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Furmark has told TIME that he first visited Casey in the Executive Office Building next to the White House on Oct. 7, cited his complaints, and suggested Casey check a Swiss bank account listed to Lake Resources -- one of the CIA's depositories for the Iran arms money. "He said he knew nothing about the arms deal with Iran," Furmark said of Casey. "He asked me whether I knew Poindexter, and I said no. He then picked up the phone and tried to ! reach Poindexter but couldn't." Furmark next saw Casey on Oct. 16 when he joined the Director and his wife on a flight from Washington to New York City. Casey told Furmark that he had not yet found out about any missing money, but promised to keep digging.
Persisting, Furmark visited Casey in his Langley, Va., headquarters on Nov. 24, the day before Meese announced that the contras were receiving money from the Iran weapons deals. Furmark told Casey that Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian middleman in the arms deal, was claiming that the missing money had gone to the contras. Said Furmark: "Casey placed a call to Don Regan but couldn't get him. He then tried Poindexter and could not get him either. Finally he called North and said, 'There is a man here who says you owe him $10 million.' He chatted with North for a while, hung up and told me, 'North says the Israelis or the Iranians owe you the money.' I protested the runaround. He called a subordinate and ordered him to see what agency files contained on Lake Resources. He got his answer and told me that the only reference to this bank account appears in connection with my first complaint to him on Oct. 7. He then called a Mr. Cooper at the Justice Department and told me he drew a blank there as well."
Casey, who appeared to be stalling Furmark, says he had conveyed his friend's complaints to Poindexter on Oct. 8. "He was surprised and concerned about it," Casey says of Poindexter. "I advised him I thought he ought to get prepared to pull the whole story together and make a public statement. He said he didn't want to do that because it was an ongoing operation. They were hoping to get some hostages out." Casey advised Poindexter to get a lawyer and then took another surprising step: he asked North whether any CIA people had been involved in any diversion of funds. According to Casey's testimony, North said no.
Didn't the Furmark episode contradict Meese's assertion that Casey had been ignorant of the fund diversion? Not really, Casey later told newsmen. Furmark's story gave him only a "whiff" that money had been diverted and caused him to start "asking some questions." But he had not been sure of the diversion to the contras, he insisted, until Meese made his announcement.