Carmel Offie
Encyclopedia
Carmel Offie worked for the U.S. State Department from the mid 1930s until he joined the Central Intelligence Agency
CIA in 1947. He was dismissed from the CIA in 1950 after an arrest a few years earlier brought his homosexuality to the attention of Senator Joseph McCarthy
during the Lavender Scare
that saw a purge of the State Department personnel because of charges of homosexuality.
, one of 7 children in a family of Italian immigrants from Caserta
. His father worked as a railroad hand. He worked his way through business college. He entered government service as a stenographer at the Interstate Commerce Commission
in Washington, D.C.
, Honduras
, where he was posted from October 1931 to April 1934.
He arrived in Moscow on June 11, 1934, to serve as secretary to Ambassador William C. Bullitt. Bullitt promoted him to vice-consul in 1934. His duties went beyond secretarial tasks to those of personal assistant, companion, and "all-purpose troubleshooter," even accompanying Bullitt on vacation and managing his medications. Offie also corresponded with Bullitt's State Department superiors and FDR
's secretary Missy LeHand to report on Bullitt's health and work habits. New York Times reporter C.L. Sulzberger on a visit to Moscow found Offie dealing in fine furs, the sort of special activity Offie became known for in the Foreign Service.
He followed Bullitt when he became Ambassador to France
in 1936. Work included social obligations, as when he entertained the young John F. Kennedy
and his school chum Lem Billings
in 1937. Later on their European tour, the pair bought a dachshund puppy they named Offie. Offie entertained Kennedy again as he passed through Paris in 1939. Kennedy wrote to Billings: "Offie and I are now the greatest of pals and he really is a pretty good guy, though I suppose that it will make you a bit ill to hear it." Offie complained that Kennedy took liberties reading embassy papers without authorization. Kennedy, for his part, joked about having to humor Offie: "Offie has just rung for me, so I guess I have to get the old paper ready and go in and wipe his arse." On another occasion Offie played bridge with the Duchess of Windsor. Bullitt and Offie left Paris two weeks after the Germans took the city in June 1940. Later that year, when Bullitt had left France and not yet received another diplomatic assignment, Offie reported on Bullitt's frame of mind to Jane Ickes, wife of Bullitt's close friend, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes
, and succeeded in getting the Secretary to raise the question of Bullitt's status with the president himself. He had enemies as well and the nickname "Carmie Awful."
In 1941, Bullitt allowed Offie to accept a short-term appointment as third secretary to Anthony Biddle
when he was named to represent the U.S. to countries occupied by the Germans. In 1942, when Bullitt was facing financial difficulties, he lived with Offie, who had returned to Washington and had real estate investments there. Bullitt told a friend that "Offie had sponged off him for many years, and now he was sponging of Offie." Offie next followed Bullitt to the Navy Department. Bullitt was known to be too talkative to be trusted with sensitive information about military plans. Offie had one incident that showed similar lack of discretion. Emerging from the American Embassy in London, he was heard to say "Well, it's set for November." He was seized by security agents and released after embassy officials and Bullitt argued on his behalf.
Washington, D.C., police arrested Offie in 1943 and charged him with "disorderly conduct." He had solicited an undercover police officer in Lafayette Park across from the White House. With the knowledge of Secretary of State Cordell Hull
, the State Department provided Offie with a cover story in the form of a note asserting that Offie had planned a rendezvous with a confidential source as part of his official duties.
Offie served in Europe during the final years of World War II, beginning first in March 1944 as an aide to Robert Murphy
, the State Department's civilian representative to Allied military commanders in Italy and later following Murphy to an assignment in Germany. He was appointed to the staff of George Atcheson, Jr., the State Department's political adviser to Gen. Douglas MacArthur
, head of the American occupation of Japan, but the appointment was rescinded before he ever served in that position. Offie became known for his ability to entertain while providing such luxurious and hard-to-obtain fare as Russian caviar. In 1947 State Department inspectors discovered that he had used diplomatic pouch for private purposes, moving $3,000 in cash to Paris. The shipment of cash was actually a favor for a friend, his former employer Anthony Biddle, who was trying to send money to his former wife. As punishment, he was forbidden all further promotion. He resigned from the State Department in April 1948.
