Theodore Shackley, 75; CIA Leader Was Legendary Operative

Theodore G. Shackley, a retired associate deputy director for clandestine operations of the CIA whose career took him from the streets of Berlin to the jungles of Laos and Vietnam, died of cancer Monday at his home in Bethesda, Md. He was 75.

In the context of an agency and a profession whose watchwords are secrecy and deception, Shackley was a legendary figure. He was known as “the godfather of secret warriors.” He was a three-time recipient of the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the agency’s highest honor.

Shackley spent his career on the front lines of the Cold War, and he was involved in some of the agency’s most important -- and controversial -- operations. His rise in the shadowy world of espionage was swift and sure. Colleagues described him as “coldly efficient and dependable,” “businesslike,” and “cold, calm, deliberate.”

In 1951, Shackley was recruited into the CIA from the Army. His first foreign assignment was West Berlin, then the espionage capital of the world.

In 1962, he was named CIA station chief in Miami, with responsibility for assisting Cuban exiles bent on overthrowing Fidel Castro. Shackley held that post during the Cuban missile crisis, when President Kennedy’s administration forced the Soviet Union to withdraw missiles from the island nation.

He also ran Operation Mongoose, an anti-Castro intelligence campaign that had been ordered by Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, the president’s brother.

Shackley’s next assignment was Vientiane, Laos. There he supervised a “secret” CIA war in which 20,000 Hmong tribesmen were pitted against the North Vietnamese-backed Pathet Lao. Among other things, he ran agents into Communist China. In 1968, he moved to Saigon as station chief.

In 1976, Shackley was named associate deputy director for clandestine operations at headquarters. The job involved worldwide counterintelligence operations and covert action.

By then, the CIA was no longer the freewheeling organization that he had joined 25 years earlier.

In the early 1970s, a committee headed by Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) published voluminous reports on some of the seamier aspects of CIA operations, including plans to assassinate foreign leaders. The agency came under close and unaccustomed scrutiny by Congress.

Navy Adm. Stansfield Turner, a director of central intelligence during the Carter administration, drastically reduced the clandestine service. New technology, including spy satellites, came into use. The role of agents on the ground was cut back.

Shackley retired in 1979. His career appeared to have hit a dead end, in part because of dealings he had with Edwin P. Wilson, a former CIA agent who illegally sold explosives to Libya.

In private life, he founded Research Associates International, a consulting firm that specialized in risk analysis, threat assessment and executive protection.

Shackley also wrote three books on intelligence and security: “The Third Option”; “You’re the Target,” with co-author Robert Oatland; and “Still the Target: Coping with Terror and Crime.”

He was the subject of a fourth book, “Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA’s Crusades,” by David Corn.

Shackley was born in Springfield, Mass., and grew up in West Palm Beach, Fla. During World War II, he served in the Army and took part in the occupation of Germany. After the war, he attended the University of Maryland, graduating in 1951.

Called to active Army duty during the Korean War, Shackley was on his way to Korea when he was ordered to Washington and assigned to the CIA.

Survivors include his wife, Hazel Tindol Shackley of Bethesda; a daughter; and two grandsons.