Gust Avrakotos

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Person.png Gust Avrakotos  Rdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
( spook)
Gust Avrakotos.jpg
BornJanuary 14, 1938
 Aliquippa,  Pennsylvania,  U.S.
DiedDecember 1, 2005 (Age 67)
Nationality US
EthnicityGreek
Alma mater University of Pittsburgh
Children Gregory Avrakotos
Spouse •  Judith Driesen
•  Claudette Avrakotos ​
Member ofAssociation of Former Intelligence Officers/1996 members A-H
CIA spook often referred to by his nickname "Dr. Dirty" for his willingness to ignore ethical considerations

Employment.png Executive

In office
1989 - 1997
EmployerNews Corp
Succeeded byJessica Uhl
CIA spook

Employment.png Spook Wikipedia-icon.png

In office
1982 - 1988
EmployerCIA/Near East and South Asia Division
Succeeded byDino Bellasi
Operation Cyclone

Employment.png Spook Wikipedia-icon.png

In office
1963 - 1978
EmployerCIA/European Division/Athens Station
Preceded byRobert van Roijen Jr.
Succeeded byDick Holm, Frederick Vreeland
Main liaison between the CIA and the military junta

Gust Lascaris Avrakotos, often referred to by his nickname "Dr. Dirty" for his willingness to ignore ethical considerations, was an CIA case officer. He was liaison between the agency and the Greek military junta 1967-75, and involved in Operation Cyclone, the CIA program to arm, train and finance the Afghan mujahideen.[1]

Early life

Avrakotos was born on January 14, 1938, in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, the son of Oscar, a Greek American soft drink manufacturer from the island of Lemnos, and his wife Zafira. The couple also had a daughter He attended Aliquippa High School, where he graduated in 1955 as valedictorian. He then attended college at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT); he briefly worked at Jones and Laughlin Steel mill in Aliquippa to earn money for his studies but left CIT after two years because of a strain on family finances.

After working selling beer and cigarettes to bars frequented by immigrants from eastern and central Europe, Avrakotos had finished paying off the family debts by 1959. He returned to college at the University of Pittsburgh, where he graduated summa cum laude.

Career

After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, Avrakotos interviewed for a position at IBM when one of his professors, Richard Cottam, who had also worked at the Central Intelligence Agency, suggested he meet with a CIA interviewer. Although the salary was only a third of what he could have earned at IBM, Avrakotos joined the CIA on August 1, 1962.[2]

Avrakotos initially felt like an outsider at the CIA, which was heavily reliant on White Anglo-Saxon Protestants from Ivy League universities. The working class Avrakotos was one of the CIA's first White ethnic agents. He later said: "Almost everyone was a fucking blue blood in the CIA in 1961 when I came in. They were just beginning to let Jews move up that year. But there still weren't any blacks, Hispanics, or females—just some token Greeks and Polacks."[3] Although he developed friendships with some of the officers in the agency, "he came to loathe a certain type of blue blood with a rage that bordered on class hatred", according to journalist George Crile. Throughout his time with the CIA, his blunt approach and use of obscenities in day-to-day speech irritated many of his superiors.[4]

Posting in Greece

After extensive training for field work, Avrakotos was posted to Greece in 1963. He spent time building relationships in Greek society, including within the military. Following the 1967 Greek coup d'état and the establishment of a military junta, Avrakotos became the main liaison point for the CIA and the government. He had built strong links with the members of the junta; Crile wrote that the colonels:


had all started off life as peasants before joining the army, and they felt a kinship with this charismatic, working-class American whose parents had come from Lemnos. They could speak Greek with him. He drank and whored with them, and they knew from the heart that he shared their ferocious anti-Communism.[5]

Avrakotos lunched with the colonels regularly and socialized with them in the evenings and at weekends. He also provided both officially sanctioned advice, and more practical suggestions that had no official backing: when Andreas Papandreou, the future prime minister of Greece, was incarcerated, Avrakotos gave them the official message that Papandreou should be allowed to leave the country for the US, and also unofficially advised them to "shoot the motherfucker because he's going to come back to haunt you".[6]

The junta was known for its extensive use of torture. An Amnesty International report described among other things:


