decades-old efforts to assassinate foreign leaders or overthrow governments. And for the first time, reporters were attempting to expose current CIA activities.
Every operative with an ordinary instinct for self-preservation was keeping a low profile. But for Gust Avrakotos there was unfinished business. His station chief, Dick Welch, had been murdered and, as he saw it, his job was to find and murder the murderers. It was the code of his family. It was the way of Aliquippa. “I wanted to go out and hit thirty-five or forty of the 17 November people,” he recalls. “We had a list, and I didn’t care if we hit some of the wrong ones. So what?” Furthermore, his friends in the Greek Central Intelligence Service (CIS) and the Athens police force would take care of the dirty work. All they needed was the signal.
“But I was ordered down,” Avrakotos remembers philosophically years later. “‘We don’t do assassinations,’ they said. I was just working at the wrong time.” And so the tough steel-town kid backed off. But it was a different story when it came to Philip Agee. Like most of his colleagues, Avrakotos was enraged by Agee’s campaign to expose agents and he wanted to make him suffer. *
In the U.S. media, however, Agee was receiving a surprising amount of sympathetic treatment. A number of journalists portrayed Agee as an American innocent, radicalized by the Vietnam War and the evil he had discovered. Esquire magazine published Agee’s own apologia, in which he explained with righteous indignation why he considered it an act of conscience to try to destroy the organization in which he had served.
This was all much too much for Avrakotos, who began scheming with friendly intelligence services throughout Europe to label Agee a Cuban agent, thus getting him banned from their countries. It was at this moment, says Avrakotos, that the CIA’s deputy director for operations flew to Athens to order him to cease and desist: “He said I couldn’t use the same tactics that Agee was using against us and that my efforts were violating Agee’s civil rights. He said I would go to jail if I continued.”
The CIA’s operations chief is like the commanding general of a secret army. His word is supposed to be law to case officers in the field. The man was clearly under tremendous pressure, but Avrakotos saw him as siding with a man who was trying to expose CIA agents. He flew into a rage. “‘I understand you testified before the Pike Committee and used my name. Well, you just violated my civil rights, and if you come after me, then I’ll come after you, you bastard!’ I lectured him on what he should be doing. And you know what? That story went all over the world. Everyone was saying at all the stations: Do you know what Gust just did in Athens? He actually called the DDO a cocksucker.”
Few case officers could have gotten away with that, but Avrakotos was one of those killer operatives that every spy agency comes to depend on. He had been indispensable in Greece, and he was only trying to defend the agency. Beyond that, in spite of all his tough talk and his hatred of the blue bloods, no one who had worked with Avrakotos doubted that he loved and honored the CIA as if it were his own family. “I was never in a fraternity. The CIA is my fraternity,” he said in retirement. “I still have people who know me in over three-quarters of the stations overseas, and even today if I call any of them and say I want something, it will be done, no questions asked.”
The fact was that by 1977, Gust Avrakotos was head over heels in love with the Agency. When he returned to Aliquippa his father treated him as a man of honor: “You’re the one who is educated, you’ve seen the world. Tell us, what’s happening?” Oscar asked his son. “What are you doing about the Communists?”
“I told him that the Agency won’t let us talk about our work and he said, ‘Good, I’m proud…. Whatever you can do for your
Every operative with an ordinary instinct for self-preservation was keeping a low profile. But for Gust Avrakotos there was unfinished business. His station chief, Dick Welch, had been murdered and, as he saw it, his job was to find and murder the murderers. It was the code of his family. It was the way of Aliquippa. “I wanted to go out and hit thirty-five or forty of the 17 November people,” he recalls. “We had a list, and I didn’t care if we hit some of the wrong ones. So what?” Furthermore, his friends in the Greek Central Intelligence Service (CIS) and the Athens police force would take care of the dirty work. All they needed was the signal.
“But I was ordered down,” Avrakotos remembers philosophically years later. “‘We don’t do assassinations,’ they said. I was just working at the wrong time.” And so the tough steel-town kid backed off. But it was a different story when it came to Philip Agee. Like most of his colleagues, Avrakotos was enraged by Agee’s campaign to expose agents and he wanted to make him suffer. *
In the U.S. media, however, Agee was receiving a surprising amount of sympathetic treatment. A number of journalists portrayed Agee as an American innocent, radicalized by the Vietnam War and the evil he had discovered. Esquire magazine published Agee’s own apologia, in which he explained with righteous indignation why he considered it an act of conscience to try to destroy the organization in which he had served.
This was all much too much for Avrakotos, who began scheming with friendly intelligence services throughout Europe to label Agee a Cuban agent, thus getting him banned from their countries. It was at this moment, says Avrakotos, that the CIA’s deputy director for operations flew to Athens to order him to cease and desist: “He said I couldn’t use the same tactics that Agee was using against us and that my efforts were violating Agee’s civil rights. He said I would go to jail if I continued.”
The CIA’s operations chief is like the commanding general of a secret army. His word is supposed to be law to case officers in the field. The man was clearly under tremendous pressure, but Avrakotos saw him as siding with a man who was trying to expose CIA agents. He flew into a rage. “‘I understand you testified before the Pike Committee and used my name. Well, you just violated my civil rights, and if you come after me, then I’ll come after you, you bastard!’ I lectured him on what he should be doing. And you know what? That story went all over the world. Everyone was saying at all the stations: Do you know what Gust just did in Athens? He actually called the DDO a cocksucker.”
Few case officers could have gotten away with that, but Avrakotos was one of those killer operatives that every spy agency comes to depend on. He had been indispensable in Greece, and he was only trying to defend the agency. Beyond that, in spite of all his tough talk and his hatred of the blue bloods, no one who had worked with Avrakotos doubted that he loved and honored the CIA as if it were his own family. “I was never in a fraternity. The CIA is my fraternity,” he said in retirement. “I still have people who know me in over three-quarters of the stations overseas, and even today if I call any of them and say I want something, it will be done, no questions asked.”
The fact was that by 1977, Gust Avrakotos was head over heels in love with the Agency. When he returned to Aliquippa his father treated him as a man of honor: “You’re the one who is educated, you’ve seen the world. Tell us, what’s happening?” Oscar asked his son. “What are you doing about the Communists?”
“I told him that the Agency won’t let us talk about our work and he said, ‘Good, I’m proud…. Whatever you can do for your
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