, he returned to government service in September 1948 as deputy to Frank Wisner
, head of the Office of Policy Coordination
(OPC), a CIA-funded unit within the State Department that was responsible for psychological warfare, propaganda, and surreptitious funding designed to destabilize the Soviet Union and its allies. He was widely recognized for his work ethic, rising in the early morning hours to speak to Eastern European contacts, and for an extraordinary ability to process multiple streams of information, digesting complex documents while conducting telephone negotiations. He continued to ingratiate himself with superiors, helping find a cook for Wisner and laying out funds to bring two servants to the U.S. for George F. Kennan
. He was a regular attendee at Georgetown dinners. He counted among his enemies Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.
, a prominent CIA operative in the Middle East, who described Offie years later as "an oily little jerk who talked oddly and did odd things."
Offie's value both in occupied Europe and in the CIA related in part to his ability to establish friendly relations with the wives of prominent officials. His European connections helped him later in aiding the movement of anticommunists in and out of Eastern Europe. He ran two key programs: Operation Paperclip
, which recruited German scientists for work in the United States, and Operation Bloodstone, which targeted the Soviet Union by making intelligence analysts or spies of former Nazis and Nazi collaborators. He "helped to establish the paradigm for harnassing the services of Nazis, fascists, and collaborators, and a variety of emigre groups and desperate volunteers from the DP camps in America's fight against the specter of world communism." From Germany he recruited former diplomats and military officers to help spy on and support American propaganda efforts against the Soviets, a program codenamed Operation Bloodstone. Like others in the CIA at the time, he ignored the Nazi past of some of them, including such notables as Gustav Hilger, who had links to the creation of the SS Einsatzgruppen
massacre squads, and Nicholas Poppe, a Russian linguist and Nazi collaborator who helped plan the extermination of the Jews
. His other responsibilities included the oversight of labor and émigré affairs, as well as the National Committee for Free Europe
, parent of Radio Free Europe
, which began radio broadcasts into Czechoslovakia
in 1950 using a transmitter Offie borrowed from the U.S. Army.
In October 1949 Offie made sexual advances in his OPC office while meeting with another government employee, an agent in the Army Counterintelligence Corps, who filed a report of the incident. Instead of a confrontation with Offie and his superiors, CIA security staff or enemies within the OPC accomplished his removal in a roundabout way. Early in 1953, they leaked information about Offie's 1943 arrest to Senator Joseph McCarthy. When McCarthy testified on March 18 before a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigating his claims about Communists working for the government, he described the case of a "convicted homosexual" who had resigned from the State Department in 1948 and now held a "top-salaried important position" at the CIA. He raised the case again in the same setting on April 25, 1950, adding details about "the men's room in Lafayette Park," asking subcommittee chairman Senator Millard E. Tydings
why he had not seen to the man's dismissal. That same afternoon, another subcommittee member, Senator Kenneth S. Wherry
, a McCarthy supporter, announced that the employee in question had resigned.
Inside the CIA, Offie had defended himself as beyond blackmail, willing to admit his homosexuality, and Wisner defended him. CIA Director Roscoe Hillenkoetter yielded to Wisner until public disclosure seemed inevitable and he forced Offie's resignation in May 1950.
(FTUC), a labor foreign policy group of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
secretly supported with CIA funding. He was greeted warmly by his superior, longtime labor activist Jay Lovestone
. His title was Director of International Labor Information Services, but he served principally as liaison between the CIA and the FTUC, exploiting sources at his former employer to help his new colleagues understand and maneuver through the CIA's financing processes, though the relationship between the two organizations remained difficult.
