Mr. George attended a meeting in the White House situation room in January 1986 after President Ronald Reagan secretly authorized the Government to engage in direct sales of arms to Iran.

From late 1944, when Hanford began to turn uranium into plutonium, until December 1947, the plant's officials secretly authorized the largest releases of radiation yet known from a nuclear weapon plant.

Mr. Weinberger has insisted that he did not know anything about the transfer of American-made TOW antitank and Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Teheran until President Reagan secretly authorized them in early 1986.

However, in December 2005, the New York Times revealed that President Bush had taken the controversial step of secretly authorizing the NSA to expand its surveillance to within the United States.

The FISC was established in 1978 to secretly authorize access to call-identifying information and interception of communications of suspected foreign agents on U.S. soil.

President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency, in search of evidence of terrorist activity, to eavesdrop on Americans without obtaining a court-approved warrant.

According to George Lenczowski, as early as May 23, President Johnson secretly authorized supplying Israel by air with a variety of arms systems, even when an embargo on weapons shipments was placed on the Middle East.

Inspired by their earlier success with the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, on 17 March 1960, U.S. President Eisenhower secretly authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to overthrow Castro's government.

Cohen also claimed that when President Boris Yeltsin took power, he secretly authorized the sale of red mercury on the international market, and that fake versions of it were sometimes offered to gullible buyers.

Iran-Contra scandal: U.S. President Reagan signed a Presidential Finding, secretly authorizing the CIA to provide direct assistance to the Contra rebels, led by Eden Pastora, in overthrowing the Sandinista government of Nicaragua.