Word: secords
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...procedure followed by the House and Senate select committees, which are sitting as a joint body, resembled a good-cop-tough-cop routine. Secord was first questioned for two days by John Nields, counsel for the House panel, who for the most part tried simply to elicit the former general's basic story by posing questions of the please-describe-that-meeting variety. Secord related that North had asked him in the summer of 1985 to put together a private network to take over the delivery of arms to the contras after Congress had $ passed its ban. Just...
...matter-of-fact tones, Secord added some intriguing touches of cloak- and-daggery to this recital. At one point, he brought his partner Hakim to a meeting with Ghorbanifar as a translator, but since Ghorbanifar already knew Hakim and considered him an "enemy of the ((Iranian)) state," Secord dressed up the bald Hakim in a wig and glasses and passed him off as a Turk. "It flew," said Secord laconically. At another point, Secord considered Ghorbanifar so untrustworthy that he told the Iranian middleman he would recommend to the U.S. Government that Ghorbanifar be "terminated." Recounted Secord, with the barest...
After Nields' basic questioning, Senate Committee Counsel Arthur Liman conducted what amounted to a withering cross-examination, speaking in deceptively mild tones but homing in repeatedly on sticky issues. Secord rapidly lost his composure, once snapping at Liman, "Let's get off the subject!" in the voice of a general barking at a lieutenant. "You making the rulings?" Liman inquired mildly. "No, sir," replied Secord. "But I did not come here to be badgered...
...Secord, as he claimed, a disinterested 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...
Another bone of contention was the $7.9 million paid by Iran for U.S. weapons and left in Swiss accounts. Legislators contended that it is Government property, since it derives from the sale of federal assets. Secord insisted that it properly belonged to the "enterprise," meaning essentially Hakim and him. Under that interpretation, observed House Counsel Nields, "you could have gone off and bought an island in the Mediterranean." Yes, said Secord, "but I did not go to Bimini." The allusion to Gary Hart's troubles set off a gale of laughter. Secord eventually asserted that he intended to donate...