Offie's contract at the FTUC ended in June 1952. He had developed detailed knowledge of the workings of the Mutual Security Administration, successor to the Marshall Plan
, which managed purchases from European companies on behalf of the U.S. government. He used that expertise first as a consultant to a Washington law firm, while continuing to consult for the FTUC, and then to establish his own business, Global Enterprises.
In August 1953 Offie visited the Majorca home of Charles W. Thayer
, a diplomat forced from the State Department as part of the Lavender Scare.
In an interview with conservative columnist Westbrook Pegler
at the end of 1952, Offie explained the 1943 Lafayette Park incident as an attempt to destroy him because of his long and vigorous anti-Communist record. He said he had a rendezvous there on State Department business and was accosted by a small gang. When he woke in a police cell he paid his $25 fine just to end the incident. Müller's diaries support Offie's contention that he was framed as well. J. Edgar Hoover's reaction to Offie's interview with Pegler was: "It seems to be an inherent part of a pervert's makeup to be also a pathological liar."
Ever since McCarthy's attacks highlighted Offie's homosexuality, Hoover's FBI had maintained a file on Offie and occasionally kept him under surveillance. Two of his professional contacts were also highly suspect in Hoover's eyes, Bullitt who had once been pro-Soviet though he had changed his mind decades ago, and Lovestone, a former Communist turned Labor activist which Hoover did not recognize as a fundamental change of ideology. At one point Offie had to defend himself to FBI agents and explain how, while working as a private citizen, he knew details of the government's planned procurements in Italy for 1953. He explained his source, but Hoover remained personally interested in his case.
Offie died on June 18, 1972, when British European Airways Flight 548
crashed soon after take-off from London Heathrow Airport
. He is buried in Washington's Rock Creek Cemetery
.
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
CIA in 1947. He was dismissed from the CIA in 1950 after an arrest a few years earlier brought his homosexuality to the attention of Senator Joseph McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
during the Lavender Scare
Lavender scare
The Lavender Scare refers to the fear and persecution of homosexuals in the 1950s in the United States, which paralleled the anti-communist campaign known as McCarthyism....
that saw a purge of the State Department personnel because of charges of homosexuality.
Early life
Offie was born in Sharon, PennsylvaniaSharon, Pennsylvania
Sharon is a city in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, in the United States, northwest of Pittsburgh. It is part of the Youngstown–Warren–Boardman, OH-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area.- History :...
, one of 7 children in a family of Italian immigrants from Caserta
Caserta
Caserta is the capital of the province of Caserta in the Campania region of Italy. It is an important agricultural, commercial and industrial comune and city. Caserta is located on the edge of the Campanian plain at the foot of the Campanian Subapennine mountain range...
. His father worked as a railroad hand. He worked his way through business college. He entered government service as a stenographer at the Interstate Commerce Commission
Interstate Commerce Commission
The Interstate Commerce Commission was a regulatory body in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads to ensure fair rates, to eliminate rate discrimination, and to regulate other aspects of common carriers, including...
in Washington, D.C.
State Department career
Offie began his State Department career at the American embassy in TegucigalpaTegucigalpa
Tegucigalpa , and commonly referred as Tegus , is the capital of Honduras and seat of government of the Republic, along with its twin sister Comayagüela. Founded on September 29, 1578 by the Spanish, it became the country's capital on October 30, 1880 under President Marco Aurelio Soto...
, Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
, where he was posted from October 1931 to April 1934.
He arrived in Moscow on June 11, 1934, to serve as secretary to Ambassador William C. Bullitt. Bullitt promoted him to vice-consul in 1934. His duties went beyond secretarial tasks to those of personal assistant, companion, and "all-purpose troubleshooter," even accompanying Bullitt on vacation and managing his medications. Offie also corresponded with Bullitt's State Department superiors and FDR
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
's secretary Missy LeHand to report on Bullitt's health and work habits. New York Times reporter C.L. Sulzberger on a visit to Moscow found Offie dealing in fine furs, the sort of special activity Offie became known for in the Foreign Service.
