Desmond Fitzgerald (CIA officer)

Desmond FitzGerald (June 16, 1910 – July 23, 1967) was an American intelligence officer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where he rose to the position of Deputy Director for Plans. He served in the CIA from 1950 until his death. Posthumously he was awarded the National Security Medal. An attorney, he had worked in New York City both before and after World War II. During the war, he was an Army officer, serving as liaison and adviser to the Chinese Army.

Desmond Fitzgerald was born in New York City in 1910, to a family in the upper class. He was educated at St. Mark's School in Southborough, Massachusetts. He completed both his undergraduate and law degrees at Harvard University, gaining the latter in 1935. He worked for six years at a New York law firm.

At the outbreak of World War II Fitzgerald was "a 31-year-old attorney with a wife and a child" yet he enlisted as a private in the Army. He soon transferred to Officer Candidate School and was commissioned as an officer. His assignment was as liaison to the Chinese army operating in the China-Burma-India theater, where he was promoted to the rank of major and awarded the Bronze Star. He was linked with the Chinese 6th army which operated in Burma.

After the war, Fitzgerald returned to New York City, where he worked at a Wall Street law firm. He enjoyed connections with the city's elite social circles.

Fitzgerald was recruited for the CIA by Frank Wisner in 1950. According to Prados, Fitzgerald worked in the CIA's Far East Division on a diverse array of projects, dealing with Tibet, China, the Philippines, Japan, and Korea. He became friends with William Colby, also in the Far East Division (Colby became DCI in 1973). Fitzgerald was especially interested in the Tibetan Task Force, which supported the continuing Tibetan resistance against the Maoist Chinese takeover and, particularly, the 1959 Tibetan uprising. He told officers to work with Tibetan leader Gyalo Dhondup.

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