---
alias:
- William Buckley
- William Francis Buckley
- William F. Buckley (CIA)
- Bill Buckley
born: 1928-05-30
category: Intelligence & Government
created: 2026-10-01
died: 1985-06-03
location: Medford, Massachusetts (born); Beirut, Lebanon (kidnapped)
relations:
- fn: 1
  role: station chief, Beirut
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[Central Intelligence Agency]]'
- end: 1985-06-03
  fn: 2
  role: kidnapped and held hostage
  start: 1984-03-16
  type: subject_of
  with: '[[Islamic Jihad Organization]]'
- end: 1984-04-20
  fn: 5
  role: target of remote-viewing tasking by the CIA
  start: 1984-03-21
  type: subject_of
  with: '[[Center Lane]]'
- fn: 7
  role: hostage whose release was sought
  type: participant_in
  with: '[[Iran-Contra Affair]]'
summary: CIA station chief in Beirut kidnapped on March 16, 1984, whose captivity
  and death in 1985 figured in the arms-for-hostages dealings with Iran; his remains
  were returned in December 1991.
tags:
- Person
- CIA
- Hostage
- Beirut
- IranContra
- Hezbollah
- Stargate
- Lebanon
updated: 2026-10-01
---

William Francis Buckley (May 30, 1928, to June 3, 1985) was a lieutenant colonel of the [United States Army](/organizations/us-army/) and an officer of the [Central Intelligence Agency](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/) who was serving as station chief in Beirut, [Lebanon](/places/lebanon/), when he was kidnapped on March 16, 1984. The [United States](/places/united-states/) District Court for the District of Columbia found that he was held for 444 days and died in captivity on June 3, 1985. His remains were returned to the United States in December 1991.[^1][^2]

### Army and CIA career

Buckley was born in Medford, Massachusetts, graduated from high school in 1947 and entered the Army. According to a memorial page of the Special Forces Association chapter that bears his name, he served as a company commander with the 1st Cavalry Division in the [Korean War](/events/korean-war/), graduated from Boston University in political science, worked as a librarian in the public libraries of Concord, Winchester and Lexington, attended the Special Forces qualification course in 1960, served with the Military Assistance Command in the [Vietnam War](/events/vietnam-war/), was promoted to lieutenant colonel in May 1969, and was employed by the CIA from 1955 to 1957 and again from 1965, with assignments in Vietnam, [Zaire](/places/congo/), Cambodia, [Egypt](/places/egypt/) and [Pakistan](/places/pakistan/).[^3] The CIA states that elements of his career remain classified, that he was awarded the Silver Star for capturing a North Korean machine-gun nest, that in the late 1970s he helped develop the Incident Response Team and the Counterterrorism Group, and that he volunteered to be Station Chief in Lebanon after the 1983 bombing of the United States Embassy in Beirut.[^1]

The court's findings of fact state that as the highest-ranking CIA official in Beirut his position was "an open secret" within the Lebanese government and among the violent religious factions of the city. The retired CIA officer Chip Beck testified that two weeks before the kidnapping Buckley said to him, "I'd rather die in a botched rescue attempt than waste away or die like Tucker did in Vietnam. Try as hard as you can to push the bureaucracy to get me out of here." The court identified Tucker Gougelmann as Buckley's old mentor, tortured in Vietnam.[^2]

### Kidnapping and the Planning Group meeting

Buckley was seized in the underground garage of his apartment building in Beirut on March 16, 1984. The group that claimed responsibility used the name Islamic Jihad Organization, which the court described as an alias of Hezbollah.[^2]

A bulletin of the Foreign Broadcast Information Service dated March 29, 1984, reported that a Kuwaiti newspaper described Buckley as the third secretary of the American embassy, said that he was close to Lebanese President Amine Gemayel and was known to the president's entourage, and attributed the kidnapping to a Soviet intelligence network operating in Syria. The bulletin was placed at Tab L, "Mid-East Press Reports of Buckley's CIA Relationship," of the briefing binder prepared for the [Director of Central Intelligence](/organizations/director-of-central-intelligence/), [William J. Casey](/people/william-j-casey/), for a meeting of the National Security Planning Group on March 30, 1984, from 11:00 to 12:00 in the [White House](/places/white-house/) Situation Room. A cover memorandum described attendance as limited to principals and the subjects as "the Iran-Iraq war and the Buckley abduction." The binder's other tabs concerned the Iran-Iraq war, Iraqi use of chemical weapons, the oil supply and a memorandum by Graham Fuller arguing for earlier support to Iraq.[^4]

