Major General Richard Vernon Secord, Retired (born July 6, 1932), is a United States Air Force officer with a notable career in covert operations. Early in his military service, he was a member of the first U.S. aviation detachment sent to the Vietnam War in August 1961, Operation Farm Gate. Secord left Vietnam in 1965 to attend Air Command and Staff College. Afterward, he returned to Southeast Asia, being detailed to the Central Intelligence Agency for duty in the Secret War in Laos. While in Laos, he was responsible for several notable military actions. One was the Battle of Lima Site 85. Another was the only successful prisoner of war rescue of the Vietnam War. Both of these came about because of his responsibilities for overseeing the operations of the Royal Lao Air Force, Air America, and Raven FACs.
After his Southeast Asian service, Secord commanded the 603rd Special Operations Squadron and underwent further advanced military education at the Naval War College. He then served on staff duty in the Department of Defense from June 1972 through September 1975. His next posting returned him to Iran, this time managing all U. S. military assistance to the Iranians. He was involved in the Iran–Contra affair, making $2 million on the arms transactions and charged with lying to Congress about it but acquitted. Secord went into business in the private sector after his retirement from the USAF.
Background and education
Richard Vernon Secord was born to Wahnetta and Lowell Secord in Larue, Ohio on 6 July 1932. Two younger siblings, Sandra and Jim, were born in the next five years. Laura Secord was one of the ancestors in their family tree. Because they were poor, Lowell Secord taught his eldest son to use firearms for hunting for food from an early age.
Lowell Secord was envious of a childhood friend who had graduated from West Point. To his son, he harped on the benefits of being paid to attend college, and the honor of a military career. Though Lowell moved to Marion, Ohio to become a welder as World War II began, he knew he had not improved his finances enough to afford to send a child to college. Young Richard adopted the goal of attending the service academy.
Lowell and Wahnetta divorced after the end of World War II. Wahnetta moved the children to Columbus, Ohio in search of better schools. Although her Quaker heritage opposed her to military academies, she also believed her son Richard should graduate from college. Despite her opposition, Richard gained admission to West Point on his second try, having narrowly failed mathematics on his first academic testing.
As the outbreak of the Korean War had decimated the Class of 1950, Secord's Class of 1955 underwent extraordinarily thorough combat training during his tenure. Secord fought, with limited success, on the academy's varsity boxing team for three years; on his coach's advice, he gave up the sport to evade possible damage to his eyesight.
Secord graduated from West Point in 1955 and was then commissioned in the USAF, completing pilot training in August 1956. Secord later obtained an MSc in international affairs from the George Washington University in 1972, as well as graduating from the Air Command and Staff College in 1966 and the Naval War College in June 1972.
Military career
Training and early postings
Secord served as a flight instructor from 1956 to 1959 at Laredo Air Force Base, and from 1959 to 1961 as an instructor and operations officer at Tinker Air Force Base. During the latter assignment, he was posted to the University of Oklahoma to study for a master's degree in English Literature. While progressing to the point of needing only his thesis to gain his degree, he met and married his wife, Jo Ann.
In August 1961 he joined covert operations in what would become the 1st Air Commando Wing, remaining there until 1965. As part of Operation Farm Gate, the wing was the first American aviation unit assigned to Vietnam. Secord flew over 200 combat missions between March 1962 to January 1963, flying AT-28s. One of the Vietnamese pilots he met during this assignment was Nguyen Cao Ky, later the president of Vietnam. Another new acquaintance there was Brigadier General Harry "Heinie" Aderholt. Also during this time, Secord was temporarily assigned to the Imperial Iranian Air Force as an adviser (January to July 1963, January to May 1964, January to March 1965).