He followed Bullitt when he became Ambassador to France
United States Ambassador to France
This article is about the United States Ambassador to France. There has been a United States Ambassador to France since the American Revolution. The United States sent its first envoys to France in 1776, towards the end of the four-centuries-old Bourbon dynasty...
in 1936. Work included social obligations, as when he entertained the young John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
and his school chum Lem Billings
Lem Billings
Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings was a prep school roommate and then lifelong close friend of President John F. Kennedy. Billings took leave from his business career to work on Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign...
in 1937. Later on their European tour, the pair bought a dachshund puppy they named Offie. Offie entertained Kennedy again as he passed through Paris in 1939. Kennedy wrote to Billings: "Offie and I are now the greatest of pals and he really is a pretty good guy, though I suppose that it will make you a bit ill to hear it." Offie complained that Kennedy took liberties reading embassy papers without authorization. Kennedy, for his part, joked about having to humor Offie: "Offie has just rung for me, so I guess I have to get the old paper ready and go in and wipe his arse." On another occasion Offie played bridge with the Duchess of Windsor. Bullitt and Offie left Paris two weeks after the Germans took the city in June 1940. Later that year, when Bullitt had left France and not yet received another diplomatic assignment, Offie reported on Bullitt's frame of mind to Jane Ickes, wife of Bullitt's close friend, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes
Harold L. Ickes
Harold LeClair Ickes was a United States administrator and politician. He served as United States Secretary of the Interior for 13 years, from 1933 to 1946, the longest tenure of anyone to hold the office, and the second longest serving Cabinet member in U.S. history next to James Wilson. Ickes...
, and succeeded in getting the Secretary to raise the question of Bullitt's status with the president himself. He had enemies as well and the nickname "Carmie Awful."
In 1941, Bullitt allowed Offie to accept a short-term appointment as third secretary to Anthony Biddle
Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Jr.
Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Jr. , also known as A. J. Drexel Biddle, Jr. or Tony Biddle, was a wealthy socialite who became a diplomat of the United States, and served in the United States Army during World War I and after World War II, reaching the rank of major general.-Biography:Biddle was the...
when he was named to represent the U.S. to countries occupied by the Germans. In 1942, when Bullitt was facing financial difficulties, he lived with Offie, who had returned to Washington and had real estate investments there. Bullitt told a friend that "Offie had sponged off him for many years, and now he was sponging of Offie." Offie next followed Bullitt to the Navy Department. Bullitt was known to be too talkative to be trusted with sensitive information about military plans. Offie had one incident that showed similar lack of discretion. Emerging from the American Embassy in London, he was heard to say "Well, it's set for November." He was seized by security agents and released after embassy officials and Bullitt argued on his behalf.
Washington, D.C., police arrested Offie in 1943 and charged him with "disorderly conduct." He had solicited an undercover police officer in Lafayette Park across from the White House. With the knowledge of Secretary of State Cordell Hull
Cordell Hull
Cordell Hull was an American politician from the U.S. state of Tennessee. He is best known as the longest-serving Secretary of State, holding the position for 11 years in the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during much of World War II...
, the State Department provided Offie with a cover story in the form of a note asserting that Offie had planned a rendezvous with a confidential source as part of his official duties.
Offie served in Europe during the final years of World War II, beginning first in March 1944 as an aide to Robert Murphy
Robert Daniel Murphy
Robert Daniel Murphy was an American diplomat.Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Murphy had begun his diplomatic career in 1917 as a member of the American Legation in Bern, Switzerland. Among the several posts he held were Vice-Consul in Zurich and Munich, American Consul in Paris from 1930 to 1936,...
, the State Department's civilian representative to Allied military commanders in Italy and later following Murphy to an assignment in Germany. He was appointed to the staff of George Atcheson, Jr., the State Department's political adviser to Gen. Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the...
