Tom Clines

Thomas G. Clines was a CIA career officer whose career tracked closely with that of his patron Ted Shackley. Clines served under Shackley at JMWAVE, the CIA's Miami anti-Castro station, in Laos, and in the Western Hemisphere Division, and left CIA in 1979 in the period of Shackley's forced departure by Director Stansfield Turner. He subsequently became a central figure in the private covert operations network that ran from the Safari Club era through the Iran-Contra Affair.¹

CIA Career

Clines joined CIA in the 1950s and was assigned to the Berlin Operations Base during the early Cold War, where he first worked under Shackley or in Shackley-adjacent operations. He followed Shackley to JMWAVE in Miami (1961-1965), where he participated in anti-Castro operations and managed agents and paramilitary networks in the Cuban exile community. He served in Laos under Shackley during the peak of the CIA's Hmong paramilitary program (1966-1968), managing logistics and operational aspects of the war that included Air America transport operations.¹

After Laos, Clines continued in CIA operations roles in Southeast Asia and Latin America. Under Shackley in the Western Hemisphere Division (1972-1976), he was involved in operations in Chile and elsewhere in Latin America. He retired from CIA in 1979 when Shackley and other senior Directorate of Operations officers were pushed out by Turner's restructuring.¹

Edwin Wilson and Libya

After leaving CIA, Clines became involved in the arms and intelligence consulting business that grew around the network of former CIA officers associated with Shackley. One significant connection was to Edwin Wilson, the former CIA officer who was selling arms and providing paramilitary training to Libya's Muammar Qaddafi. Clines, like Richard Secord, had documented contacts with Wilson during the period Wilson was running the Libya operations. Congressional investigations into Wilson's activities examined Clines's role, and while Clines was not charged in the Wilson case, the investigation contributed to the end of his government career.¹

Iran-Contra Enterprise

Clines became an operational participant in the Enterprise, the private covert network directed by Secord and Albert Hakim that executed the Iran arms sales and Contra funding operations. His primary role was in the logistics and transportation aspects of the Enterprise's weapons movements - specifically managing air freight and cargo operations for weapons shipments.¹

In 1993, Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh's prosecution resulted in Clines's conviction on four counts of tax-related offenses: specifically, underreporting income from transactions connected to the Enterprise. The prosecution established that Clines had received income from Enterprise operations that he failed to report on his tax returns. He was sentenced to sixteen months in prison and fined.²

Shackley Network

Clines's career illustrates the structural feature of the Shackley network: officers who had served together in the most sensitive Cold War operations built deep personal and professional loyalties that persisted after their government careers ended, creating a private network of experienced covert operators available for work that the CIA's official structure could not or would not undertake. The network's connection to Saudi, Egyptian, and French intelligence resources through the Safari Club provided funding channels; the experience of the former officers provided operational capability; and the relationships with Secord, Hakim, and eventually North provided the institutional interface that connected this network to official Reagan administration policy.¹