by Ted Gup
Thomas “Pete” Ray, as a young father showing off his six-month-old son, Thomas Ray. (Courtesy of Thomas M. Ray)
Margaret Ray, the widow of Thomas “Pete” Ray, taken in 1961, the year her husband was killed in the Bay of Pigs operation. She would never recover from the loss of her husband and would feel that the watchful eye of the CIA was constantly upon her. (Courtesy of Thomas M. Ray)
Little Tom Ray and sister Janet taken in 1961 at about the time of their father’s death in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. (Courtesy of Thomas M. Ray)
ABOVE: John G. Merriman with wife Valeria and sons Bruce and Jon on doorstep in Yakutat, Alaska, circa 1952. Merriman’s daring rescues of those stranded on mountains attracted national attention. A dozen years later, as a downed CIA pilot in the Congo, he waited for someone to come to his rescue. (Courtesy of Jon Merriman)
A dashing young John Merriman enjoying a beer while assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division. As a pilot he was counted among the best, though his time flying for the CIA would be cut short by ground fire in the Congo. (Courtesy of Jon Merriman)
John Merriman’s widow, Valeria Folkins, with son Jon Merriman. (Courtesy of the author, Ted Gup)
John Merriman with a brown bear he shot in Alaska. After this kill, he gave up hunting altogether. (Courtesy of Jon Merriman)
John G. Merriman while a copilot with Capital Airways, a nonscheduled airline based out of Nashville, Tennessee, circa 1953–1954. (Courtesy of Jon Merriman)
RIGHT: June 1964 at the Paraloft at Intermountain Aviation, Marana, Arizona. Although he doesn’t appear to be actually packing the T-10 personnel parachute in front of him (no smoking is allowed in the rigging area), it is an excellent candid photo. This would have been the last photograph taken of him in the United States. John left for Africa in early July 1964. (Courtesy of Jon Merriman)
Central Intelligence Headquarters, Langley, Virginia, February 15, 1965. Valeria S. Merriman receiving the Intelligence Star from Lieutenant General Marshall S. Carter, deputy director of Central Intelligence. (Courtesy of Jon Merriman)
Arthur “Mal” Maloney, a gritty and much-decorated veteran of the Normandy campaign, in his retirement at Hilton Head, South Carolina. A severe wound that forced him out of the military led him to the CIA. His son, Mike, would follow in his footsteps as a crack CIA paramilitary officer until his death in Laos. Arthur Maloney would never recover from the loss. (Courtesy of Michael Maloney, Arthur Maloney’s grandson)
Art Maloney in battle fatigues during the fight to liberate France in World War II. A graduate of West Point, he was a soldier’s soldier until a severe wound cut short his career and drove him to seek employment with the CIA. (Courtesy of Michael Maloney)
Mike Maloney and wife Adrienne shown at their wedding in 1963. Two years later he would be killed in a helicopter crash in Laos while on a CIA mission. He left behind a one-year-old son and another in utero. More than thirty years later the CIA still ignored his widow’s repeated requests that her husband’s name be added to the Book of Honor in place of a nameless star. (Courtesy of Michael Maloney)
Mike Maloney, wife Adrienne, and eleven-month-old son Michael in Virginia in the summer of 1965— just before Mike received CIA orders to ship out to Thailand for eventual assignment to the Agency’s secret war in Laos. (Courtesy of Michael Maloney)
Mike Maloney in the summer of 1962 learning to be a paratrooper, as was his father before him. A second-generation CIA officer, he was determined to make his father, Arthur Maloney, proud of him. (Courtesy of Michael Maloney)
Wallace Deuel, a veteran newsman, OSS adviser, and senior CIA staffer, behind his beloved Underwood typewriter. By temperament he was a wordsmith, not a man of action. His son Mike was a covert field officer and paramilitary specialist killed in the Agency’s not-so-secret war in Laos in 1965. (Courtesy of Peter Deuel)
RIGHT: Mike Deuel fording a river in Laos. A covert CIA operative, he was working under cover of the Agency for International Development when he was killed in a helicopter crash in 1965. His Agency connection was kept a secret for more than three decades. (Courtesy of Peter Deuel)
LEFT: The wedding of Mike and Judy Deuel in Bangkok, Thailand, on October 30, 1964. “Things are a little too good to last,” he wrote his parents. He was right. (Courtesy of Peter Deuel)
