Richard Welch
| Richard Skeffington Welch | |
|---|---|
Richard Welch
|
|
| Born |
Richard Skeffington Welch December 14, 1929 Hartford, Connecticut |
| Died | December 23, 1975 (aged 46) Athens, Greece |
| Occupation | CIA official (Chief of Station, Athens) |
| Employer | Central Intelligence Agency |
Richard Skeffington Welch (December 14, 1929 – December 23, 1975) was a CIA Station Chief (COS) killed by the Greek urban guerrilla Marxist organization Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17N).
Welch, who was born in Hartford, Connecticut, was recruited to the CIA in 1951 upon graduation from Harvard, where he studied classics. His first assignment as a case officer was in Athens working as a civilian employee of the U.S. Department of the Army (1952–59). From 1960-64, he served in Cyprus, and then in Guatemala (1965–67), Guyana as COS (1967–69), and Peru as COS (1972–75).
He arrived in Athens, Greece, in July 1975, at a time when Greece had just come out a tumultuous period of military dictatorship. Welch stayed in the house occupied by several of his predecessors as chief of the CIA station. The night of December 23, 1975, five men in a stolen Simca followed him home as he returned from a Christmas party. While two men covered his wife and driver, a third shot him dead with a .45 Colt M1911 pistol at close range. Welch's name and address had been published in the Athens News and Eleftherotypia in November 1975. However, a communiqué sent by 17N to French newspaper Libération in March 1976 demonstrated that the group had been watching Welch's movements since the summer of 1975. He had been revealed as a CIA agent in an East German book and a magazine called CounterSpy after the Athens News and Eleftherotypia disclosures. However, Parker R. refers to the former CIA agent Philip Agee, who had published two books revealing the names of more than 1,000 alleged CIA officers in Europe and Africa. For that reason the Supreme Court had revoked Agee's passport in Haig v. Agee. "[...] Outraged by Agee’s actions, Congress passed the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (1982), which criminalized the disclosure of identities of CIA agents. The practice of naming CIA agents allegedly led directly to the 1975 assassination of CIA station chief Richard Welch in Greece."
...
Wikipedia