Richard Secord



Major General Richard V. Secord, Retired (born 1932 in LaRue, Ohio), is a United States Air Force officer convicted for his involvement with the Iran-Contra scandal. He was exonerated after a 1990 Supreme Court case found the statute used to be illegal.

He graduated from West Point in 1955 and was then commissioned in the USAF. He was President of Stanford Technology Trading Group Intl., also known as the "Enterprise", a company involved with arms sales to Iran during the Reagan presidency.

In 2002, retired General Secord was named CEO and Chairman of the Board at Computerized Thermal Imaging. He has since retired and now serves as president of the Air Commando Association, a Florida based charity.

Laos
Richard Secord was involved in the Secret War in Laos during the Second Indochina War. He flew close air support missions in Vietnam in 1962, and was the CIA chief of tactical air support in Laos on detail from the USAF in 1966, 67 and 68. See his book, "Honored and Betrayed" published in 1992.

Iran-Contra
Secord was the USAF Chief of the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Iran from 1975-78. In this capacity he managed all USAF military assistance programs in Iran as well as some US Navy and Army programs. During this time he oversaw Project Dark Gene and Project Ibex.

Secord filed a libel case against Leslie Cockburn, Andrew Cockburn, Morgan Entrekin, Atlantic Monthly Press, and Little, Brown and Company, Inc. for publishing a book in 1987 entitled Out of Control: The Story of the Reagan Administration's Secret War in Nicaragua, the Illegal Pipeline, and the Contra Drug Connection. The court ordered summary judgment on behalf of the defendant.

Trial
On March 16, 1988, Secord was indicted on six felony charges.

On May 11, 1989, Secord received a second indictment on nine counts of impeding and obstructing the Congressional Committees Investigating The Iran-Contra Affair. Secord was scheduled to stand trial on 12 charges.

On November 8, 1989, Richard Secord pled guilty to one felony count of false statements to Congress, and on January 24, 1990 he was sentenced to two years probation.

In 1992 the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia issued a writ of coram nobis which expunged the conviction on the grounds that the US Supreme Court had earlier found the underlying indictment to be illegal and without effect ab initio, i.e., from the beginning. The Justice Dept. did not oppose the matter. Thus the entire Iran-Contra imbroglio ended for Secord.

Awards and decorations
His military decorations and awards include the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, Meritorious Service Medal, Air Medal with two oak leaf clusters, Air Force Commendation Medal, Republic of Thailand Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant and Republic of Korea Order of National Security Merit Cheonsu Medal.