Major General Richard Vernon Secord (July 6, 1932 – October 15, 2024) was a United States Air Force officer who worked 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.

Afterward, he returned to Southeast Asia, being detailed to the Central Intelligence Agency for duty in the Secret War in Laos.

After his Southeast Asian service, Secord commanded the 603rd Special Operations Squadron and underwent further advanced military education at the Naval War College.

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.

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.

[5] Belatedly promoted to major, he joined Operation Waterpump to train the Royal Lao Air Force.

A team of the CIA's hill-tribe mercenaries was inserted out of hearing of the POW prison; their surprise raid quickly wiped out about 40 guards.

Nevertheless, a scratch force of nine single-piloted Air America H-34 helicopters dropped into the middle of the Hồ Chí Minh Trail and rescued 53 Asian prisoners.

In early 1967, General Hunter Harris briefed Secord and Lair on the upgrading of the TACAN installation there with guidance radar.

The location, nearly on the Lao border with northern Vietnam, would enable American strike aircraft to follow its radar beam to Hanoi or Vinh and drop their bombs blind, regardless of weather.

Ambassador William H. Sullivan, who supervised the war in Laos by presidential directive, denied the need for stationing Green Berets at the site, or for personal weaponry.

His initial assignment was desk officer for Laos, Thailand and Vietnam under the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.

[5] Secord claims that despite endemic corruption in Iran, his MAAG was able to rebate to the Iranian government about $50 million from the Grumman Corporation.

[20][21] After William H. Sullivan was appointed ambassador, Secord again found himself clashing with the diplomat over the use of U. S. military personnel and civilian technicians.

Secord's official biography states that he was the ranking US Air Force officer for Operation Eagle Claw, the April 1980 attempt to end the Iran hostage crisis.

Operation Tipped Kettle, transferred Palestine Liberation Organization weapons seized by Israel in Lebanon to the Contras.

The final report of Iran/Contra Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh concluded that Secord had received at least $2m from his involvement in these activities, and had lied to Congress about it.

[28] In the aftermath 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.

Gen. Harry Aderholt visited the newly independent former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan on behalf of MEGA Oil, a company established by retired U.S. military officers.