North Aide Tells Probers of Cloak-Dagger Trip to N.Y. : Says Secord Sent Him to Get $9,500

Robert Owen, who acted as a courier for fired White House aide Oliver L. North, today told of an undercover Jewish New Year rendezvous in a Chinese market in New York to collect some money for the Nicaraguan rebels.

The man behind the counter in the market on Manhattan’s West Side hitched up a trouser leg, reached into a sock and pulled out $9,500 in hundred-dollar bills for Nicaragua’s contra rebels. And suddenly it was cloak-and-dagger time in the Senate Caucus Room.

Testifying before the congressional panel probing the Iran-contra affair, Owen said North told him to telephone a man code-named Copp, whom Owen understood to be retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord, a key figure in the scandal.

Date Recalled

It was Sept. 16, 1985--”I believe it was Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) and the banks were closed,” Owen said.

After flying to New York, in accordance with Copp’s directions, “I took a cab down to the lower West side, and I was instructed to go to a corner Chinese market,” he said.

After Owen mentioned another code name, his contact at the market walked behind the counter, rolled up his pants leg, pulled out a wad of hundred-dollar bills and gave him $9,500.

Owen said he then returned to Washington and handed the money, wrapped in a newspaper, to Secord at the Sheraton Carlton Hotel.

Asked the reason for the trip, Owen told the panel: “I just knew that they were obviously short of cash and they must have needed it. It was a bank holiday and this was the easiest way for them to get it.”

No Explanation

He did not explain the original source of the money or what ultimately happened to it.

But when he queried the odd amount, Owen said, Secord told him it was to avoid regulations requiring the reporting of sums of $10,000 or more.

“Every time I would travel to Central America there were always large signs posted saying that if you have $10,000 or more that you are taking in or bring out, you have to declare it,” Owen recalled.

He also told of two other trips to New York about this time, at North’s instruction, when someone at a mid-town bank handed him a sealed envelope, believed to contain cash, that he took back to North in Washington.

Questioned by one congressman about his undercover activities, Owen said: “Quite frankly, when I was approaching the Chinese market, I looked around--I was wondering where the cameras were. I said, ‘This is more a movie set than it is real life.’ ”

Denied Report

Owen also testified today that he did not believe President Reagan approved any illegal actions to aid the rebels.

In response to a question from Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), Owen denied a televised report that he had told American mercenary Sam Hall that he could expect a presidential pardon for his activities.

Rudman said Reagan used the words “absolute poppycock” to describe the reports when the two men talked by telephone.

In other testimony, Owen said North attended his wedding in 1985 and gave him $1,000 in traveler’s checks, a gift Owen felt was approved by contra leader Adolfo Calero because Owen had not been paid recently.