John R. Stockwell (born 1937) is an American former CIA officer who became a critic of United States government policies after serving seven tours of duty over thirteen years. Having managed American involvement in the Angolan Civil War as Chief of the Angola Task Force during its 1975 covert operations, he resigned and wrote In Search of Enemies.

Early years

After Stockwell was born in Angleton, Texas, his Presbyterian father moved the family to the Belgian Congo when he was posted there to provide engineering assistance. Stockwell attended school in Lubondai before studying in the Plan II Honors program at the University of Texas.

CIA career

After serving three years in the United States Marine Corps Stockwell joined the CIA in 1964. He served as a case officer through three wars: the Congo Crisis, the Vietnam War, and the Angolan War of Independence. Stockwell spent six years in Africa, Chief of Base in the Katanga during the Bob Denard invasion in 1968, then Chief of Station in Bujumbura, Burundi in 1970, before being transferred to Vietnam to oversee intelligence operations in the Tay Ninh province and was awarded the CIA Intelligence Medal of Merit for keeping his post open until the last days of the fall of Saigon in 1975.

His concerns were that, although many of his colleagues in the CIA were men and women of the highest integrity, the organization was counterproductive of United States' national security and harming a lot of people in its "secret wars" overseas.

Red Sunset was Stockwell's next book and was published in 1982 by William Morrow Publishing Co., Inc. in hardback, then in paperback by Signet a year later. In it he discusses his prediction of a peaceful end to the Cold War. Stockwell presented these ideas in fiction form in order to get it published.

In 1991, Stockwell published a compilation of transcriptions of many of his lectures called The Praetorian Guard.

See also

  • Philip Agee, author, former CIA case officer in Mexico and Ecuador
  • Robert Baer, author, former CIA case officer in Middle East
  • Peer de Silva, author, former CIA Chief of Station in East Asia
  • Richard Helms, author, former Director of CIA
  • Victor Marchetti, author, special assistant to Helms
  • Ray McGovern, former CIA senior analyst and national security adviser
  • Ralph McGehee, author, former CIA case officer
  • Peter Wright, author, principal scientific officer for MI5

Books

  • The Praetorian Guard: The US Role in the New World Order. Boston: South End Press (1991). .
  • Red Sunset. New York: William Morrow & Co. (1982).
  • In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. (1978). .

Filmography

  • The C.I.A. Case Officer: John "Bob" Stockwell. Institute for Policy Studies (1978).
  • The Secret World of the C.I.A: The Testimony of John Stockwell. Cambridge, Mass.: Insight Video (1988). .

References

  • Works by John Stockwell at Internet Archive.