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You might have heard a thing or two about the CIA, but have you ever heard from the CIA? In the Central Intelligence Agency's first public podcast, you will. Let us be your guides around the corridors of CIA Headquarters in Langley, as you step beyond the Hollywood scripts and shadowed whispers to hear directly from the people serving each day as America's first line of defense. These are their stories. This is The Langley Files.
(music begins)
Walter: At CIA, we work around the clock and across the globe to help keep Americans and others around the world safe. Secrecy is often vital to our work.
Dee: But we’re committed to sharing what we can when we can. So let us be your guides around the halls of Langley as we open our files and speak with those who have dedicated themselves to this mission.
Walter: These are their stories.
Walter and Dee: This is The Langley Files.
(music continues)
Dee: In the 1970s, high above a stretch of twilight African desert, just after sundown, a US aircraft roars through the dark blue sky.
Walter: On the ground and miles away, headlights bounce along uneven terrain. Surrounded by the growing darkness, a truck is racing down a rugged dirt road.
Dee: Inside is a CIA operations officer, aware that he is also racing the clock. He’s expecting two impending arrivals in quick succession.
Walter: The first, speeding towards him in another vehicle full of CIA officers, is a KGB officer who has agreed to provide the Agency with exceptionally sensitive information—information that decisionmakers back in Washington have deemed vital for US national security at a time when the Cold War is still at constant risk of going hot. Smuggling that KGB officer out of Africa and to safety is the mission this CIA officer has been tasked with tonight.
Dee: And to do that, he’s waiting on the second arrival: the US aircraft currently en route.
Walter: If he’s successful, this CIA officer will be achieving a signature moment in CIA Cold War history: an audacious exfiltration of a key agent. But, for him, it will also be the latest in a long line of firsts.
Dee: Because this officer joined CIA in the 1950s, as one of just a handful of Black employees in the Agency’s records department. Then, he qualified for CIA’s clandestine operations training program—the only Black officer in a class of 75, and one of the very first to undergo the training. He’ll go on to become the first Black officer to lead a CIA operations branch, to open a CIA station, and one of the very first to join the Agency’s senior-most ranks.
Walter: But first, tonight, he’ll have to deal with the third arrival, which is not part of the plan: a vehicle full of local security forces, en route at this very moment to investigate the growing din of the approaching aircraft.
Dee: This CIA officer will have to find a way to overcome the odds—but doing that is exactly what George Hocker is known for.
Walter: And on this episode of The Langley Files, you’re going to meet him. Let’s get started.
(music ends)
Dee: Welcome back everyone, to this very special two-part episode of The Langley Files.
Walter: For years, Dee and I have walked past, and on many occasions stopped to examine, an exhibit here at CIA Headquarters, honoring one of the Agency’s great trailblazers: George Hocker, one of CIA’s very first Black operations officers, who went on to achieve a string of firsts throughout his career.
Dee: And today, George has agreed to return to the halls that, for decades of his life, he called home, and which he changed forever.
Walter: We’ll talk about his childhood in pre-Civil Rights era Washington, DC, the path that led him to CIA, and the path he forged once here—often against discrimination both veiled and blatant, and always against the odds. We’ll also discuss the intelligence exploits he led, which are now forever part of CIA, and Cold War, history.
Dee: And so now, without further ado, welcome, George Hocker. It’s truly an honor and a privilege to have you here today, sir. Thank you so much for returning to Langley to speak with us here.
Walter: Thank you sir. It’s an honor to have you here.
George: Thank you for this invitation. I, uh I am very pleased to be here. I always enjoy coming back to my, uh, second home, third home, fourth home, whatever it might be. But it's always a pleasure to be here, and it's been a delight to meet the two of you, so I'm looking forward to spending some time with you.
Dee: So let’s go back to the very beginning of your story—we understand that you grew up here in the area, in Washington DC, but in a very different era…
George: I was born in Washington, DC, grew up in southeast Washington on what was B Street and then later changed to Independence Avenue. It's actually within walking distance of the nation's capital. It was a, uh, fairly diverse neighborhood for that time. My elementary school was all black because for the first 14 years of my life Washington, DC was segregated. Both my parents were very devoted to the five of us. I'm the oldest of five and, uh, my young brother, unfortunately, was without oxygen just a little too long. Hospitals were segregated and my mother didn't get the same care. And so he developed uh, some physical and mental issues. First they told my parents he wouldn't live. And then they said, if he lived, you need to institutionalize him. But, fortunately they were enlightened enough to not do that.
Dee: We understand that, in the midst all of that, you were actually very active and very entrepreneurial at that age…
George: I got a job at 14 as a dishwasher at what was a white YMCA in Washington, DC at the time. It was dishwashing and mopping the floor. My dad told me how to calculate my pay and the first check I got, I was shorted, and I pointed it out to the supervisor. And a few days later, they put me in charge of a canteen at the end of one of the streetcar routes that the company had, it was called B and B catering. I ended up running the canteen, and then they had me as a short order cook at Sibley Hospital, and then a couple of other jobs with them.
