Theodore Shackley

Theodore George "Ted" Shackley, Jr. (July 16, 1927 — December 9, 2002) was an American CIA officer involved in many important and controversial CIA operations during the 1960s and 1970s. He is one of the most decorated CIA officers. Due to his "light hair and mysterious ways", Shackley was known to his colleagues as "the Blond Ghost".

In the early 1960s, Shackley's work included being station chief in Miami, during the period of the Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as the Cuban Project (also known as Operation Mongoose), which he directed. He was also said to be the director of the "Phoenix Program" during the Vietnam War, as well as the CIA station chief in Laos between 1966–1968, and Saigon station chief from 1968 through February 1972. In 1976, he was appointed Associate Deputy Director for Operations, and was in charge of the CIA's worldwide covert operations. Shackley is perhaps best known for his involvement in CIA "black ops".

Shackley was born on July 16, 1927, and raised in West Palm Beach, Florida. He enlisted in the U.S. Army on October 23, 1945 at Springfield, Massachusetts as a private, eventually becoming part of the Allied Occupation Force in Germany on completion of basic training. Due to his knowledge of the Polish language (his mother was a Polish immigrant), he became a recruit of U.S. Army Counter Intelligence. As an Army recruit he studied at the University of Maryland, and returned to Germany as a 2nd Lieutenant in 1951. Again he served as a member of Army Counter Intelligence, where his linguistic skills were used in the recruitment of Polish agents. It was at this time that he was recruited by the CIA, and in 1953 he was assigned to work under William King Harvey at the CIA's Berlin Base. In 1961, Shackley married Hazel Tindol Shackley of Bethesda.

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