egypt, Leba-
non-about 40 countries in all.
Apparently working with NSC
aide North for the first time, Secord
became a highly visible command-
er in the new Reagan Administra-
tion's bitter battle with Congress to
sell advanced AWACS electronic
surveillance planes and F- 15 jets to
Saudi Arabia. Secord later testified
that he was awarded a Distin-
guished Service Medal, "at the
request of the President," after the
Senate narrowly approved the We.
Wilson Imprisoned
But then came disaster. His name
was Edwin P. Wilson.
Wilson, once in charge of the
CIA's secret shipping companies,
had amassed tens of millions of
dollars on a salary of $32,000 a year.
Federal prosecutors charged that
he had arranged assassination at-
tempts for Libya's CoL Moammar
Kadafi, had supplied Kadafi with
thousands of pounds of powerful
C-4 plastic explosives, and had
trained Libyan troops with veter-
ans of the Green Berets. He is now
serving a 52-year federal prison
sentence.
Wilson, however, claimed that
he had been providing valuable
intelligence to Secord. On Feb. 3,
1985, during the C-4 smuggling
trial, Wilson's lawyers called Se-
cord to testify.
Secord said he had first met
Wilson in 1971. They had met twice
in Tehran in 1976-77, and twice
again in Brussels in 1979-80, he
said. At one meeting, he acknowl-
edged. Wilson offered to provide a
Soviet MIG-25. "I was interested,"
Secord said, according to a tran-
script.
No Wrongdoing Charged
Prosecutors, in turn, were inter-
ested in Secord. They said he had
visited Wilson's lavish Mt. Airy
Farms estate in the Virginia hunt
country several times, frequently
had borrowed Wilson's private
plane, and had sold him a house in
Fairfax County, Va., when Secord
was in a financial crunch.
Secord was not charged with any
wrongdoing. But his name stayed
in the news.
A defunct Virginia-based com-
pany called Egyptian American
Transport & Services Corp., or
Eatsco, pleaded guilty to over-
charging the Pentagon by $8 mil-
lion for transporting U.S. arms to
Egypt. One of the partners was
Thomas G. Clines, a former ranking
CIA agent who had introduced
Secord to Wilson.
Prosecutors said Secord had
overseen some of the Egyptian
arms sales. And Wilson and his
secretary claimed that Secord was
a silent partner in Eatsco. Secord
angrily denied any improper ties.
The case was "iaugnaote," he told
the Chicago Tribune.
"I had handled huge contracts
that were classified," he said.
"There was no way you could
account for all of the money. What
they were talking about was pea-
nuts. I guess I was sort of insulted
that they would accuse me of
stealing so little."
There was another problem.
Douglas Schlacter, a former Wilson
aide, told CBS News in November,
1981, that Secord had shared profits
from Wilson's illegal arms sales.
The charge was "bone chilling,"
Secord said later.
The FBI launched an investiga-
tion and Secord was suspended for
three months in early 1982. A third
star was sidetracked. His career, he
said, was ruined.'
In April, 1983, Secord won partial
vindication. He had sued Schlacter
for libel and slander and a federal
court judge in Washington awarded
Secord $2 million in a default
judgment. But it was a hollow
victory. Schlacter had disappeared
into the federal witness protection
program. He neither contested the
suit nor paid the money.
"I have been tarred
Secord testified at the single court
hearing. "No matter what I have
done, I can't get rid of this shadow
that's been hanging over me."
Secord retired in May, 1988, and
now draws an Air Force pension of
$3,800 a month. Until last August,
he stayed on an Air Force advisory
panel on unconventional warfare
policy. Although authorized to
draw $242 a day, he never did. Air
Force records show.
Secord had other business to
attend to. He and his wife formed
Secord Associates and bought
three houses for investment near
their 11-room home in Mc:lean,
Va., a Washington suburb.
More important, he hooked up
with Albert Hakim again. 'T'hey had
met in Tehran in the mid- 1970s
while Secord was running the
military advisory group. In a 1983
deposition in Connecticut, Hakim
admitted that he had used Swiss
bank accounts to funnel millions of
dollars in payoffs to Iranian mili-
tary officials at the time.
High-Tech Security
Hakim ran several companies,
including Stanford Technology
Corp., a Silicon Valley firm that
developed high-tech security sys-
tems. Secord took over an affiliate
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called Stanford Technology Trad-
ing Group in Vienna, Va. Together
they tried to sell security systems
to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and South
Korea's nuclear power agency, ac-
cording to a company lawyer.
But business was tough. In mid-
1984, they represented Marwais
Steel Co. of Larkspur, Calif., seek-
ing a $100-million aircraft shelter
contract from the United Arab
Emirates. Despite months of hard
work by Secord and Hakim, an
Italian company won the bid.
"Dick was not happy," said one
friend. "He'd worked that contract
hard for a year and a half and came
in second."
Secord's relations with Middle
Eastern leaders remains something
of a mystery. Published reports
have said the Saudi royal family
helped Secord in the Marwais ne-
gotiations, and even offered to put
his children through college when
he retired. But one friend says
Secord laughs at the reports.
"He says if it's true, how come he
didn't get any projects there?" the
friend said.
Soon Had Other Projects
And Secord soon had other proj-
ects. Congress cut off military aid
to the contras in October, 1984.
Investigators say, Secord stepped in
as a secret supplier-and reported
regularly to North.
Working with ex-CIA and mili-
tary associates, and relying on
former Air America pilots, records
show, Secord used a web of shell
companies and Swiss accounts to
help provide planes, medicine and
hundreds of tons of arms and
ammunition.
"We supposedly worked for the
man in Nicaragua," said Frank
Hines, a pilot who dropped supplies
to the rebel forces on five missions
from the Ilopango air base in El
Salvador last September. He was
paid $3,000 a month, but the five
aging planes required constant
maintenance and repair. "This was
net high-tech," he said.
Secord's reputation for his work
with the contras is less than ster-
ling. "Nobody had any respect for
him," said another pilot. Contra
leaders say he charged too much.
And his mannerisms apparently
hadn't changed.
"He could look at you so cold, it
was frightening," one contra leader
said.
"He was what we would call the
contra connection for profiteer-
ing," said Thomas V. Posey, who
heads an Alabama-based contra
supply group called Civilian Mate-
rial Assistance. "He tried to play
007."
Ultimately, Secord's ties to the
contras were his undoing. When
Sandinista soldiers shot down a
C -123K loaded with arms over
southern Nicaragua last Oct. 5,
killing three crewmen and captur-
ing one, telephone records indicat-
ed that the pilots had called Se-
cord's home and office from their
"safe house."
Since then, a barrage of revela-
tions has shown that Secord-us-
ing the code name "Copp"-helped
North plan, organize and direct one
of the strangest episodes of modern
U.S. history.
Kept a Low Profile
Since then, too, Secord has kept a
low profile. Process servers in a
civil suit recently gave up after two
months of visiting his home and
office, a neighbor said. He could not
be reached for this story and. his
attorney did not return phone calls.
Friends say the ordeal is taking a
toll.
"His morale is not the highest,"
said his old friend Svendsen, who
spoke to him recently. "I think he's
depressed because he thought he
was doing something for his coun-
try. The White House asked him to
do something, and he did it."
"He says he's innocent of any
wrongdoing," agreed former Pen-
tagon official Koch. "He's confident
of vindication. He's sure the system
will work to clear his name.
"I'm not sure he's not being a
little naive. I'm not sure we're not
of two minds on that."
Times researcher Aleta Embrey
contributed to this story.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201700001-4