Thomas Karamessines

Thomas Hercules Karamessines was the deputy director for plans of the CIA, the head of its clandestine service, from July 1967 to February 1973. He was born in New York City, of Greek descent, graduated from Columbia University in 1938 and from its law school in 1940, and served under Thomas E. Dewey as a deputy assistant district attorney for New York County in 1941 and 1942.¹

Greece and Europe

Commissioned in the field artillery, he was picked for the Office of Strategic Services and served in London and Cairo. "Because of his knowledge of the Greek language and Greece" he was sent to that country and stayed until 1947, returned briefly to civilian life, and rejoined federal intelligence work the same year, when the CIA was formed. "In the late 1940s, he was sent back to Greece to manage U.S. intelligence activities during the civil war there. He also helped organize the CIA's counterpart organization in Greece." He was afterward "chief of several stations in Europe."¹

The Clandestine Service

Karamessines was assistant to Desmond FitzGerald and succeeded him on FitzGerald's death in July 1967, with Cord Meyer as his own assistant. In September 1970 he took the chair of the task force formed on President Richard Nixon's order to keep Salvador Allende from office in Chile, the operation known as Project FUBELT. On October 15 he briefed Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig on the plans of General Roberto Viaux, and the cable of the next day to the Santiago station, "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup," went out under his authority. On October 13, between 10:59 and 11:09 in the morning, he was in the Oval Office with Nixon and Kissinger. The "president went out of his way to impress all of those there with his conviction that it was absolutely essential that the election of Mr. Allende to the presidency be thwarted," he testified, and as they left "the president took [me] aside to reiterate the message." Senate investigators in 1975 were denied the president's logs, and the date of the meeting was established only later. He described the pressure from the White House as "constant, constant, just constant." He testified in 1975: "Track II never really ended. What we were told to do was to continue our efforts. Stay alert, and to do what we could to contribute to the eventual achievements and of the objectives and purposes of Track II. I am sure that the seeds that were laid in that effort in 1970 had their impact in 1973. I do not have any question about that in my mind."¹²³

He retired in February 1973, the month in which Nixon replaced Richard Helms as director. His obituary called the retirement "voluntary and believed brought on, in part, by a severe back ailment." Kissinger said at the time: "He handled the most delicate missions with the utmost discretion." David Atlee Phillips, who had run the Chile task force under him, said: "He was energetic, quiet and efficient and widely respected by those who worked for him."¹

After the Agency

He sat on the board of the Central Intelligence Retirees Association and belonged to Phillips's Association of Former Intelligence Officers. In April 1978 he appeared before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to oppose its draft charter for the agency, calling the investigations of the preceding years "an inexcusable exercise in political sensationalism." He asked Congress for better cover for officers abroad, prison terms for the "unauthorized revelation or compromise" of the agency's secrets, and protection of its employees from all congressional committees but the two intelligence panels. He died of a heart attack at his vacation house at Grand Lake, Quebec, on September 4, 1978, at sixty-one.¹