Word: contra
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...months the story had been coming out in fragments, pieced together by investigators from closed-door testimony and messages; the public saw the major players only as disembodied words on paper. But last week the Iran- contra affair finally put on flesh and acquired a breathing presence. A stocky, round-faced figure appeared on the TV screen to state in effect: I was there, it really happened, and this is what...
...Secord described his contra supply operation to William Casey, then director of the CIA, at three meetings during the period when any Government assistance to the Nicaraguan rebels was forbidden by Congress. One of those meetings was held in the White House. Casey approved of the supposedly private arms operation. In an interview with TIME last December, which turned out to be his final public comment on the affair before he was hospitalized for a brain tumor, Casey insisted, "We were barred from being involved with the contras, and we kept away from that." Secord said he doubted Casey knew...
...Attorney General Edwin Meese made public the Iran- contra connection and North was fired from the National Security Council staff, North and Secord met in a Virginia hotel room that Secord had rented to talk things over. North received two phone calls: the first from Vice President George Bush, the second from the President who had just dismissed him. (North, a Marine lieutenant colonel, stood at attention to receive the call from Reagan.) So far as Secord could tell, both expressed regret and thanked North for his efforts...
These and other portions of Secord's tale remain to be confirmed, challenged or expanded by subsequent witnesses, prominently including former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, who will testify this week; Hakim, who has the most detailed records of the maze of Swiss bank accounts through which Iranian and contra arms money flowed; and eventually North. But only one or two of these witnesses will be in a position to give testimony as detailed and sweeping as Secord...
...patriot acting at Government request to attain what he thought were worthy foreign policy goals? Or was he out for profit? Secord repeatedly insisted that from mid-1985 on he "forswore" any profit. Liman pressed Secord about closed-door testimony taken previously from Robert Dutton, an associate in the contra supply network. Dutton had said Secord considered selling the network's assets, which eventually included five aircraft and facilities in El Salvador and Costa Rica, to the CIA for $4 million. Wrong, said Secord: he intended, once Congress permitted a resumption of open Government military aid to the contras...