Secord Pleads Guilty to Perjury, Will Cooperate

The guilty plea Wednesday of Iran-Contra figure Richard V. Secord was hailed by federal prosecutors as closing an important chapter in their yearslong investigation of the scandal.

Reid H. Weingarten, who was to try Secord on 12 felony charges beginning next Monday, told reporters that the former Air Force major general’s admission that he lied to Congress in 1987 was “a significant step in this office’s effort to expeditiously and fully complete its work.”

Weingarten’s boss, independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh, said in a separate statement that Secord’s plea “brings within an adequate range of punishment one of the principal participants in the Iran-Contra diversion.”

Under terms of the plea bargain disclosed in federal court, Secord, 56, who assisted former White House aide Oliver L. North in supplying weapons to Nicaragua’s rebels, pleaded guilty to one felony count of lying to Congress in return for dismissal of the 11 other counts in his indictment.

He also agreed to “cooperate fully” with Walsh’s office by testifying at future trials or grand jury proceedings.

The principal two trials remaining are those of former White House National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter, North’s one-time superior, starting next Jan. 22, and Albert A. Hakim, Secord’s former business partner, whose trial date has not been set.

Sources said that Secord’s plea places Hakim under new pressure to enter a plea himself. Officials would not comment on whether such a plea is expected today at a pretrial hearing for Hakim. Richard Janis, Hakim’s attorney, declined to discuss the matter.

Chief U.S. District Judge Aubrey E. Robinson Jr., who accepted Secord’s plea, set no immediate date for sentencing him. But he reminded Secord that he faces a maximum possible term of five years in prison.

Lawyers familiar with plea bargains said that Secord got a standard settlement--admitting one felony count in return for dismissal of the remaining charges.

“Most judges make sentences on additional counts run concurrently anyway, so the government benefits whenever it gets someone to plead to a felony without the risks and expenses that a trial entails,” one attorney said.

During the investigation of the Watergate scandal in the Richard M. Nixon Administration, it was standard procedure for special prosecutors to try to negotiate guilty pleas to one felony, with the understanding that such defendants would testify for the government against others.

Watergate figures who accepted such plea bargains included former White House aides John W. Dean III and Egil (Bud) Krogh Jr. and former Nixon campaign officials Herbert L. Porter and Frederick C. LaRue.

Earlier in the Iran-Contra investigation, Robert C. McFarlane--another former national security adviser to former President Ronald Reagan--was required to plead guilty to four separate charges of misleading Congress. But they were misdemeanors rather than felonies.

Traditionally, judges try to encourage the settlement of criminal cases by giving more lenient sentences to defendants who plead guilty. Plea bargains save the government the time and expense of trying every defendant who is indicted.

At his court appearance, Secord told Judge Robinson that he had lied by responding “no” when congressional investigators asked him under oath: “Are you aware of any money from the Enterprise (North’s code word for the Iran-Contra operation) which went to the benefit of Mr. North?”

Standing erect before Robinson with hands clasped behind his back, Secord said he gave his false answer “in a misguided effort . . . to protect Mr. North and myself.”

Prosecutors said in court papers that “if called to prove this (perjury) allegation at trial, the government would prove that defendant (Secord) knew that, in fact, money from the Enterprise went to North’s benefit as the result of defendant’s purchase of a security system costing in excess of $13,000 and the establishment of a secret account containing $200,000 in Switzerland for North” for the education of his children.

Stressing the venal side of the Iran-Contra case, the government’s court filing said further that Secord personally had received $1.5 million in profits from the sale of weapons to Iran and the Contras. It added that Hakim “received profits in comparable amounts.”

A federal court jury last May convicted North on three of 12 felony counts, including his acceptance of a $13,800 gratuity from Secord, an electronic security fence at his Virginia home.

North was not charged with accepting the $200,000 education fund, although it figured in trial testimony. Prosecutors said in their new filing that Secord had informed North in 1986 that he and Hakim had established such a fund.

Secord and Hakim gave these gifts to North “at least in part to thank him for providing lucrative financial opportunities” for them, prosecutors charged.

Thomas C. Green, Secord’s attorney, replied that the home security system was “not an attempt to thank Col. North.” Rather, Secord paid for the installation “to respond to threats against Col. North’s life and his family’s security,” Green said.

BACKGROUND

Businessman Richard V. Secord, a retired Air Force major general, was one of four major figures in the Iran-Contra scandal to be indicted in March of last year for their roles in selling arms to Iran and diverting some profits to Nicaragua’s rebels. Oliver L. North, a White House aide, was convicted of three of 12 felony counts, fined and sentenced to 1,200 hours of community service for his role in the scandal. The trial of North’s White House boss, John M. Poindexter, is scheduled for Jan. 22. No trial date has been set for the fourth defendant, businessman Albert A. Hakim.