Hugh Montgomery (diplomat)

Hugh Montgomery (November 29, 1923 – April 6, 2017) was a United States diplomat and intelligence officer. He served for 63 years with the Central Intelligence Agency and has been called one of the CIA's founding fathers.[1][2]

Biography

Hugh Montgomery was born in Springfield, Massachusetts on November 29, 1923. He was educated at Harvard University, receiving a B.A. in 1947, an M.A. in 1948, and a Ph.D. in 1952.

Montgomery was wounded while serving as a paratrooper in World War II and joined the Office of Strategic Services's counterintelligence branch, known as X-2. Montgomery joined the Central Intelligence Agency, the successor to the OSS, in 1953 and served in many CIA positions over a career that spanned six decades.[3] During the Cold War, Montgomery served in Athens, Rome, Paris and Vienna. During a CIA assignment in Berlin, he helped tap Soviet communications lines running under the city. In Moscow, he ran one of the most famous and productive CIA assets in history, the Soviet officer Oleg Penkovsky.[4]

Montgomery temporarily left the CIA in 1981 when President of the United States Ronald Reagan nominated him as Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research in the United States Department of State, an office he held from October 19, 1981 until January 6, 1985. From 1985–1989 he served as a deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He returned to the CIA after this assignment and served with the Agency until he retired in 2014.

Montgomery received the William J. Donovan Award from the OSS Society for his service to his country in 2015.[5]

Montgomery received an honorary doctorate from the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC in 2010.

References
  1. Lamothe, Dan, Spy party: Tuxedos, martinis and some of the greatest heroes of World War II, Washington Post, November 9, 2015
  2. "Nomination of Hugh Montgomery To Be Alternate United States Representative to the United Nations for Special Political Affairs". The American Presidency Project. Retrieved 28 May 2015.
  3. Lamothe, Dan, Spy party: Tuxedos, martinis and some of the greatest heroes of World War II, Washington Post, November 9, 2015
  4. Harris, Shane, Inside the Party for America’s Finest Spies, Daily Beast, November 9, 2015
  5. Lamothe, Dan, Spy party: Tuxedos, martinis and some of the greatest heroes of World War II, Washington Post, November 9, 2015
Government offices
Preceded by
Ronald I. Spiers		 Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research
October 19, 1981 – January 6, 1985		 Succeeded by
Morton I. Abramowitz
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