SECORD-RELATED COMPANY KEPT $520,00 FROM SWISS ACCOUNTS USED FOR IRAN ARMS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605180005-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 16, 2013
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: May 8, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/04/16 :CIA-RDP90-009658000605180005-0
WALL STREET JOURNAL
8 May 1987
Secord-Related Company Kept X520,000
From Swiss Accounts Used for Iran Arms
1
By DAVm Rocks and~Epwaxp T. Pourm ~n? Secord played a lead role in the
.:' ~ scnfjReportera oJTr[E ww~: s?~?~EET JovRN,-~-'sale of U.S. weapons to Iran and the covert
WASHINGTON-More than $x20,000 was airlift of arms to Nicaraguan insurgents.
transferred in 1985 and 1986 from Swiss ac- He often took directions from Marine Lt.
counts used in the Iran-Contra affair to a Col. North in [his enterprise and delivered
Virginia-based company in which retired instructions to Mr. Hakim.
Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard Secord holds Mr. Hakim, a partner of Gen. Secord in
a major financial interest. Stanford Technology Trading, oversaw the
Gen. Secord told the House and Senate, elaborate financing behind the operation
committees investigating the affair that through a series of Swiss accounts, and he
the money was a loan. But under question- still controls an estimated $7.7 million
ing, he acknowledged that he has made no from the proceeds of U.S. arms sales to
repayments and that he hasn't been Iran in 1986. He also appears to have held
charged interest. More than two-thirds of ~n? Second's share of profits the two
the funds were transferred since February earned in 1984 and 1985 from the sale of
1986, when direct U.S. arms sales to Iran ~'~ to the Nicaraguan Democratic
began. Force, the dominant Contra group.
The payments represent the strongest These profits amounted to at least sev-
evidence yet contradicting Gen. Second's eral hundred thousand dollars. Gen. Secord
assertion that he didn't benefit personally has testified that he foreswore these funds
from the U.S. weapons sales to Iran. A in 1985. But evidence disclosed by the com-
congressional staff investigator said that mfttees yesterday indicates Mr. Hakim
Swiss records indicate an estimated $150,- may still be holding them in a Swiss ac-
000 was paid in February 1985 to Mr. Se- count in the name of Korel Assets Inc.,
cord's company, Stanford Technology which investigators believe was set up
Trading Group, and $370,823 followed in a originally for Mr. Secord.
nine-month period beginning Feb. 1, 1986. Gen. Secord described the
The disclosure came as the congres- payments to
sional hearings took a more combative Stanford Technology as a loan from Cie.
tone, with the Senate committee's counsel, des Services Fiduciares, a financial serv-
Arthur Liman, following a line of question- ices firm in Geneva. But at the same time
ing that challenged Gen. Second's repeated the payments were made, CSF was actfng
claims that he never profited from his in- ~ Mr. Hakim's agent in administering the
volvemen[ in the Iran-Contra affair. Apart multitude of accounts and shell companies
from the direct transfers of funds to Gen. used to run the Iran-Contra operation.
Second's company, Mr. Liman cited evi? Moreover, according to records cited by
dente indicating that profit margins were Mr. Liman, one of these shell companies
built into payments to Stanford Technology helped finance an unsuccessful venture in-
for the use of one of its employees working volving Gen. Secord and Mr. Hakim in
in the Contra network. manufacturing submachine guns.
The Senate .o m el also made public Gen: Secord acknowledged that on four
previously undisclosed testimonv by two of occasions in 1986 he examined the books
Gen. Second's ast associates that a ars kept.for the Iran-Contra operation. But he
to contra ict t e eenera s c aim a e ;portrayed himself as largely unaware of
never planned to sell assets, built up dun- ~ the details of how Mr. Hakim managed the
ing the two-year Iran-Contra covert o
era- -------
p
ion. o e en ra n e igence gencv or
millions of dollars.
"I didn't come here to be badgered .. .
Let's get ~ off the subject," Gen. Secord
snapped at one point.
"You're making the rulings?" Mr.
man shot back.
"No, sir," answered the general,
voice dropping.
Beyond exploring the issue of profits,
the committees yesterday probed the fi-
nancial relationships between Gen. Secord
and two other principal players in the Iran-
Contra affair, former National Security
Council aide Oliver North and businessman
Albert Hakim.
While Gen. Secord cast himself as oper-
ating separately from the government, Mr.
Liman cited testimony by a Secord associ-
ate indicating the general and Col. North
were virtual partners in operating the co-
vert airlift begun in 1985 to assist the Con-
tras. And, according to the general's own
testimony, it was Col. North who later
helped bring him into the Iran initiative.
Gen. Secord insisted that he hadn't in-
tended to circumvent legal prohibitions
against U.S. military aid to the Contras,
but House Intelligence Committee Chair-
man Louis Stokes said the general's opera-
tion in effect substituted for the govern-
ment. In a pointed exchange, the Ohio
Democrat asked Gen. Secord why, if he
wasn't part of the government, he said he
had felt ' `betrayed" when Attorney Gen-
eral Edwin Meese revealed the diversion
of funds from the arms sales to the Con-
tras last November.
"It was my belief that the president
was well aware of what we were doing,"
said Gen. Secord. "That is why all of us
felt betrayed."
Meanwhile, President Reagan, asked by
reporters about Gen. Second's testimony,
insisted that he hadn't known about diver-
sion of funds to the Contras. "I did not
know about it ... I'm still waiting to know
where did that money go," the president
said during a White House ceremony.
"I know Mr. Secord as a private citizen
was engaged with other private citizens in
trying to get aid to the Contras, and so
forth, and there's nothing against the law
in that," said Mr. Reagan. "I'm very
pleased that the American people felt that
way."
An estimated $30 million was generated
from the three U.S. weapons sales.to Iran
in 1986, but another $17.7 million flowed
through the accounts used by the operation
going back to 1984 and 1985.
Of that $17.7 million, an estimated E11.3
million represented payments for arms
sold to Nicaraguan insurgents. $4.5 million
came as private donations directed to ben-
efit the Contras, and another E1.2 million
was received from the sale of arms to the
CIA last fall, shortly before the operation
closed down, according to information pro-
vided by the office of Senate Intelligence
Committee Chairman David Boren (D.,
Okla. .
The new $47 million figure for the total
money used in the covert operation is de-
scribed in a deposition Mr. Hakim made
last month when he met with investigators
in Paris.
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/04/16 :CIA-RDP90-009658000605180005-0