, head of the American occupation of Japan, but the appointment was rescinded before he ever served in that position. Offie became known for his ability to entertain while providing such luxurious and hard-to-obtain fare as Russian caviar. In 1947 State Department inspectors discovered that he had used diplomatic pouch for private purposes, moving $3,000 in cash to Paris. The shipment of cash was actually a favor for a friend, his former employer Anthony Biddle, who was trying to send money to his former wife. As punishment, he was forbidden all further promotion. He resigned from the State Department in April 1948.
CIA career
Based on recommendations from Chip BohlenCharles E. Bohlen
Charles Eustis “Chip” Bohlen was a United States diplomat from 1929 to 1969 and Soviet expert, serving in Moscow before and during World War II, succeeding George F. Kennan as United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union , then ambassador to the Philippines , and to France...
, he returned to government service in September 1948 as deputy to Frank Wisner
Frank Wisner
Frank Gardiner Wisner was head of Office of Strategic Services operations in southeastern Europe at the end of World War II, and the head of the Directorate of Plans of the Central Intelligence Agency during the 1950s....
, head of the Office of Policy Coordination
Office of Policy Coordination
The Office of Policy Coordination was a United States covert psychological operations and paramilitary action organization. Created as an independent office in 1948, it was merged with the Central Intelligence Agency in 1951....
(OPC), a CIA-funded unit within the State Department that was responsible for psychological warfare, propaganda, and surreptitious funding designed to destabilize the Soviet Union and its allies. He was widely recognized for his work ethic, rising in the early morning hours to speak to Eastern European contacts, and for an extraordinary ability to process multiple streams of information, digesting complex documents while conducting telephone negotiations. He continued to ingratiate himself with superiors, helping find a cook for Wisner and laying out funds to bring two servants to the U.S. for George F. Kennan
George F. Kennan
George Frost Kennan was an American adviser, diplomat, political scientist and historian, best known as "the father of containment" and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War...
. He was a regular attendee at Georgetown dinners. He counted among his enemies Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.
Kermit "Kim" Roosevelt, Jr. , was a political action officer of the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Plans who coordinated the Operation Ajax, which aimed to orchestrate a coup d’état against Iran's prime minister, Mohammed Mosaddeq, and return Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran,...
, a prominent CIA operative in the Middle East, who described Offie years later as "an oily little jerk who talked oddly and did odd things."
Offie's value both in occupied Europe and in the CIA related in part to his ability to establish friendly relations with the wives of prominent officials. His European connections helped him later in aiding the movement of anticommunists in and out of Eastern Europe. He ran two key programs: Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip was the Office of Strategic Services program used to recruit the scientists of Nazi Germany for employment by the United States in the aftermath of World War II...
, which recruited German scientists for work in the United States, and Operation Bloodstone, which targeted the Soviet Union by making intelligence analysts or spies of former Nazis and Nazi collaborators. He "helped to establish the paradigm for harnassing the services of Nazis, fascists, and collaborators, and a variety of emigre groups and desperate volunteers from the DP camps in America's fight against the specter of world communism." From Germany he recruited former diplomats and military officers to help spy on and support American propaganda efforts against the Soviets, a program codenamed Operation Bloodstone. Like others in the CIA at the time, he ignored the Nazi past of some of them, including such notables as Gustav Hilger, who had links to the creation of the SS Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen were SS paramilitary death squads that were responsible for mass killings, typically by shooting, of Jews in particular, but also significant numbers of other population groups and political categories...
massacre squads, and Nicholas Poppe, a Russian linguist and Nazi collaborator who helped plan the extermination of the Jews
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
. His other responsibilities included the oversight of labor and émigré affairs, as well as the National Committee for Free Europe
National Committee for a Free Europe
The National Committee for a Free Europe was an American anti-communist organization, founded on March 17, 1949 in New York, which worked for the spreading of American influence in Europe and to oppose Stalin's Soviet occupation and dictatorship...
, parent of Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a broadcaster funded by the U.S. Congress that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East "where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed"...
, which began radio broadcasts into Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
in 1950 using a transmitter Offie borrowed from the U.S. Army.
