WASHINGTON -- Roy Furmark, who tipped CIA Director William Casey about diversion of U.S. arms profits from Iran to Central America, is keeping a low public profile about his link to the high-stakes private aspects of the deals.
Furmark, a New York energy consultant, stepped silent and unaccompanied from a taxi Thursday on Capitol Hill for a closed Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about his involvement in the affair. He testified for more than three hours and left just as silently, refusing to answer questions from reporters.
But Sen. William Cohen, R-Maine and a member of the committee, said Furmark testified 'fully' once behind closed doors, and Cohen said he was satisfied the consultant had no 'personal or financial interest' in the secret deals.
A tall, middle-aged man with a salt-and-pepper beard, Furmark heads his own company, Furmark Corp., and is a former legal client of Casey. The Washington Post reported Thursday that he called the CIA director Oct. 7 and told him of learning from an Iranian involved with Canadian businessmen who had financed U.S. arms sales to Iran that some of the profits may have been diverted.
The unidentified Canadians put up $20 million, the newspaper said, but had received only $10 million from Iran and were considering legal action, which would have blown the lid of secrecy off President Reagan's secret arms sales.
William Seizer, who answered the phone Thursday at the Furmark Corp., refused to provide any biographical information about Furmark.
But David Holliday, speaking for the Senate committee, said the panel had known enough about Furmark that it did not need Casey's testimony to issue a subpoena for the consultant.
'He's been on our witness list for a long time,' Holliday said. 'We were aware that he was one of the people we wanted to talk to.'
Frank Moores, a former Newfoundland premier who now heads Government Consultants International, told United Press International that Furmark was the 'right-hand financial man' to the late John Shaheen of New York, a Lebanese-American oil executive.
Shaheen was described as a personal friend and former law client of Casey.
Moores said Shaheen's company, Shaheen Natural Resources of New York, built an oil refinery on Newfoundland's east coast in 1973 for which Furmark set up the financing. When the refinery went bankrupt in 1976, Furmark established his own energy consulting firm in New York while keeping ties with Shaheen.
'They were good friends,' Moores said.
He described Furmark as 'very aggressive, very bright' and as a man with excellent contacts in the Middle East.