BOTTOM: Mike Deuel, one of the Agency’s most gung-ho and promising young case officers. His superiors considered him headstrong, but a mission placed in his hands was considered as good as done. In Laos, his secret campaigns against the Communists were counted among the CIA’s most successful. (Courtesy of Peter Deuel)
LEFT: Harlan Westrell, retired CIA chief of counterintelligence in the Office of Security, holds a photo of Hugh Redmond. For a time, Westrell found himself overseeing the Agency’s handling of the case and working to assure Redmond’s mother, Ruth, that the CIA had not forgotten about her son. (Courtesy of the author)
ABOVE: Hugh Redmond and his mother, Ruth, pose for a photo against the wall of a Chinese prison where Redmond was being held. After years of incarceration, the once-athletic Redmond would lose all his teeth and become afflicted with disorders of which he was forbidden to speak, even to his mother. (Courtesy of William McInenly)
BELOW: At New York International Airport—Idlewild—the mothers of (left to right) Richard Fecteau, Hugh Redmond, and John Downey (Jessie Fecteau, Ruth Redmond, and Mary Downey) hold photos of their sons, each of whom was a CIA covert operative held in a Chinese prison. The date was January 1, 1957, and the three were on their way to China to visit their sons in prison. (Courtesy of William McInenly)
RIGHT: A political cartoon from the July 11, 1970, New York Daily News that appeared after the Chinese reported that Hugh Redmond had committed suicide in one of their prisons. An accompanying editorial suggested what many already suspected—that Redmond had been murdered or died of neglect. (© New York Daily News, L.P. reprinted with permission)
Ivan Berl King taken in 1978, the year he was killed in a secret CIA training mission in North Carolina. A legendary pilot, he had volunteered for the assignment even though someone else had already been slated to fly the ill-fated mission. Not even in death did his link to the CIA surface. (Courtesy of Velma Waymire, his sister)
ABOVE: The badly mangled fuselage and wing of the plane that crashed into a North Carolina cornfield the night of July 13, 1978, killing CIA operatives Ivan Berl King and Dennis Gabriel. Local police who responded to the crash were told it was a matter of some sensitivity and that it would be best not to dig too deeply. (Courtesy of Velma Waymire)
RIGHT: Dennis Gabriel with his son, Sean, at his side. Once hoping to be an Olympic decathlete, Gabriel was a seasoned CIA operative who had worked both the Mideast and Asia. He was killed along with CIA pilot Berl King in the July 13, 1978, crash of a small plane in North Carolina while on a secret training mission. His links to the Agency never surfaced. (Courtesy of Dr. Ronald Gabriel, his brother)
Two passport photos of James Foley Lewis. The earlier of the two passports was issued October 31, 1975, immediately after his release from a North Vietnamese POW camp. (Courtesy of Antoinette Lewis)
James Lewis in Laos, from a scrapbook he kept. (Courtesy of Antoinette Lewis)
James Lewis and his Vietnamese-born wife, Monique, who was also killed in the bombing of the Beirut embassy. It was her first day on the job as a CIA secretary. (Courtesy of Antoinette Lewis)
President and Mrs. Reagan at Andrews Air Force Base, where he met the plane carrying the coffins of sixteen Americans killed in the April 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. Here he is seen preparing to offer condolences to the families of those killed. (Courtesy of Antoinette Lewis)
William Casey, Director, Central Intelligence, presenting Antoinette Lewis with a posthumous commendation recognizing her son’s service to the Agency. In the CIA’s Book of Honor, his death is marked by an anonymous star. (Courtesy of Antoinette Lewis)
Barbara Robbins, a twenty-one-year-old CIA secretary working
under State Department cover, was the youngest Agency employee to be honored with a star. Killed by a car bomb at the U.S. embassy in Saigon on March 30, 1965, she was twenty-one. Though she was never involved in covert operations, her Agency affiliation remains veiled in secrecy and her death is marked by a nameless star. (Courtesy of Ruth Robbins, her mother)
Barbara Robbins as a Girl Scout in 1955. Convinced that if the Communists were not stopped in Southeast Asia they might well take over the world, she volunteered for duty in Vietnam as a CIA secretary. (Courtesy of Ruth Robbins)
ABOVE: Portrait of Matthew Gannon (pictured in front row, flanked by sisters, to his right Cabrini, to his left Julie) and family taken in California circa 1967. (Courtesy of Richard Gannon)
