by Captain Paris Michaels, Doctorate of Statecraft and National Security
Background of the Case
The position of a United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “Chief of Station” (COS) is traditionally held by individuals with extensive experience in the value of intelligence in geopolitical diplomacy. CIA Station Chiefs possess a proven and successful track record in organizational protocol and a strong commitment to protecting and advancing U.S. interests overseas.
Richard Skeffington Welch was a CIA Station Chief assigned to Athens, Greece. During his time there, Welch lost his life in the service of his country. At the time he was murdered, Welch was the highest-ranking CIA officer ever killed in the line of duty. Additionally, he was the first Chief of Station to be murdered in a politically motivated assassination. He was installed and promoted to this office only in July of 1975. He celebrated his 46th birthday just nine days before his death.
It has been half a century since his death. This devotional work, spawned by the encouragement of those who knew Welch personally and professionally, highlights a career record that has not been duly recognized in the mainstream media until recently.
On the eve of December 23rd, 1975, Welch was murdered outside his home in Athens. As was characteristic of Welch, it was he, not his chauffeur, who first emerged from the car to open the gate to his home. He and his wife were returning from an evening Christmas party, not far from the residence, when he fell victim to the attack carried out by members of a nascent terrorist group, November17 (N17).
N17 used the execution as their debut in the political scene; it was followed by 27 years of death and destruction from the shadows. Characterized as a gesture in protest of American involvement in Greek affairs, the motive, ideology, and logistics of the assassination to this day remain clouded by controversy.
Political Climate of the Era
The early 1970s were an epoch marked by global turmoil, “small-war” conflicts, and third-world insecurities. The Third World fell prey to a contest of superpower dominance. Post-World War II Soviet propaganda machines were in full swing. Marxist philosophy nourished remnants of Nazi (National Socialist) movements in South America, and more generally, anti-Western/anti-U.S. factions on every continent, driven by communist ideals.
U.S. domestic sentiments of the Vietnam War provided fodder for American adversaries. While the U.S. continued to promote democratic principles of self-determination abroad as a counterbalance to communist ideology, Soviet aggression found diverse mechanisms to destabilize the West.
U.S. efforts to counter what it saw as an encroaching ideology led to spurts of domestic civic disobedience in a restless American public. Citizens grew weary of witnessing the horrors of war in real-time on their nightly news. The lack of a hierarchical class structure worked in favor of the Soviets as they identified and employed “active measures” to promulgate their propaganda machine.
The U.S. was challenged during this era to preserve its diplomatic and economic superiority. The fight against Communism appeared to be losing ground. The American Experiment was in trouble in the year following the resignation of President Nixon in 1974. The emerging solution was to portray the U.S. advantage by increasing military spending to support diplomatic efforts, and the protesting population did not agree with this solution.
The CIA was not above the national division. A schism led to the Congressional Church Committee enquiries of 1975-76 to investigate “illegal, improper, or unethical activities by any branch of the U.S. government.” During this time, a contributing factor to the assassination of Welch was revealed. A disgruntled former CIA officer named Philip Agee published Welch’s identity, his position as COS in Athens, and his local address in CounterSpy Magazine in 1975. Agee revealed the names of over a thousand CIA officers based throughout Africa and Europe. It is with this backdrop that we uncover a number of contributing factors to the murder of Richard S. Welch.
Welch’s Youth and Career Path
Richard Welch was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on December 14, 1929. He was the youngest of three children. Coincidental with Welch’s birth, his father, George Patrick Welch, found himself a victim of the Wall Street crash of 1929 and left the world of finance to join the U.S. Army. The family moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where Welch studied Greek and Latin in high school.
In the early 1950s, while at Harvard (where his father also studied), Welch wrote to a CIA recruiter about his interest in working for the CIA. At Harvard, Welch became a scholar of Greek history and language. He also participated in intramural sports, including track and field, cross-country running, and chess.
Upon graduation from Harvard, Richard Welch was recruited into the CIA. In 1951, he began a self-taught program to convert his knowledge of classical Greek into modern Greek. His mastery of modern Greek was exceptional and even surpassed conversational skills beyond those of average Greek-Americans. He was considered by most to be an avid Hellenophile. He spoke both modern and colloquial Greek fluently and beautifully.
Richard Welch was not a military veteran like his father. Yet his first assignment as a case officer posted him in Athens, Greece, working as a civilian employee of the U.S. Department of the Army (1952-1958). In 1958, he was transferred to Washington, D.C., where he was assigned to work on Turkish affairs. From 1960 until 1964, he served in Cyprus under tense political conditions.
While in Washington, Welch made a 10-year commitment to serve in the Western Hemisphere Division (now the Latin America Division) in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations. This led to Welch being posted to Guatemala from 1965 to 1967, followed by Guyana from 1967 to 1969. It was during this time frame that Welch was first identified as an American officer in a small hard-bound book, “Who’s Who in CIA,” published by two Soviet-bloc intelligence services in 1968. He was assigned to Peru (from 1972 to most of 1975) as Chief of Staff. With time served in these hotspots, he became adept at clandestine intelligence and was involved with diplomatic operations.