The standard initial torture is the so-called falanga. The prisoner is tied to a bench and the soles of his feet are beaten with a stick or pipe...Common methods accompanying falanga are: pouring water down the mouth and nose while the prisoner is screaming from pain; putting "Tide" soap in the eyes, mouth and nose; banging the head on a bench or on the floor; beating on other parts of the body, etc. Numerous incidents of sexually-orientated torture were reported. In the case of women, the torturers shove as many fingers as possible, or an object, into the vagina and twist and tear brutally. This is also done with the anus. A tube is inserted into the anus and water is driven into the prisoner under very high pressure. In the case of men, beatings on the genitals with long, thin sandbags have frequently been reported. Techniques of gagging are frequently reported...The throat is grasped in such a way that the windpipe is cut off, or a filthy rag (often soaked in urine) is shoved down the throat. Suffocation is prevented only at the last moment....Beating naked flesh with wires knotted together into a whip..Jumping on the stomach..Pulling-out toe-nails and finger-nails...Different methods of inflicting burns, including putting out cigarettes on parts of the body..Use of electric shock.[7]

In December 1975, the CIA chief of station in Athens – and Avrakotos's superior – Richard Welch, was gunned down on his doorstep by three members of the 17 November Group, a leftwing urban guerrilla organization after his cover as a member of the CIA was publicized. Two months later Avrakotos's cover was also blown, and he was exposed in the Greek leftwing press. With the publicity, his life also came under threat. Several of his friends from the regime of the Colonels were assassinated and Avrakotos had to increase the use of his fieldcraft to ensure he avoided being targeted. Nonetheless, he stayed on until his tenure in Greece was terminated in 1978.[8]

Return to the U.S.

On his return to the U.S., Avrakotos was posted to Boston where he was to recruit visiting foreign businessmen - something he excelled at. Two of the Iranian businessmen he recruited provided real-time information to the CIA on security changes at the Embassy of the United States, Tehran during Operation Eagle Claw.[9]

With the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, Avrakotos saw an opportunity for the war to become the Soviet version of America's Vietnam War. He had his assistant, John Terjelian, write a report outlining the possibility of such an outcome. After three years working in Boston, he was relocated to the agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia, from where he was sent on various assignments. Some members of staff gave him the nickname "Dr. Dirty" because of his disregard for ethics. He was concerned that he had been typecast in the position of an officer who undertakes such dirty work, and was delighted to be assigned as station chief in Helsinki, Finland. He undertook a Finnish-language course in preparation for his role, but before he could be posted, a change in the CIA hierarchy led to the posting being canceled because Avrakotos was considered too unpolished.[10]

In September 1981, he was told of this decision by William Graver, the head of the European Division. Avrakotos told his superior to go and fuck himself, and walked out of the meeting. When later summoned to Graver's office to apologize, Avrakotos repeated the insult and again walked out. To avoid dismissal or censure, Avrakotos had a friend in the Latin American division find a job for him, still working at Langley, then avoided all areas of the building where he was likely to meet any of the superiors who would have started disciplinary proceedings.

South Asia Operations Group

The position in the Latin America division was only temporary and in late 1982, Avrakotos soon found a position with the agency's Near East desk, which included oversight of the CIA's work in Afghanistan, including involvement in Operation Cyclone, the CIA program to arm and finance the Afghan mujahideen. In 1983, he was appointed acting Chief of the South Asia Operations Group.[11] His early work in the group involved sourcing weapons and ammunition for the mujahideen, initially .303 rounds for the 100,000 First World War-era Lee–Enfield rifles. He was sent to the United Kingdom to procure the ammunition, and also assisted in Britain's covert operations to the mujahideen, providing MI6 with the money and equipment they needed.

He traveled to Egypt to obtain bicycles and wheelbarrows that were rigged as bombs and purchased sniper rifles; although it was illegal for him, as a member of the CIA, to sell these to foreigners, he reclassified them as "individual defensive devices;... long-range, night-vision devices with scopes". He also advised US Special Forces instructors training the mujahideen to use irregular warfare methods against the Soviets, telling the trainers:

Teach the mujahideen how to kill: pipe bombs, car bombs. But don't ever tell me how you're doing it in writing. Just do it."Davis, Mike (2007). Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb. London: Verso. ISBN 978-1-8446-7132-8. page 93</ref>

In 1984, Avrakotos appointed Michael G. Vickers from the CIA's paramilitary group to Operation Cyclone to revamp the strategy for the mujahideen. Vickers urged them to drop the Lee-Enfield in favor of a mix of weapons like the AK-47 and 14.5mm heavy machine guns, and to introduce new tactics, training, and logistics. Funding for Operation Cyclone rose year-on-year and by 1985, $250 million was provided to the CIA. This amount was half their operational budget.

