NATION IN BRIEF : LOUISIANA : Secord Allegations Denied by Reagan

Former President Ronald Reagan denied allegations by Iran-Contra middleman Richard V. Secord, who accused him of continuing to avoid a full accounting of his role in the arms-for-hostages deal to finance Nicaraguan rebels. “Mr. Secord doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Reagan told reporters during a visit to a junior high school in New Orleans. “And I think if you check it, you will find that once exposed, falsely, I went on the air and told the American people what we had been doing, and I gathered the leadership of the Congress and told them what we were doing.” Secord was sentenced to two years’ probation for lying to a congressional panel investigating the Iran-Contra affair.