In October 1949 Offie made sexual advances in his OPC office while meeting with another government employee, an agent in the Army Counterintelligence Corps, who filed a report of the incident. Instead of a confrontation with Offie and his superiors, CIA security staff or enemies within the OPC accomplished his removal in a roundabout way. Early in 1953, they leaked information about Offie's 1943 arrest to Senator Joseph McCarthy. When McCarthy testified on March 18 before a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigating his claims about Communists working for the government, he described the case of a "convicted homosexual" who had resigned from the State Department in 1948 and now held a "top-salaried important position" at the CIA. He raised the case again in the same setting on April 25, 1950, adding details about "the men's room in Lafayette Park," asking subcommittee chairman Senator Millard E. Tydings
Millard Tydings
Millard Evelyn Tydings was an attorney, author, soldier, state legislator, and served as a Democratic Representative and Senator in the United States Congress from Maryland.-Early life:...
why he had not seen to the man's dismissal. That same afternoon, another subcommittee member, Senator Kenneth S. Wherry
Kenneth S. Wherry
Kenneth Spicer Wherry was a Republican United States Senator from Nebraska.-Early life:He was born in Liberty, Gage County, Nebraska. He graduated from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi, in 1914...
, a McCarthy supporter, announced that the employee in question had resigned.
Inside the CIA, Offie had defended himself as beyond blackmail, willing to admit his homosexuality, and Wisner defended him. CIA Director Roscoe Hillenkoetter yielded to Wisner until public disclosure seemed inevitable and he forced Offie's resignation in May 1950.
Later career
In June 1950, Wisner arranged a less sensitive position for Offie at the Free Trade Union CommitteeFree Trade Union Committee
The Free Trade Union Committee was created by the American Federation of Labor At its 1944 convention in New Orleans, the AFL passed a resolution drafted by Jay Lovestone creating the FTUC. Lovestone became its executive secretary. Its mission was to assist trade unions in foreign countries,...
(FTUC), a labor foreign policy group of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female membership, and a key player in the labor history of the 1920s and 1930s...
secretly supported with CIA funding. He was greeted warmly by his superior, longtime labor activist Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone was at various times a member of the Socialist Party of America, a leader of the Communist Party USA, leader of a small oppositionist party, an anti-Communist and Central Intelligence Agency helper, and foreign policy advisor to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and various unions...
. His title was Director of International Labor Information Services, but he served principally as liaison between the CIA and the FTUC, exploiting sources at his former employer to help his new colleagues understand and maneuver through the CIA's financing processes, though the relationship between the two organizations remained difficult.
Offie's contract at the FTUC ended in June 1952. He had developed detailed knowledge of the workings of the Mutual Security Administration, successor to the Marshall Plan
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
, which managed purchases from European companies on behalf of the U.S. government. He used that expertise first as a consultant to a Washington law firm, while continuing to consult for the FTUC, and then to establish his own business, Global Enterprises.
In August 1953 Offie visited the Majorca home of Charles W. Thayer
Charles W. Thayer
Charles W. Thayer was an American diplomat and author. He was an expert on Soviet-American relations and headed the Voice of America.-Early years:...
, a diplomat forced from the State Department as part of the Lavender Scare.
Personal life
Historians agree that Offie was a homosexual, describing him variously as "open" or "flamboyant." John F. Kennedy referred to him as "La Belle Offlet" in 1939, suggesting his effeminacy was obvious. Heinrich Müller, a German recruited into the CIA, called Offie "a screaming fairy" in his diary entry for January 5, 1951. In a 1986 interview, a former OPC official dismissed the FBI's belief that Offie was a Soviet agent: "How could the Soviets blackmail him? Everyone in Washington knew he was a homosexual!"In an interview with conservative columnist Westbrook Pegler
Westbrook Pegler
Francis James Westbrook Pegler was an American journalist and writer. He was a popular columnist in the 1930s and 1940s famed for his opposition to the New Deal and labor unions. Pegler criticized every president from Herbert Hoover to FDR to Harry Truman to John F. Kennedy...
at the end of 1952, Offie explained the 1943 Lafayette Park incident as an attempt to destroy him because of his long and vigorous anti-Communist record. He said he had a rendezvous there on State Department business and was accosted by a small gang. When he woke in a police cell he paid his $25 fine just to end the incident. Müller's diaries support Offie's contention that he was framed as well. J. Edgar Hoover's reaction to Offie's interview with Pegler was: "It seems to be an inherent part of a pervert's makeup to be also a pathological liar."
