Toby Harnden
Richard Welch ’51 was no James Bond. He had a lifelong aversion to guns and delighted in the intricacies of Aristotelian logic. His bald pate, spectacles, and clipped mustache gave him the air of an Ivy League professor. This would be the image seared into the public consciousness when his photograph appeared across the world.
In fact, Welch was the consummate spy. When he was assassinated by Marxist terrorists outside his residence in Athens in December 1975, he was at the top of his game: a chief of station for the Central Intelligence Agency and a future contender to lead its clandestine service. He remains the most senior CIA officer (his rank was the equivalent of a major general) to be killed in the line of duty. In death, he may have played a part in saving the agency he loved.
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