Blond Ghost - Ted Shackley
Thomas Polgar (far right) takes command of the CIA station in Saigon, January 1972. At left is former Station Chief Ted Shackley, heading back to a new assignment in Washington. In the middle is General Creighton Abrams, head of the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) - CIA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Introduction
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 1961, Shackley married Hazel Tindol Shackley of Bethesda.
Job Titles
Case Officer - Berlin: In 1953 he was assigned to work under William King Harvey at the CIA's Berlin Base
Chief of Station (COS) Miami, Florida
"JMWAVE" shortly after the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion, Shackley dealt with operations in Cuba (alongside Edward Lansdale). JMWAVE employed more than 200 CIA officers, who handled approximately 2,000 Cuban agents.
"Operation Mongoose" (aka "The Cuban Project"). The aim of this was to "help Cubans (exiles) overthrow the Communist regime" (of Fidel Castro Ruz). During this period as Miami Station Chief, Shackley was in charge of about 400 agents and general operatives (as well as a huge flotilla of boats), and his tenure there encompassed the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.
Chief of Station (COS) in Vientiane, Laos between 1966–1968
Chief of Station (COS) in Saigon, South Vietnam between 1968 through February 1972.
Shackley was responsible for running the Phoenix Program and the Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRUs) in South Vietnam. The program had already started before his arrival in Saigon, and he said he did not even approve of it, helping it to transition to the control of the South Vietnamese army. The program started out as an intelligence collection project and morphed into a torture and assassination horror show.
In 1976, he was appointed Associate Deputy Director for Operations, second in charge of CIA covert operations.
From May 1972, Shackley ran the CIA's "Western Hemisphere Division". When Shackley took over the division, one mission for him was "regime change" in Chile (United States intervention in Chile / Project FUBELT).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Shackley
Ted’s final official assignment was to try to contain and spy on Philip Agee, who was writing a tell-all book about the Agency, the Ex-CIA Case Officer that betrayed the USA.
During this time, Shackley also dealt with the case of ex-CIA officer Philip Agee, who was suspected of having defected to Cuban intelligence. Agee had told acquaintances that he was going to write an exposé of the CIA (published in 1975 as Inside The Company: CIA Diary). Shackley managed to get a copy of Agee's book before it was published, and according to journalist David Corn, even arranged for Agee to receive a bugged typewriter.
Reportedly, Ted was forced out of the CIA by the new CIA Director Stansfield Turner who disapproved of Shackley's involvement with former agent Edwin P. Wilson, who was under federal investigation for smuggling explosives to Libya.
Iran-Contra
In the early eighties, Ted was falsely charged with complicity in the Iran-Contra scandal.
My Family
Ted and his wife Hazel were friends with my parents, and they ran in the same circles, like formal dinners, cocktail parties, etc.
It is not usual for only Agency people to hang out together. A lot like police officers and firemen, a group identity to protect oneself from outsiders attacking or judging.
Ted and my Dad
Ted and my father worked together on two different projects.
When Ted was the Chief of Station (COS) Miami, Florida, they worked together on "Operation Mongoose”, to help the Cubans overthrow Castro in Cuba and help President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
My father helped sabotage Cuban ships using his TSD skills.
CIA Technical Services Division (TSD)
Ted, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, and my father worked on delivering poisons and assassination plots to Cuba in many attempts to kill Castro. Sid was my father’s CIA TSD division boss at CIA HQ at the time
When Ted was Chief of Station (COS) in Vientiane, Laos, my father worked directly for Ted in the Secret War in Laos.
Passing
Shackley died from cancer at his home in Bethesda, Maryland. He was 75 years old.
Books
https://www.amazon.com/Spymaster-Life-CIA-Ted-Shackley/dp/1574889222
Theodore Shackley (1981). The Third Option: An American View of Counter-insurgency Operations. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0070563829.
Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA's Crusades
David Corn, Author Simon & Schuster $27 (509p) ISBN 978-0-671-69525-5
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-671-69525-5
I knew of David Corn’s research into Ted, so I called David and asked him some basic questions.
I was going to be a source for his book, but I did not get a warm fuzzy feeling from him, he seemed to be more of an activist and not a reporter, so I declined to give him any information about Ted and the relationship Ted had with my parents or any interesting stories or anecdotes.
[ Disclaimer: My father wrote this chapter for his own website, and I am reprinting it here, with minor editing. ]
A Dinner "Roast" for the New Saigon CIA Station Chief (Circa 1968)
Ted Shackley was one of the most brilliant men I ever met. He was the CIA station chief in Vientiane, Laos, for much of my tour there. Although CIA station chiefs anywhere are miniature gods with immense powers and responsibilities, Ted's job in Laos was in large part to prosecute the Secret War in Laos. He was a General in a business suit and a master intelligence officer.
Ted was my boss on a day-to-day basis, but I actually reported back to my division chief in Washington in the final analysis. So, I had a unique position. I needed to please Ted and do a good job for my country, but my promotions - or lack thereof - came from Washington. I had been sent to Laos, mostly against my desires, because I was told that not only did I have the skills to do the job there, but that I had the political and personal skills to "survive" Ted Shackley's general disdain for my technical division. I was the sacrificial lamb and gave up being posted to Copenhagen for the dubious honor of jousting with the widely-feared Mr. Shackley. I actually was given a choice, but you know what the future would have dealt had I declined to go to Laos.