Since the late 1970s, the CIA had been sending the weapons for the mujahedeen through the Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence.[12] During the 1980s, Avrakotos aided in persuading officials from Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia to increase support and funding for the operation; the Saudis pledged to secretly match all CIA spending toward the mujahedeen. Nations including the UK, Egypt, China and Israel provided weapons to fight the Soviets. Crile observes the international situation was unique: Pakistan provided training facilities, arms and advisors; Saudi Arabia and the US provided hundreds of millions of dollars, the UK, Egypt, China and Israel provided weapons; support of differing types came from numerous Muslim countries and the intelligence services of the UK, France, Canada, Germany, Singapore and others gave support.[13]

In 1986, Avrakotos was concerned about a plan by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, a staff member of the National Security Council to trade arms in exchange for hostages – the Iran–Contra affair. Avrakotos considered North part of a "lunatic fringe" following a reckless agenda that would go wrong for the CIA. He wrote a memo to the CIA management, outlining his concerns about North's activities, but as Iran-Contra had presidential support, his intervention was deemed unwelcome, and Avrakotos was moved to the CIA's Africa Division.[14]

Africa Division

Avrakotos was on the verge of marrying a fellow member of the CIA; his son from his first marriage was also an employee of CIA. Avrakotos realized that if he made a fuss about his sideways move, both of them could suffer professionally. He remained on the CIA's Africa desk until 1989, when he left the CIA.[15]

Post-CIA career

Avrakotos worked for defense contractor TRW Inc. in Rome, and then for News Corporation, where he worked in Rome and McLean, Virginia; he began a business intelligence newsletter at the company. Between 1997 and 2003, he returned to the CIA as a contractor.

Personal life

Avrakotos was married twice. His first marriage ended in divorce before 1978. His second marriage, to Claudette – who also worked in the CIA – lasted 19 years, from 1986 until his death. Avrakotos and his first wife had a son, Gregory

In Hollywood propaganda

In 2003 George Crile published Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History, his history of Operation Cyclone, which brought him into the public eye.[16] Actor and producer Tom Hanks bought the rights to the book and made it the basis of the film Charlie Wilson's War, released in 2007, in which Avrakotos is portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Hoffman received an Academy Award nomination for his performance.[17]


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References

  1. ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2005/12/25/cia-agent-gust-l-avrakotos-dies-at-age-67/22a47f22-6594-4b9d-a90a-6f7914aa909a/
  2. ↑ Crile, George (2003). Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-4124-8. page 48-49
  3. ↑ Crile, George (2003). Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-4124-8. page 41
  4. ↑ Crile, George (2003). Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-4124-8. page 42
  5. ↑ Crile, George (2003). Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-4124-8. page 52
  6. ↑ Crile, George (2003). Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-4124-8. page 52
  7. ↑ https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/eur250071977eng.pdf
  8. ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/24/AR2005122400871.html
  9. ↑ Crile, George (2003). Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-4124-8. page 57
  10. ↑ Crile, George (2003). Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-4124-8. page 60
  11. ↑ Crile, George (2003). Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-4124-8. page 154. 157
  12. ↑ Krishnan, Armin (2018). Why Paramilitary Operations Fail. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-71631-2. ISBN 978-3-319-71630-5. page 60
  13. ↑ Crile, George (2003). Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-4124-8. page 206
  14. ↑ Prados, John (2007). Safe for Democracy. Chicago, Il: Ivan R. Dee. ISBN 978-1-5666-3574-5. pages 486-487
  15. ↑ Crile, George (2003). Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-4124-8. page 454
  16. ↑ https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/the-rehabilitation-of-charlie-wilson/
  17. ↑ Charlie Wilson's War (2007)". AFI Catalog.
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