John T. Downey
Encyclopedia
John T. 'Jack' Downey was a CIA operative who was held captive in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 for twenty years.

Early life

Originally from New Britain, Connecticut
New Britain, Connecticut
New Britain is a city in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. It is located approximately 9 miles southwest of Hartford. According to 2006 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 71,254....

, Downey graduated from The Choate School
Choate Rosemary Hall
Choate Rosemary Hall is a private, college-preparatory, coeducational boarding school located in Wallingford, Connecticut...

 (now Choate Rosemary Hall) and in 1951 Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

.

CIA career

He joined the Central Intelligence Agency
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...

 soon after Yale and became one of two CIA officers (the other was Richard G. Fecteau
Richard Fecteau
Richard Fecteau of Lynn, Massachusetts was captured by the Chinese during the CIA-sponsored flight over China during the Korean War. News of the capture of Fecteau and John T. Downey reached the United States in November 1954, sparking a nearly 2 decade battle of wills between the U.S. and the PRC...

, a Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...

 graduate) who survived the shoot-down of their mission over the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

 in November 1952, were captured, and spent approximately the next two decades in Chinese prisons before release. Today, the episode is less well known than that of Gary Powers
Gary Powers
Francis Gary Powers was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission over Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 incident.- Early life :...

, the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...

 spy plane
Lockheed U-2
The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "Dragon Lady", is a single-engine, very high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency . It provides day and night, very high-altitude , all-weather intelligence gathering...

 pilot who was shot down over the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 in 1960.

Capture

During the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

, China was an ally of North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...

 against the U.S.-backed South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

ns. Fecteau, Downey and fellow aircraft crew were trying to pick up an anti-communist Chinese agent when they came under fire in the sky over Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...

 on November 29, 1952. Initially, all of those on the aircraft were presumed by the U.S. Government to be lost. Downey was 22 years old and Fecteau was 25 at the time of their capture. The pilots, Robert Snoddy and Norman Schwartz, lost their lives.

Two years later, the men saw each other for the first time, and their survival was first confirmed to the world outside of China, when they were put on secret trial and convicted of spying. These developments drew strong protests from the administration of President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...

. But because their status as CIA officers was a secret, the U.S. Government did not acknowledge their true affiliation for much of the period of their incarceration, saying instead that they were civilian United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 employees, which necessarily complicated the efforts of U.S. officials, family members and others to press for their release, or even to make their plight widely known.

Release

Due to efforts by Downey's mother, Mary Downey, and President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

, Downey was released 21 years into his life sentence, in March 1973, the year after Nixon's visit to China. (Fecteau had been released in December 1971 after serving nineteen years of a 20-year sentence) The backdrop was President Nixon's early 1970s' historic opening to China. Three years later, at age 46, Downey graduated from Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...

, ultimately becoming a judge.

Post-release

Judge Downey was married (in 1975, to a Chinese-born wife) and they have an adult son. (Richard Fecteau returned to his alma mater as assistant athletic director at Boston University, retiring in 1989.)

Judge Downey's latter judicial career was honored when the New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...

 Juvenile Matters Courthouse and Detention Center was named for him following his retirement after reaching the position of Chief Administrative Judge for Juvenile Matters. http://www.jud.ct.gov/external/news/Press110.html The courthouse ceremony occurred on September 25, 2002.

On June 18, 2007, the Connecticut Bar Association honored Judge Downey with its highest honor for a judge, the Henry J. Naruk Judiciary Award, for his outstanding contributions to the judicial field in Connecticut. https://www.ctbar.org/article/articleview/812/1/64

CIA Medal

In late June 1998, CIA Director George Tenet
George Tenet
George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....

 awarded Downey and Fecteau the CIA Director's Medal for their service to their country, in a private ceremony described in an Associated Press article on July 3, 1998. The AP account quoted Ambassador James R. Lilley
James R. Lilley
James Roderick Lilley ; born January 15, 1928 in Qingdao, China; died November 12, 2009 in Washington, DC; was an American diplomat who served as United States Ambassador to China at the time of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989....

, a retired CIA officer and Yale classmate of Downey's who served as U.S. envoy in both Seoul
Seoul
Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...

 and Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

a speaker at the event, saying that Downey was released after Nixon publicly admitted he had been on a CIA operation.

External links

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