### Remote viewing sessions

From March 21 to April 20, 1984, the Army's INSCOM [CENTER LANE](/programs/center-lane/) project conducted 11 remote-viewing interviews at the request of the CIA concerning Buckley. On March 20 the CIA supplied three essential elements of information: the location of Buckley, his physical and mental condition, and the identity of his captors; on April 10 a fourth was added, who the CIA should contact to arrange his release. A photograph of Buckley taken before the kidnapping cued the first interviews, and later ones were cued with his name, date and place of birth and a photograph "allegedly taken by his captors" that the CIA supplied. The summary states that information from the project "was 'on the streets' in Lebanon hours after being passed to the CIA," that much of it was later verified by other CIA sources, and that no further interviews were conducted after April 20 because the project had exhausted its leads. A memorandum of the CIA's Deputy Director for Operations dated May 1, 1984, stated that the Agency's relationship with CENTER LANE "has been that of a customer," that "we have no Agency people or funds assigned," that its sources "have often 'made contact' far beyond what might be expected by probabilities and coincidence" with "a less than hoped for signal-to-noise ratio and a less than photographic resolution, as well as some outright misses," and that "we would like to continue to call upon CENTER LANE." Lieutenant Colonel [Brian Buzby](/people/brian-buzby/) attached both documents to an overview of May 4, 1984, recommending that the project continue within INSCOM.[^5] The project is also described on the [Stargate Project](/programs/stargate-project/) page.

### Ransom proposals

According to the report of Independent Counsel [Lawrence Walsh](/people/lawrence-walsh/) on the [Iran-Contra Affair](/events/iran-contra-affair/), Michael Ledeen said that in 1985 the former CIA official [Ted Shackley](/people/ted-shackley/) told him of a meeting Shackley had in late 1984 with the Iranian [Manucher Ghorbanifar](/people/manucher-ghorbanifar/), who said it might be possible to ransom Buckley; that Shackley in April or May 1985 asked him to relay to the Administration a memorandum on the plan, which the [State Department](/organizations/state-department/) had already rejected in December 1984; and that he gave the memorandum to [Oliver North](/people/oliver-north/). A footnote cites a memorandum from Shackley to General [Vernon Walters](/people/vernon-walters/) of November 22, 1984.[^6] The [Tower Commission](/organizations/tower-commission/) report records that Shackley and Ledeen separately told the board that Shackley sent his report to Walters, that in May 1985 Shackley told Ledeen he had no response from Walters, and that in June 1985 Shackley gave Ledeen the report with an update, which Ledeen passed to North, without reading it, with the message that Shackley "had had a contact with an Iranian who had said he thought he could ransom Buckley."[^7]

In the Walsh report the Israeli talks of 1985 among Adolph Schwimmer, Yaakov Nimrodi and Ghorbanifar included a proposal that Israel sell Iran 100 TOW missiles, in return for which Ghorbanifar, "as a sign of the power of his contacts in Iran," would obtain the release of Buckley.[^6] On June 7, 1985, North submitted to [Robert McFarlane](/people/robert-mcfarlane/) two plans for the release of the Americans held in Lebanon, both approved by McFarlane; the second was the private ransoming of two hostages, including Buckley, for $2 million, an operation that would take "considerable time (contacts inside Lebanon, financial transactions, and rental of yacht/safehouse)."[^7] Walsh reported that in the spring of 1985 reports reached the CIA that Buckley was being tortured and that, according to Attorney General [Edwin Meese](/people/edwin-meese/), Buckley's fate was of special concern to Casey; that in early September 1985 North asked Charles Allen, the national intelligence officer for counterterrorism, to collect intelligence about Ghorbanifar, his Iranian contact and their contacts in Lebanon, saying the request related to a possible release of Buckley; and that after the delivery of 408 TOW missiles on September 14, 1985, led to the release of the Reverend Benjamin Weir and not Buckley, "the fact that Buckley had not been released was of special concern, because Administration officials had sought his return first."[^6][^8]

