CIA/European Division/Madrid Station/Chief
 CIA/European Division/Madrid Station/Chief(CIA/Chief of Station) | |
|---|---|
| The CIA's Chief of Station in Madrid, Spain. |
The CIA's Chief of Station in Madrid, Spain.
People
In our April 1979 issue, we described in some detail the CIA station in Madrid, Spain. We noted that the position of Chief of Station had been held by Robert D. Gahagen till 1976, when he was replaced by his Deputy Dean J. Almy, Jr., until 1977, when Nestor D. Sanchez took over. We have now learned that shortly after our article, which was reprinted in a Spanish magazine, Sanchez left and was replaced as Chief of Station by Ronald Edward Estes, Estes, born June 28, 1931 in Washington, DC, whose full biography appears in Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe, served under deep cover from 1957 to 1962. Since then, under diplomatic cover, he has served in Nicosia, Cyprus; Prague, Czechoslovakia; Headquarters; Beirut, Lebanon; and Athens, Greece. The January 1980 Madrid Diplomatic List indicates that he arrived in Madrid in July 1979, as Attache, and, in fact, Nestor Sanchez's replacement as Chief of Station.[1]
Office Holders on Wikispooks
| Name | From | To | Boss | Deputy | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Samuel Wyman | 1986 | 1986 | known in 1986 | ||
| Ron Estes (spook) | 1979 | 1981 | |||
| Nestor Sanchez | 1977 | 1979 | |||
| Fig Coleman | 1966 | 1970 | |||
| Archibald Roosevelt | 1958 | 1962 |
Related Quotation
| Page | Quote | Author | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| CIA/Station/Chief | “The key figures, at least in an operational sense, within the CIA infrastructure are known as Chiefs of Station (COS). Usually located within the U.S. Embassy compound, Chiefs of Station are charged with maintaining, creating, and exploiting the infrastructure within a given country.
U.S. Foreign Policy, both overt and covert, is administered through what is known as the "country team" concept. This "country team", nominally, headed by the ambassador, is composed of the highest ranking foreign service officers within a given country, including the COS. Its job is to concretize the often vague platitudes issued by Washington. The CIA's role in all-this, of course, is the implementation of clandestine aspects of foreign policy. The range of covert actions available to the CIA is limitless where a strong infrastructure exists...Two categories of covert action exist: Psychological Warfare and Paramilitary. Psychological Warfare actions, as defined by former CIA agent Philip Agee, include "propaganda (also known simply as media), work in youth and student organizations, work in labor organizations (trade unions, etc.), work in professional and cultural groups, and in political parties." He goes on to define paramilitary actions as "infiltration into denied areas, sabotage, economic warfare, personal harassment, air and maritime support, weaponry, training and support for small armies." An example of this clandestine policy and implementation can be seen with tensions that existed between the U.S. and Cuba during the early 1960s. The goal of U.S. foreign policy was to isolate Cuba from the rest of the non-communist world, in Latin America, governments were pressured to break diplomatic relations. Those governments that opposed U.S. policy towards Cuba soon began experiencing internal strife and economic chaos, directed, of course, by the CIA. The Chief of Station is charged with overseeing the use of these techniques and the network of contacts that makes them possible. The world wide infrastructure maintained by the CIA intervenes in the affairs of other nations on a daily basis, not 'from time to time as the National Security Council may direct.'” | Philip Agee CounterSpy | 1975 |