RIGHT: Matthew Gannon at sister Cabrini’s wedding in California at the Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1987. (Courtesy of Richard Gannon)
ABOVE: Matthew Gannon with his daughter, Maggie (in plaid jumper), and Molly, brother Richard Gannon’s daughter. Taken in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1987, a year before Matthew’s death. (Courtesy of Richard Gannon)
RIGHT: Richard Spicer in a casual moment in 1982. Two years later, on October 18, 1984, he was killed during a secret CIA mission to resupply Nicaragua’s Contra rebels. The Agency still will not acknowledge he worked for them, and some in Spicer’s family remain unconvinced he is actually dead. (Courtesy of Carroll Spicer)
ABOVE: The grave of James E. Spessard in Williamsport, Maryland. Killed in Angola, Spessard was interred in the same cemetery where his widow, Debbie, works to this day. (Courtesy of Debbie Pappas, his widow)
LEFT: An unidentified worker at the CIA chiseling into the wall at CIA headquarters a star to honor James E. Spessard, killed in Angola in 1989. After a decade, his death is still wrapped in secrecy and marked by a nameless star. (Courtesy of Debbie Pappas)
LEFT: James Spessard on his wedding day in 1981 standing beside his father, Kevin Spessard. (Courtesy of Debbie Pappas)
BELOW: Wedding photo of James and Debbie Spessard (1981) flanked by grandmothers. (Courtesy of Debbie Pappas)
RIGHT: Pharies “Bud” Petty in a casual moment. A decorated Vietnam veteran, he never questioned military or CIA orders, though he expressed apprehension about the Angola mission that was later to claim his life in 1989. His death was surrounded by unanswered questions and his coffin is empty. (Courtesy of Losue Hagler, Petty’s sister)
BELOW: The remains of the six CIA operatives killed in Angola in 1989 were quietly returned to Dover Air Force Base. The caskets were wrapped in cardboard containers bound by string and carrying the warning “Handle with Care.” (Courtesy of Losue Hagler)
ABOVE: Two hearses pull out of a hangar at Dover Air Force Base, taking with them the charred remains of CIA operatives killed in Angola in 1989. Other caskets, wrapped in cardboard and carrying the warning “Handle with Care,” can be seen awaiting the arrival of additional hearses. (Courtesy of Losue Hagler)
RIGHT: CIA operative Larry Freedman, a veteran of Vietnam, Delta Force, and numerous covert actions for the Agency. The photo was taken in Somalia only days before his death. (Courtesy of Sylvia F. Doner, his sister)
ABOVE: The grave of Larry Freedman, aka “Superjew,” at Arlington National Cemetery. The stone features the Star of David, the paratrooper’s wings, and the Green Beret of Special Forces—but nothing to link him to the CIA. (Courtesy of Sylvia F. Doner)
LEFT: Larry Freedman sporting his beloved “Superjew” cape. (Courtesy of Sylvia F. Doner)
BELOW: Larry Freedman on the open road near Sturgis, South Dakota, in 1992, a few months before he was killed. Some of his friends had pointed out that his beard was now white and that it was time to leave risky missions to the next generation of covert operatives. He would have none of it. (Courtesy of Larry and Dede Walz)
ABOVE: Larry Freedman’s longtime friends gather to reminisce about him, still laughing at his wild antics. Even years after his death, they are not quite convinced he is dead. From left to right: Petey Altman, Kenny Gold, Wynne Crocetto, and Paul Weinberg. (Courtesy of Sylvia F. Doner )
RIGHT: A letter from Marine Lieutenant General R. B. Johnston offering condolences to the Freedman family and extolling the work Freedman had done in Somalia. (Courtesy of Sylvia F. Doner)
Ted Gup
The Book of Honor
Ted Gup is a legendary investigative reporter who worked under Bob Woodward at The Washington Post, and later at Time. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the George Polk Award, the Gerald Loeb Award, and the Worth Bingham Prize. Gup is a professor of journalism at Case Western Reserve University. He lives in Pepper Pike, Ohio.
FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, MAY 2001
Copyright © 2000, 2001 by Ted Gup
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
1. Spies—United States—Biography. 2. United States. Central
Intelligence Agency—Biography. I. Title.
UB271.U5 G87 2000
327.12’092’273—dc21
[B] 99-089017
www.anchorbooks.com
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eISBN: 978-0-307-42819-6
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