A report to the [Senate Committee on Foreign Relations](/organizations/senate-foreign-relations-committee/) by Senators [John Kerry](/people/john-kerry/) and [Hank Brown](/people/hank-brown/) on the [Bank of Credit and Commerce International](/organizations/bank-of-credit-and-commerce-international/) states that during the trial of the arms dealer Michael Aspin in London, Leslie Aspin testified that a TOW missile sale of 1985 was a legitimate sale authorized by the United States government as part of a 1984 to 1985 effort to ransom Buckley, with the weapons to move from Portugal to Iran, and that in a sworn statement of May 1, 1987, Aspin (the report does not say which of the two) attested that he and North had opened three joint accounts at BCCI in Paris into which North deposited $5 million on November 15, 1984. The subcommittee stated that North denied maintaining such an account, that it had confirmed other accounts in London and Monte Carlo but had no access to the Paris accounts, and that Aspin and the dealer Ben Banerjee were dead; it adds that a BCCI Paris manager learned in 1988 of an account named Devon Island and was told that it existed but had not been used.[^9]

### The Islamic Jihad announcement and accounts of the death

On October 1, 1985, Israeli aircraft bombed the headquarters of the [Palestine Liberation Organization](/organizations/palestine-liberation-organization/) in Tunis. On October 4 Islamic Jihad announced that it had executed Buckley in retaliation, and on October 12 it issued a further statement, published in Beirut, repeating that it had executed "the American spy" and offering to turn the body over to the [United Nations](/organizations/united-nations/) Secretary-General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, 24 hours before the release of 100 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.[^7][^10] The Tower Commission report states in a footnote that in October 1985 the United States obtained reliable evidence that Buckley had died the preceding June, and that the announcement of October 4 was false according to the [NSC](/organizations/national-security-council/) staff chronologies, to Iranians who met CIA and NSC personnel, and to the released hostages Jenco and Jacobsen, who reported that Buckley probably died on June 3, 1985, of "pneumonia-like symptoms."[^7]

A memorandum dated December 5, 1985, apparently by North, stated: "We are relatively confident of information that former Beirut Chief of Station, Bill Buckley, is dead."[^7] On December 13, 1985, [Jack Anderson](/people/jack-anderson/) and Dale Van Atta wrote in the *[Washington Post](/organizations/washington-post/)* that the CIA had highly sensitive intelligence leaving no doubt of Buckley's death, while the State Department's official position was that "we assume that he is alive." They wrote that Buckley was taken from the Bekaa Valley to Tehran in early March 1985 disguised as an injured Iranian Revolutionary Guard soldier on a Syrian army helicopter to Damascus and an Iran Air flight, held in a house on Fereshteh Street, interrogated in the basement of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, moved to a Revolutionary Guard camp near Qom after an Iraqi bomb landed near the house, and that he suffered a heart attack induced by torture, probably between April 10 and 15, and died soon after in a Tehran hospital.[^11] In a later column Anderson and Van Atta wrote that the CIA denied their story, that President [Ronald Reagan](/people/ronald-reagan/) told them off the record in February 1986 that Buckley was dead, and that the death was publicly acknowledged a year after their report.[^12]

The *Washington Post* reported in late November 1986 that Buckley had been the CIA's station chief in Beirut and that he had disclosed information under torture; his sister said she retained hope that he was alive and called the reports that he confessed before dying "absurd."[^13] On December 2, 1986, the former hostage David Jacobsen said on NBC News that he believed Buckley died on the evening of June 3, 1985, recalling that Buckley had been delirious and running a high fever and that guards asked him as a hospital director what they could do and then said "We can't do that" when he told them to get Buckley to a hospital.[^13] On January 20, 1987, Vice President George H. W. Bush said that an American "in terrorist hands is tortured and, in the case of William Buckley, killed."[^14]

### The interrogation transcript

A memorandum from North to [John Poindexter](/people/john-poindexter/) of September 25, 1986, reporting meetings in Washington with an Iranian "Second Channel," stated that the Iranians possessed a 400-page transcript of the torture and debriefing of Buckley; Walsh recorded that Clair George had been "extremely emotionally involved" in the Buckley matter.[^15] At the Frankfurt meetings of October 5 to 7, 1986, North laid out a seven-step proposal in which the Iranians would use their influence to secure the release of the remaining hostages, the body of Buckley and "a debrief by his captors."[^7] In 1988 Anderson and Van Atta wrote that they had seen a suppressed transcript of the September 1986 meeting, in which an Iranian envoy, Ali Hashemi, a nephew of Hashemi Rafsanjani, said that "Buckley revealed 200 to 300 sensitive names of people and over 400 pages of debriefing," and that Hashemi said Hezbollah passed the information to the Iranians.[^12] Poindexter's plan for the Tehran mission of McFarlane in May 1986 provided that after the delivery of HAWK parts and the release of hostages "the remains of Buckley would be turned over."[^6]