Ever since McCarthy's attacks highlighted Offie's homosexuality, Hoover's FBI had maintained a file on Offie and occasionally kept him under surveillance. Two of his professional contacts were also highly suspect in Hoover's eyes, Bullitt who had once been pro-Soviet though he had changed his mind decades ago, and Lovestone, a former Communist turned Labor activist which Hoover did not recognize as a fundamental change of ideology. At one point Offie had to defend himself to FBI agents and explain how, while working as a private citizen, he knew details of the government's planned procurements in Italy for 1953. He explained his source, but Hoover remained personally interested in his case.
Offie died on June 18, 1972, when British European Airways Flight 548
British European Airways Flight 548
British European Airways Flight 548 was a Hawker Siddeley Trident 1C airliner, registration G-ARPI, operating as a British European Airways scheduled commercial passenger flight from London Heathrow Airport to Brussels, Belgium...
crashed soon after take-off from London Heathrow Airport
London Heathrow Airport
London Heathrow Airport or Heathrow , in the London Borough of Hillingdon, is the busiest airport in the United Kingdom and the third busiest airport in the world in terms of total passenger traffic, handling more international passengers than any other airport around the globe...
. He is buried in Washington's Rock Creek Cemetery
Rock Creek Cemetery
Rock Creek Cemetery — also Rock Creek Church Yard and Cemetery — is an cemetery with a natural rolling landscape located at Rock Creek Church Road, NW, and Webster Street, NW, off Hawaii Avenue, NE in Washington, D.C.'s Michigan Park neighborhood, near Washington's Petworth neighborhood...
.
Sources
- Mark Aarons and John Loftus, Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis, and Soviet Intelligence (NY: St. Martin's Press, 1991)
- Will Brownell and Richard N. Billings, So Close to Greatness: A Biography of William C. Bullitt (NY: Macmillan Publishing, 1987)
- Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 (Boston: Little Brown, 2003)
- Robert D. Dean, Imperial Brotherhood: Gender and the Making of Cold War Foreign Policy (University of Massachusetts Press, 2001)
- Sigmund Diamond, Compromised Campus: The Collaboration of Universities with the Intelligence Community, 1945-1955 (NY: Oxford University Press, 1992)
- André Gerolymatos, Castles Made of Sand: A Century of Anglo-American Espionage and Intervention in the Middle East (Thomas Dunne, 2010)
- Nigel Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth (NY: Random House, 1992)
- Burton Hersh, The Old Boys: The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA (NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1992)
- David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government (University of Chicago Press, 2004)
- Ted Morgan, A Covert Life: Jay Lovestone, Communist, Anti-communist, and Spymaster (NY: Random House, 1999)
- Heinrich Müller, The CIA Covenant: Nazis in Washington (Müller Journals), Gregory Douglas, ed.
- Geoffrey Perret, Jack: A Life Like No Other (NY: Random House, 2002)
- Thomas Powers, The Man who Kept the Secrets (NY: Knopf, 1979)
- Mark Riebling, Wedge: From Pearl Harbor to 9/11: How the Secret War between the FBI and CIA has Endangered National Security (NY: Touchstone, 1994)
- Evan Thomas, The Very Best Men, Four who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1995)
- Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA (NY: Doubleday, 2007))
- Benjamin Welles, Sumner Welles: FDR's Global Strategist, A Biography (NY: St. Martin's Press, 1997)
- Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009)