Word: woodruff
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...slain agent was a seasoned veteran of service in Russia, Turkey, Ethiopia and Sudan. "Freddie was an enormously charming guy. You liked him, , you liked to tell him secrets," said a diplomat who served with Woodruff in Africa. "He was an aggressive, old-fashioned, street-smart spook. When everything was falling apart, you could ask him to get the hell out there and find out what's going...
...Woodruff may have learned his way with people as the son of a tent-preaching Oklahoma evangelist; his job was to take around the collection plate, and by the age of 10, he was giving his own sermons. After joining the CIA in 1975, he thrived on Third World crises. He loathed neckties and wore cowboy boots and sometimes a ten-gallon hat. But he was no cowboy on the job. Joseph O'Neill, who served with Woodruff in Africa and is now charge d'affaires in Eritrea, considered him a rock-steady operative who "knew exactly what...
Washington wants to help Shevardnadze's government regain control, and dispatched Woodruff to provide antiterrorist training to the bodyguards of top Georgian officials, teaching them defensive measures, negotiation tactics and crisis management. But in Georgia's highly charged politics, something as benign as preventing assassination can still be taken as a provocation...
...Woodruff's personal tragedy in Tbilisi underscores what dangers can lurk even in altruism. Many Russians are acutely suspicious that Washington aims to block a return of their influence in areas they long controlled. Russia's neighbors wonder what help the U.S. can offer in defusing their ethnic problems and strife with Moscow except token amounts of aid. So far, programs like Woodruff's are strictly defensive. But the more the U.S. takes sides in these disputes, the more enemies it will acquire...
Consummate spy that he was, Fred Woodruff would be surprised by his fame in death. On Monday, the day of his burial, flags at U.S. embassies and consulates around the world were ordered flown at half staff. That seems fitting for the first U.S. spy to die helping, not harming, a onetime Soviet republic...