The *New York Daily News* reported on December 9, 1986, that testimony of Casey and McFarlane had convinced senators that the real motive for the arms sales was to free American hostages, and quoted a source who had heard most of the testimony to the Senate intelligence panel as saying that the primary focus was to free Buckley. Senator Frank Murkowski was quoted as saying, "It is clear to me that the humanitarian motive to win the freedom of the hostages was the paramount motive."[^16]

### Remains and burial

On August 21, 1987, a CIA routing sheet from the Information and Privacy Coordinator asked C/NE for concurrence "as to the extent of disclosure concerning Mr. Buckley"; the reading room indexes the document as "Memorial Service for William F. Buckley" and the following page is withheld.[^17] The CIA held a memorial service in 1985, awarded him a star on its Memorial Wall and the Distinguished Intelligence Cross, and in 1988 laid him symbolically to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.[^1]

On December 27, 1991, police found a body near the airport highway in Beirut before dawn after an anonymous telephone call, wrapped in cotton and bandages, in a blanket and a plastic bag, as the remains of Lieutenant Colonel [William Richard Higgins](/people/william-richard-higgins/) had been found the previous weekend. Coroner-General Dr. Ahmed Harati identified the remains as Buckley's. A caller who said he spoke for Islamic Jihad said the body had been released.[^18]

### Surette v. Islamic Republic of Iran

His companion of more than twenty years, as administrator of his estate, sued the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Ministry of Information and Security in the District of Columbia in 2001. Service was made through diplomatic channels on September 24, 2001; the clerk entered default on December 5, 2001; and Judge Paul L. Friedman heard evidence on September 3 and 4, 2002. Witnesses included Chip Beck, Jacobsen by videotape, Dr. Patrick Clawson, Dr. Bruce Tefft, Norman Gardner, the medical examiner Dr. Richard Froede by videotape, and the accountant John Devlin.[^2]

In its opinion of November 1, 2002, the court found that Buckley had been held captive for 444 days, interrogated, tortured and denied medical care, and had died on June 3, 1985. It credited Jacobsen's testimony that Buckley, held behind plywood partitions, was delirious with fever on his last day, that the captors did not act on suggestions of water, antibiotics and cooling, that Jacobsen heard "death rattles" and then a "tap" he understood to be a silenced gun, and that he later saw a bullet hole in the wall 12 to 24 inches above the floor. It stated that Buckley's remains, recovered years later, were too decomposed to reveal much about his treatment but were found with a catheter and a set of intravenous tubes with a butterfly valve, which Froede and Tefft testified could have been used to cause extreme pain. Norman Gardner testified that videotapes of Buckley in captivity released to the United States came from Iran, and Jacobsen testified that a man called Ali, who had "absolute authority" over the guards, was the Iranian representative to the kidnapping group.[^2]

The court held Iran, the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security liable under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and entered judgment for $1,021,284 for the estate's lost income, $5,440,000 for the estate's pain and suffering ($10,000 for each of 444 days plus $1,000,000 for the period of facing death alone), $10,000,000 in solatium for his companion and $2,500,000 for his sister, and $300,000,000 in punitive damages against the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Ministry jointly and severally.[^2]