Over the months, I performed well and had a chance to work closely with Ted Shackley on a number of projects. He was a stern task master and a man of little humor. This was a war and he had a warrior's face on nearly every waking hour. Eventually, we began to form a bit of a bond of mutual respect. I got so comfortable that I would make jabs at him in private and in meetings, just to loosen him up and let him know that I really did not give a damn. After all, I could have been hanging out at the finest hotels in Copenhagen had it not been for him and his stupid war.
One day I was taking color photos (for slides) of charts on the war's progress - that he was going to use to brief the big military and congressional brass. The material was so highly classified that he took me into the bubble at the Embassy and personally held the posters while I took the shots. After a while, I put the camera down, and said, "Damn, the girls in the lab forgot to put film in the camera." I thought he was going to have a stroke. "Only kidding," I said. I got a steely stare that would have killed a person worried about his future in the Agency. What possessed me to do that, I will never know. It was some kind of early statement that I would not be intimidated by him.
On a holiday, Ted called an emergency meeting. We assembled in the Embassy and the topic was grave indeed. I was seated next to Ted. You could feel the tension in the room. I looked at him and said, "Ted, why is your watch on upside down?" He glanced at it, saw I was right, and shot me another one of his withering stares, perhaps with a hint of a smile. The tension in the room eased. As the saying goes, "a nervous titter went through the room." It was obvious that I just did not give a shit. I was good at my job. I hated being there. And I could not have packed soon enough if Ted had gotten me transferred. But deep down, he knew that I was the only guy in the station with the nerve to pull his chain the way I did.
One night we had a party at the American compound, probably the Marine Corps birthday or some such thing. Ted was pretty shy in public, and somehow I ended up dancing a flamboyant dance with his beautiful and shapely wife, Hazel. I think it was a Tango, although I don't know how to tango. A few glasses of wine had caused a dancing breakthrough - for both of us. Almost everyone stood aside to watch the spectacle. I supposed that people could see me on the next plane out of town after that stunt.
I think it was that same night that I invited everyone over to my house for music and drinks afterward. When I got to my aging Rambler station wagon, it would not start. It took a screwdriver jammed in between the battery connector to finally get going. When I arrived at the house, there was Theodore Shackley, CIA station chief, tending bar. Mind you. I was really just a middle-level flunkie in the grand scheme of things. But, I knew I had broken through the iron curtain. "I'll have a Scotch, Ted." I don't want to give you the impression that we were all a bunch of drunks, but these occasional parties, and they were few, were a needed relief from the war. And trying to keep our families intact in the midst of this madness.
Ted once invited me to a dinner party when William Colby, who later became Director of CIA, was visiting our station in Laos. A nice gesture toward a "middle-level flunkie." Ironically, Bill Colby later gave me a terrific quote for the dust jacket of my first novel. In my letter to him, asking for the quote (which went along with the manuscript), I reminded him that he was the only big shot from HQ who had ever come to Laos who declined our offer to take in the pleasures of the "White Rose." It was my way of complimenting him. Better left unsaid what were the pleasures at the White Rose. Well, there was drinking, some nude dancing in your booth, and ---- but, that's enough of that. I might offend someone from NOW. I hope.
I tell you all of this so that you can appreciate my finest hour. Ted Shackley was selected to take over the CIA station chief job in Saigon. Some of the senior station people in Laos came to me and asked if I would be the master of ceremonies at his going-away dinner - and roast. I was puzzled. "You are about the only one around here who could get away with roasting him. And keep your job." Flattered, I accepted the challenge.
At about this time, General Creighton W. Abrams was taking over in Vietnam from Gen. Westmoreland. TIME magazine ran a huge photo of the General on the cover, with the caption, "New Man in Vietnam." I had an inspiration. I asked Ted Shackley's secretary for a copy of his passport photo, explaining my scheme. She loved the idea and loaned me the photo long enough to make a copy of it in my electronics/photo lab. I then made a copy of the cover of TIME, cut out Gen. Abrams' photo, pasted in Ted's photo, and then printed the thing. It looked pretty legitimate - for a casual glance. It was no Van Gogh knockoff. This was long before Photoshop and the like. It was cut and paste and shoot.
Now, I had a TIME magazine with the photo of the new Saigon CIA station chief, Ted Shackley, with the caption "New Man in Vietnam." One did not go around advertising who CIA station chiefs were, especially the newly-selected one for Saigon. It was, of course, the hottest CIA job on the globe.
The dinner was nice, with everyone in the CIA station there, and the Marines guarding the door to the dining room, so we did not have interlopers. I told a few stories about Ted and poked fun at him from several sides. Even he laughed at some of my material. Then I reached in my briefcase and took out the dummied-up TIME magazine. I forget the exact words I used, but it was something to the effect that "everyone seems to be looking forward to Ted's arrival in Saigon." Ted was quite a ways down the table from me. I had told nobody, other than his secretary, Elsie, about the scam. I handed the phony TIME to the closest person. You could see his eyes bug out and hear a mild gasp. And down the table went the magazine. When it finally got to Ted Shackley, he was primed for the sucker-punch. He was simply stunned when he saw the TIME cover.
In a few moments, either Ted realized that it was a composite or I told him. I hope he still has that magazine cover among his mementos. I did not make a copy, or I would post a .JPG of it here. There is a moral. You can have a lot of fun when the job needs you more than you need it, and you let everyone know it. It allows you, a junior player, to completely skewer one of the top men in CIA, in front of his whole office, and everybody has a good time, probably including the skewee. I love you, Ted. Regards to Hazel. May I have the next dance?
Other Links
https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKshackley.htm
Summary
There is a ton of speculation and conspiracies about Ted, but I will not chase those rabbits.
I will stick to what I know.
Other Links
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)