In the Spring of 1975, Welch was asked to go to Greece to lead Athens Station operations. He had been excited for the opportunity, seeing it as a “professional reward.” Welch arrived in Athens in July of 1975 with his father in tow (his father had decided to join him for this posting). Greece had just emerged from a period of dictatorship, a year earlier, in July of 1974, under the country’s military junta.
Throughout his career, Welch had not been afraid to speak his mind and to stand up for his beliefs. He continually accepted higher-risk assignments and endured numerous hardships throughout his 22-year career as an intelligence officer.
Welch was a recipient of the CIA’s highest accolade: the distinguished “Intelligence Medal.” He demonstrated exceptional professionalism in clandestine operations and diplomatic relations and was seen as a true patriot.
He abhorred violence and found little interest in weapons of any kind. He found Greek hospitality so charming and familiar that he scoffed at the idea of needing the protection of a security detail available to CIA Station Chiefs when he was posted to Greece. He even chose to assume residence in the exact location that his predecessor had held.
The Event
Upon returning from a Christmas party on the evening of December 23, 1975, Welch exited his Embassy vehicle at the bottom of the driveway to open the gate. The driver of his car remained in place. As Welch was returning to the car, a man emerged from the darkness, calling out to him by name. At the same time, three gunmen emerged from a stolen Simca -one, brandishing a submachine gun, while another issued three shots from a Colt .45 revolver. Two more men remained in the getaway vehicle.
From three feet away, one bullet ripped through Welch’s aorta, killing him instantly. Another bullet hit Welch in the back as he was falling, and one shot missed the target altogether. The three masked figures ran back to the getaway car and disappeared. The stage was now set for the debut of the terrorist organization, 17November.
The Motive
N17’s debut attack on the CIA official was apparently motivated by U.S. support for the Greek military dictatorship, which had collapsed a year earlier. The hit was an attempt by N17 as a form of revenge, executed through a public relations operation. N17’s terror campaign aimed to discredit and humiliate the U.S. government and the Greek establishment. It worked.
The Investigation
Whether it was a sheer propaganda by-product or a wide-scale case of Stockholm Syndrome, N17’s early attacks gained considerable long-lasting public sympathy. N17 became part of contemporary modern Greek political drama. The concealment of details and slow progress by Greek authorities at the time managed to shroud N17 behind a veil of mystery and intrigue, which helped raise the group’s notoriety. Instead of Hellenic media portraying concern over political insecurities of the Greek state, the media gained a boost in ratings of N17-related television and media coverage.
Investigations of the Welch assassination in Greece had rendered only open-ended, disorganized, and controversial results. The U.S. Mission gradually began to realize that it had been at war since the 1967 coup with a clandestine far-left movement that had an extensive reach. After the Welch murder, the U.S. government demanded justice. The investigation into the assassination initially started with erroneous facts, poor practices, and many almost-deceiving clues. No fingerprints were recovered from the vehicle. Greek officials discovered scant clues bearing little evidence.
The saga became an integral part of daily life throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Continued “advertisement” of the group’s “successes” by the media led many criminal, intelligence, and counterterrorism officials to believe that N17 was highly organized.
The majority of U.S. intelligence operations focusing on N17 were small-scale and conducted from afar or through proxies. Significant gaps and inaccuracies manifested, causing the N17 investigation to stagnate. Some surmised that N17’s evasive capabilities were a product of protection by Greek “state sponsorship of terrorism.” Substantiated evidence to prove this theory never fully materialized. The CIA had long suspected that the Greek government possessed more information on N17 than it shared or publicly admitted. This suspicion was compounded by the disturbing lack of investigative cohesion or political will within the Greek police to produce anything against N17.
More than 27 years after Welch’s murder, the list of alleged N17 members was partially brought to justice. A Greek court in 2003 convicted 15 members for their roles in the N17 Organization. However, the court did not bring specific charges against them for the assassination because the statute of limitations had passed.
The Aftermath
In the days following the assassination, Welch’s body returned to Washington in a military aircraft escorted by his eldest son, a US Marine Corps lieutenant. He was given a ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base and a memorial service at CIA headquarters. By presidential order, Welch was buried with full honors (unique for a civilian) at Arlington National Cemetery. President Ford attended.
A Hero’s Star, dedicated to memories of the service of Richard Skeffington Welch and others in honor of their special duty to this country, hangs in the main hall entrance of the CIA Headquarters Building in Langley, Virginia. Quiet, dignified, unscheduled private memorial services are held in the hall, paying tribute to the Stars.
The Welch assassination also led to the 1982 passage of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, an Act that made it a crime to divulge or expose the identity of officers working covertly who hadn’t been officially acknowledged in their role by the United States government. Richard Welch’s story and sacrifice – that of serving his country overseas in sometimes hostile environments with invisible enemies – have been the focus of colleagues, friends, and family since his death, to ensure that Welch’s memory lives on.