Richard V. Secord

Richard V. Secord, a former Air Force general and C.I.A. operative who was the logistical middleman in the Iran-contra scandal that rocked the Reagan administration with illegal arms sales to Iran to support right-wing rebels in Nicaragua, died on Monday October 14 2024. He was 92. Richard Vernon Secord was born in LaRue, Ohio, on July 6, 1932, the oldest of three children of Lowell and Wahneta (Hodson) Secord. Richard and his siblings, Sandra and Jim, attended local schools. Good grades helped him get a congressional appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York. He graduated in 1955, joined the Air Force and finished pilot training in 1956. He earned a master’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University in 1972. In 1961, he married Jo Ann Gibson. They had three children: Julia and the twins Laura and John. Detailed to the C.I.A. in 1966, he ran a secret air war in Laos, fighting communist Pathet Lao forces and interdicting enemy supplies and reinforcements on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In 1996 he joined Computerized Thermal Imaging, a company that produced diagnostic medical equipment, becoming its president, chief operating officer and chairman. He resigned in 2005. His wife of 62 years, Jo Ann Secord, died in January 2024 at 84. He later moved to the assisted-living facility in the Daytona Beach area, near the home of his son, John. In addition to his son, his survivors include two daughters, Laura and Julia, and a number of grandchildren.