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.