Richard V Secord general embroiled in Iran-contra affair dies at 92 washingtonpost com obituaries 2024 10 16 richard-secord-iran-contra-dead October 16 2024 Former Maj Gen Richard Secord turns from photographers on Capitol Hill as he prepares to appear before Iran-contra committee hearings on May 5 1987 John Duricka AP By Bill Hewitt October 16 2024 at 7 16 p m EDT Retired Air Force Maj Gen Richard V Secord a veteran of America’s clandestine operations who served as the point man for the transactions in the Iran-contra affair the arms-for-hostages scandal that metastasized into the most serious crisis of the Reagan administration died Oct 15at a nursing home in Port Orange Fla He was 92 A grandson John Secord Jr confirmed the death but did not provide an immediate cause For his role in the scandal Gen Secord pleaded guilty to one felony count of lying to Congress and was sentenced to probation He maintained that he had been made a fall guy for an operation approved at the highest levels of government “I feel I was betrayed ” he told Playboy magazine in a 1987 interview “We were acting in good faith every step of the way ” Gen Secord was drawn into the scheme in the summer of 1984 By then retired from the military and working as a private arms dealer he received an overture from Marine Lt Col Oliver L North then a National Security Council aide The Reagan administration was pursuing dual policy objectives In the Middle East the White House wanted to use back-channel arms sales to the Islamic regime in Iran to help win the release of Americans held captive in Lebanon At the same time in Nicaragua there was an effort underway to prop up the contra rebels fighting the Marxist Sandinista government ultimately by using funds generated from the Iran deals The operation was carried out secretly because in October 1984 Congress had cut off all military aid to the contras In Gen Secord a pugnacious West Point graduate with boundless self-assurance North and national security adviser Vice Adm John M Poindexter had found perhaps the ideal candidate to handle the byzantine logistics of their plan which became known simply as the “Enterprise ” Gen Secord whose 28-year Air Force career had been as colorful as it was distinguished was experienced in covert operations As a young officer in Indochina in the early 1960s he flew more than 200 secret combat missions against the Viet Cong then helped the CIA supply Laotian tribesmen fighting the local communist forces He had later been stationed for several years as an American military liaison to the shah of Iran specializing in weapons procurement During his tour he arranged for $17 billion worth of arms deals for the shah who nevertheless was soon toppled from power Once considered a possible Air Force chief of staff he had risen to become a deputy assistant secretary of defense but left the military under a cloud in 1983 He said he had “been tarred” by his relationship with Edwin P Wilson a renegade former CIA operative whom he knew socially from the old-boy spy world and who was convicted of selling explosives to Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi Gen Secord was never charged with any wrongdoing Gen Secord is sworn in by the panel holding the joint Iran-contra hearings as he appeared for the first time to begin his testimony on May 5 1987 Lana Harris AP In his memoir “Honored and Betrayed” 1992 written with Jay Wurts Gen Secord maintained that he agreed to participate in the Iran-contra operation out of what he saw as his patriotic duty — though later disclosures would suggest financial motives played no small role “He wanted to come across as a white knight ” said Malcolm Byrne author of “Iran-contra Reagan’s Scandal and the Unchecked Abuse of Presidential Power ” “But the reality was he had a mixed bag of motives ” Creating a labyrinth Gen Secord and his business partner Albert Hakim an Iranian-born American arms dealer set about creating a labyrinth of shell accounts in Swiss banks The aim as established by North was to build a free-standing unit for clandestine activities that could not be traced to the U S government in spy parlance a “cutout” operation An admiring North later wrote “Why Dick can do something in 5 min that the CIA cannot do in two days is beyond me — but he does ” In early 1985 with funds mostly from Saudi Arabia the Enterprise partners began buying weaponry on the worldwide gray market and reselling the equipment to the contras From the outset Gen Secord and Hakim made it clear that they weren’t running an international charity ward One contra leader later complained that the arms sold to the rebels had been marked up by as much as 60 percent In early 1985 North enlisted Gen Secord and his partner to begin dealing weaponry which was to consist of antitank and antiaircraft missiles to the Iranian government with the profits earmarked for diversion to the contras Robert ‘Bud’ McFarlane Reagan national security adviser dies at 84 Money from the Iran and contra initiatives circulated with scanty accounting in what amounted to an enormous slush fund According to later government investigators more than $47 million passed through the Enterprise “The whole thing was back-of-the-envelope and off-the-books ” said Byrne deputy director of the Washington-based National Security Archive anti-secrecy group “The priority was get the job done ” In early 1986 at North’s direction Gen Secord drew on his network of clandestine contacts to begin setting up a more elaborate system for resupplying the contras The various operations had been carried out under a blanket of secrecy that was unexpectedly lifted in early October 1986 when the Sandinistas shot down a supply plane bound for the contras The wreckage yielded a telephone log listing calls from a contra safe house to Gen Secord’s home and office in Virginia The following month the entire operation came unraveled when a Lebanese weekly printed details of the arms-for-hostages deal with Iran In short order President Ronald Reagan fired North an independent counsel Lawrence E Walsh was appointed and Congress launched a raft of investigations When a joint congressional panel began hearings on the Iran-contra affair in May 1987 Gen Secord was called as the first witness In contrast with several other key witnesses including North Poindexter and Hakim he testified without immunity In his four days before the panel he indignantly insisted that he was not a profiteer In a subsequent interview with the New York Times he dismissed concerns about the Enterprise’s financial dealings as “pipsqueak stuff ” But in the weeks that followed other evidence and witnesses portrayed Gen Secord as a man not unduly burdened by questions of propriety Hakim for instance testified that Gen Secord had used funds from the Enterprise to buy a $32 000 Porsche and a private plane Nevertheless Gen Secord emerged from the proceedings with fans Rep Henry J Hyde RIll praised him and North as “the kind of guys the country turns to when it’s in real trouble and it has a dirty job to do ” In April 1989 Gen Secord was indicted by a federal grand jury on nine felony counts of lying to Congress about his knowledge of the financial dealings of the secret network The heart of the prosecution’s case was that the proceeds of the Enterprise rightfully belonged to the U S government Investigators found that Gen Secord realized more than $2 million from his Iran-contra dealings in 1985 and 1986 and that he took precautions to conceal the payments to avoid paying taxes It also turned out that only about $4 million of the proceeds from the Iran arms deals actually found their way to the contras In November 1989 five days before he was due to stand trial Gen Secord agreed to plead guilty to one charge of lying to Congress He admitted that when asked whether North had benefited financially from the Enterprise he did not disclose paying for an expensive security system for North’s home an alleged bribe to ensure that business kept coming Gen Secord’s way Gen Secord was later sentenced to a $50 fine and probation with the judge ruling that he had suffered enough A general at 43 The son of a truck driver Richard Vernon Secord was born July 6 1932 in the farming town of LaRue Ohio In 1955 he graduated from the U S Military Academy at West Point and received a commission in the Air Force He ascended swiftly through the ranks receiving his first general’s star at 43 In the aftermath of Iran-contra Gen Secord returned to private business serving for a time as a top executive at Computerized Thermal Imaging a computer imaging firm and as president of the Air Commando Association In 1961 he married Jo Ann Gibson She died in January Survivors include three children Julia Laura and John eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren To the end Gen Secord saw himself as a victim of perfidy in Washington and he defended the Iran and contra initiatives as necessary steps in advancing the nation’s interest As he noted at one point in his memoir “In this we did not seem to me to act like impulsive cowboys but rather like people who finally woke up and smelled the coffee ”