Mr. STOKES: General, in your opening remarks, you told us that
Mr. Meese had betrayed you, abandoned you, left you to defend
yourselves. In light of the fact that you have testified here that you
were a person independent of the government and a civilian in
your own enterprise, tell us what obligation the Attorney General
of the United States had to support or defend you or your operation?
Mr. SECORD. It was my belief that the President of the United
States was well aware of what we were doing, Congressman Stokes.
As a consequence, the Attorney General it seemed to me had a responsibility to get more than just an incidental dose of the facts
before going public with such a startling story.
He could have at least accorded us the opportunity, within my organization, to brace ourselves. I mean, we were totally stunned and shocked. That is why
all of us felt betrayed.