Haviland Smith

Haviland Smith   ( spook)
Born	August 25, 1929
Died	June 20, 2024 (Age 94)
Nationality	US
Alma mater	•  Phillips Exeter Academy •  Dartmouth College •  University of London
Parents	Charlotte Adams
CIA spook who was Chief of Station in Prague, handling agents across Czechoslovakia. He later led the CIA's "counterterrorism" operations, and assistant to Deputy Director Frank Carlucci.  CIA/Central Eurasia Division/Prague Station/Chief In office 1958 - 1960

Haviland Smith Jr. was a CIA spook who was Chief of Station in Prague, handling agents across Czechoslovakia. He later led the CIA's "counterterrorism" operations, and assistant to Deputy Director Frank Carlucci.

Background

Haviland Smith was born in Manhattan in 1929 and raised in Ridgewood, New Jersey. His father was a photographer and gallery owner, his mother an author of cookery books. They separated when he was still young. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy and at Dartmouth College. After graduating with a degree in English and Russian he served in the US Army Security Agency in Europe, intercepting and interpreting Russian radio messages, before moving on to the University of London to continue his Russian studies. At a party in London he was approached by a CIA recruiter.

Career

In 1958, he was posted to Czechoslovakia, where he was the CIA's station chief in Prague. There he helped break radio codes used Czech security police. He would later be stationed in Berlin. After Berlin, he would spend five years in the Middle East. In the 1970s, served as chief of the counterterrorism staff at the CIA for three years. Smith worked as executive assistant to the Deputy Director Frank Carlucci. He retired in 1980.

Smith was stationed in Beirut, Lebanon during the 1967 Six-Day War. After the Israeli Defense Forces attacked the USS Liberty, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dwight J. Porter revealed that he had listened to radio transcripts that showed the Israelis knew they were attacking an American ship. Smith said that although he never saw the transcripts, he had "heard on a number of occasions exactly the story that you just told me about what that transcript contained. [I was later told] that ultimately all of the transcripts were deep-sixed. I was told that they were deep-sixed because the administration did not wish to embarrass the Israelis.”

From 1969 to 1971 he was posted to Tehran, then returned to Washington DC. There he oversaw worldwide spy recruitment operations and led the CIA's "counterterrorism" operations, monitoring various militant groups including the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland and the Baader-Meinhof group in West Germany. He spent the final years of his time at the CIA working as executive assistant to Frank Carlucci, the agency's deputy director.

He retired in 1980

Later activities

He bought a farm in Vermont. He wrote op-ed pieces for newspapers castigating US policy in the Middle East as "totally simplistic". Donald Trump, meanwhile, he accused of promoting policies that "would appear to be in line with the goals of the Russian leadership to weaken their American rival".

Smith died at his home in Monroe Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey, on June 25, 2024, at the age of 94, of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said to be COVID-19 and.

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References

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