[^1]: "William F. Buckley," Central Intelligence Agency, Honoring Our Heroes. https://cia.gov/legacy/honoring-heroes/heroes/william-f-buckley
[^2]: *Surette v. Islamic Republic of Iran*, 231 F. Supp. 2d 260 (D.D.C. 2002) (Friedman, J.), Civil Action No. 01-0570 (PLF), decided November 1, 2002, findings of fact I.A and I.B, conclusions of law and judgment, pp. 261 to 275. Reporter text at https://thecjf.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/final-opinion-Surette.pdf
[^3]: "In Memory of LTC William Buckley," Special Forces Association Chapter 54 memorial page. https://sfob54.org/LTC-William-Buckley.html (secondary source; the CIA states that parts of his career remain classified).
[^4]: "NSPG Meeting on Iran-Iraq War/Buckley Kidnapping, 30 March 1984," contents page, cover memorandum of March 29, 1984, SA/DCI/IA to Director of Central Intelligence, and Tab L (FBIS unnumbered item of March 29, 1984, citing a Kuwaiti newspaper through the Middle East News Agency; the scanned text is partly garbled), CIA-RDP86B00420R000200450001-0. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp86b00420r000200450001-0
[^5]: "Summary of Investigation, Subject: William F. Buckley, 84-04," CIA-RDP96-00788R001600510002-8, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00788r001600510002-8; Buzby, Brian, Lieutenant Colonel, "Purpose: To Provide an Overview of Center Lane," May 4, 1984, with attached summary and CIA memorandum "Comments on Recent CENTER LANE Experience," May 1, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220003-8, https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220003-8
[^6]: Walsh, Lawrence E. *Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters*, 1993, chapter 1 ("United States v. Robert C. McFarlane"), text and notes 73, 76 to 78, 82, 101 to 102 and 143. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_01.htm
[^7]: *Report of the President's Special Review Board* (Tower Commission), February 1987, declassified copy in CIA-RDP89G00643R001300120001-9, text of Part III on the Iranian initiative, footnotes 7 and 20, and Appendix B (Ledeen and Shackley accounts, page B-4). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp89g00643r001300120001-9
[^8]: Walsh, *Final Report*, chapter 15 ("William J. Casey"), text and notes 35 and 43. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_15.htm
[^9]: Kerry, John, and Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate*, December 1992, chapter 11, "BCCI, the CIA and Foreign Intelligence," section "Other Iranian Arms Dealers and BCCI," notes 85 to 89. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm
[^10]: "Text of statement on Buckley," Associated Press, *Boston Globe*, October 13, 1985, CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200063-2. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp91-00587r000100200063-2
[^11]: Anderson, Jack, and Dale Van Atta. "Buckley Is Dead, and Iran Is Responsible," *Washington Post*, December 13, 1985, CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200043-4. https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200043-4
[^12]: Anderson, Jack, and Dale Van Atta. "CIA Official Tortured to Death, Gave Secrets," Deseret News, September 28, 1988. https://www.deseret.com/1988/9/28/18779491/cia-official-tortured-to-death-gave-secrets/ See also the transcript of the interview of Dale Van Atta on "Nightwatch," CBS, December 27, 1985, CIA-RDP88G01116R001001550002-8. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88g01116r001001550002-8
[^13]: "Buckley Sister Retains Hope," Associated Press, *Washington Post*, November 28, 1986, CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200023-6, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp91-00587r000100200023-6; "David Jacobsen Comments on Death of William Buckley," NBC Nightly News transcript, December 2, 1986, CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200048-9, https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200048-9; "Ex-Hostage Disputes Date of Buckley Death," Associated Press, *Washington Post*, December 3, 1986, CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200049-8, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp91-00587r000100200049-8
[^14]: Gertz, Bill. "Vice President confirms Buckley was tortured and killed," *Washington Times*, January 21, 1987, CIA-RDP90-00965R000302310058-3. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000302310058-3
[^15]: Walsh, *Final Report*, chapter 17 ("United States v. Clair E. George"), text and notes 64 to 68, citing North to Poindexter memorandum of September 25, 1986 (AKW 7291 to 7308) and George's deposition of April 24, 1987. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_17.htm
[^16]: "Buckley key to deal, freeing hostages the motive, senators hear," *New York Daily News*, December 9, 1986, CIA-RDP90-00965R000605350007-9. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000605350007-9
[^17]: Routing and record sheet, Information and Privacy Coordinator, August 21, 1987, "Official Disclosure," CIA-RDP89G00643R001000080034-1. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp89g00643r001000080034-1
[^18]: Abu-Nasr, Donna. "Hostage Crisis Is Finally Over for America: William Buckley's Remains Found on Beirut Highway," Associated Press, *The Seattle Times*, December 27, 1991. https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19911227/1325252/hostage-crisis-is-finally-over-for-america----william-buckleys-remains-found-on-beirut-highway