Howard Hart
Howard Phillips Hart | |
---|---|
Birth name | Howard Lester Phillips Jr. |
Born | St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. | October 16, 1940
Died | April 30, 2017 (age 76) Dyke, Virginia, U.S. |
Allegiance | United States of America |
Service/ | Central Intelligence Agency |
Years of service | 1965–1984 |
Battles/wars | Iran, Afghanistan |
Awards | Distinguished Officer in the Senior Intelligence Service, Distinguished Intelligence Medal, Intelligence Medal of Merit, CIA 50th Anniversary Trailblazer Award |
Alma mater | Cornell University University of Arizona |
Howard Phillips Hart (born as Howard Lester Phillips Jr.; October 16, 1940 – April 30, 2017) was an American
Early life
Hart was born Howard Lester Phillips Jr. on 16 October 1940 in
Following their return to the United States, Eleanor and Howard Sr. divorced and Eleanor married Joseph Chittendon Hart. Joseph Hart was a banker with
Hart attended
.Career
Hart joined the CIA after finishing
A career Near East Division officer, Hart's overseas postings included five years in India; two years as a Chief of Station (COS) in the Persian Gulf; a three-year posting in Iran, before, during and after the Iranian Revolution (where he was Chief of Station after the Shah fell and the American Embassy was overrun by Khomeini elements); three years as COS Pakistan during the Soviet–Afghan War; and COS, Germany in the period leading up to the collapse of Communism.
In 1978 Hart began working the streets of Tehran. His reports that, contrary to over 15 years of CIA estimates, the Shah's rule was far from stable or secure were suppressed by more senior personnel within the CIA. He was captured a few days after the Shah's fall by an armed group of supporters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and escaped summary execution by appealing to a mullah, who agreed that the Koran did not sanction such punishment.[6]
Immediately following his return from Iran in the fall of 1979 he was assigned to the Pentagon's "Iran Rescue Mission Joint Task Force" as the senior intelligence advisor to the Task Force commander. Hart established and managed an extraordinary CIA-in-country support structure for the ill-fated Iran Rescue Mission in 1980, and accompanied the mission on deployment.
Hart jump-started the CIA's efforts to equip the
In 2010 Hart published a book called: Intelligence Thoughts: Afghanistan and Iran.[7]
In 2015 Hart published A Life for a Life: A Memoir: My Career in Espionage Working for the Central Intelligence Agency
See also
Notes
- ^ Coll 57
- ^ "Howard Hart, legendary figure in CIA clandestine service, dies at 76". Washington Post. Retrieved 2017-05-22.
- ISBN 978-0-8021-4341-9
- ^ Powers, Thomas (January 17, 2002). "The Trouble with the CIA". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 17 October 2013.
- ^ a b Coll 55
- ^ Tim Weiner, 2007. Legacy of Ashes pp. 368–369.
- ISBN 978-0557527465
References
- Coll, Steve. Ghost Wars : The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. New York: Penguin, 2004.