Stuart Methven
 Stuart Methven    ( spook) | |
|---|---|
.jpg) | |
| Born | 1928 |
| Died | 21 November 2017 (Age 89) |
| Nationality | US |
| Alma mater | • Amherst College • MIT |
| Spouse | • Joy Buckminister Methven • Nicole Lermusieau |
Stuart E. Methven was a CIA spook who participated in creating puppet forces in Vietnam, then participated in the covert war against Angola and propping up Mobutu of Zaire.
Education
Methven served in the U.S. Army from 1945 to 1947.[1] He studied at Amherst College. His senior history thesis was on Civil War espionage. Methven later took a master's in history at MIT after his time in Vietnam.[2]
Career
As a spook for the Central Intelligence Agency, he was posted to Tokyo, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Zaire and West Germany.[3]
During the Vietnam War, he recruited montagnard tribes, most notably the Hmong, to fight as puppet forces. He later helped many Hmong settle in Montana.[2] According to fellow spook Thomas Ahern, Methven "had an enormous gift for creating relationships of trust with foreign contacts and exploiting them for operational purposes. His style was ideal for the Indochina of the 1950s and 1960s as the covert action programs the station intended to launch in South Vietnam needed indigenous leaders with genuine authority who were willing also to accept both US guidance on the conduct of these activities and our control over material and financial support."[4]
He was Chief of Station for Zaire in the 1970s.[5][6]Zaire was the CIA base for supporting a proxy force in the Angolan civil war.
References
- ↑ https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/legacyremembers/stuart-methven-obituary?id=11869227
- ↑ a b https://www.amherst.edu/news/magazine/in_memory/1951/stuartmethven
- ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1990/03/28/obituaries/af73a4ba-5ef1-4dc5-b0a5-342c1d14ec92/
- ↑ https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/c7189a03edf1b72ffa0897f2b19120bf/AhernMemoir-14Dec2023-1.pdf
- ↑ https://ia903408.us.archive.org/0/items/pdfy-9MwmH_nnJ4eOmL66/Philip%20Agee%20%26%20Louis%20Wolf%20-%20Dirty%20Work%20%281978%29.pdf
- ↑ http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2009/11/interview-with-cia-veteran-stuart-e.html
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