Walter: And throughout all of that, we remember that your dad had advice for you about perseverance and determination and holding your head high no matter what…
George: He did. My dad was born in Kentucky and he eventually made his way to Washington DC, where he met my mom. My mom grew up in Maryland. They both experienced uh, you know, racism and difficult situations. My dad made his way to Washington, DC after he decided to leave Louisville, Kentucky, after a death threat. He, uh he went to, uh, Knoxville College in Tennessee on a partial basketball scholarship, and this was the 1920s, but my dad had to drop out of out of college, and he got a job as a bellhop at a big hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. There was a very wealthy white woman who came there for about three months every year. She had a penthouse in the in the hotel, and she liked my dad because, you know, he was always respectful and did, you know, little errands for her. So she arrived for her three month stay and they chatted for a few minutes as my dad got her luggage together. And after he delivered the luggage and came back downstairs to his bellhop post, three white men came over to him and said if we ever see you talking to a white woman like this again, we will kill you. So my dad, pretty intelligent guy, packed his bags and left Louisville that night, heard about possible jobs in Atlantic City, and he made his way to Atlantic City, and then eventually to Washington, DC. I didn't learn about an experience with my mother until she was actually in a nursing home, and my aunt told me that the reason my mother's toes were slightly crooked was, as they were growing up in Maryland, near the Chesapeake Bay, they were never allowed to try on to shoes, so they could only make a sketch of their foot on paper and go in and use that to, uh, get shoes, because if they tried on shoes and they didn't fit, they'd have to buy them. So she always in her youth and developing stages, wore shoes that never fit. But as I said, they did not want us to walk around with chips on our shoulders. My dad once told me, he said, “You can't walk around with a chip on your shoulder about people,” he said, “because pretty soon that chip becomes a log, and then it becomes a tree trunk, and the human body is not made to carry that kind of weight. So you have to learn how to persevere, how to, uh, not let injustices stop you from doing whatever you wanna do. You have to figure out a way to work around them, and just try to be the best that you can be, and be a good person at the same time.”
Walter: That’s incredible. And it sounds like, based on our conversations, that advice stayed with you your whole career and really your whole life.
Dee: So you grow up in Washington, DC, which is still, in your childhood, segregated, and you go on, we understand, to attend Howard University. Then fates intercede to bring you to CIA. Really kind of lure you here. Tell us what happened next.
George: I didn't know anything about the Central Intelligence Agency. I never heard of it. I was sitting in a social science class, second semester, February of my freshman year at Howard University. My closest friend, he said, “How would you like a job?” He said, “I work four hours a night. I finish all my work in two hours. I have my own desk, I have my own telephone.” And I said, “Well, I don't need a job.” I said, “My mother's making my lunch.” They give me $5 a week allowance, they give me, you know, money to take the street car to get up here to Howard from southeast Washington. I don't need a job. Well, he kept bugging me. And so before the first part of March, he said, well, uh, well, let me put your name on a list. I said, Well, what do you do? He said Well, I really can't tell you, he said. But you know it's a great job. And, uh so finally, I said, OK, put my name on a list because I knew I wanted to work during the summer. I was taking life-saving and water water safety as one of my phys-ed requirements And, uh, so I applied for a lifeguard job, and I applied for a messenger job. And then I got this packet in the mail from the Central Intelligence Agency with, I don't know, I think it seemed like a 30- page questionnaire. The only references I could put on there were my parents’ friends from church. I filled it out, I think it might have even been, in triplicate. And I got all three jobs. Came into the Agency in September. Didn't know anything about it. We were put into what was called a pool, where we alphabetized three by five cards. And in those days, the Agency was, uh at least that part of the Agency, was located in World War II Quonset hut buildings in front of the, uh, reflection pool there, by the Lincoln Memorial.
Walter: Wow, so you started in the old, pre-Langley CIA buildings…
Dee: And your buddy had essentially just tricked you into joining the CIA. And then he leaves, while you’re continue on in the records department. What was the work like in that office, at that time?
George: We were in the rows of file cabinets that were as tall as I am almost and we alphabetized and ran name checks for different agencies. It was a dollar 73 cents an hour as a GS3, and they gave you another 20 cents as a night differential. So I was, you know, was just there doing that and going to classes during the day and I'd get home and study till 3, 4 o'clock in the morning, go to school, take a nap in the library, and and then get back to, uh, the Agency by 3:30.
Walter: So it’s the 1950s at this point. And at that time, you were one of the only Black officers in the records department. What was that experience like?
George: I would periodically see white colleagues, the men, young men my age, and who were still getting, working on their degrees, would disappear. And I would say, “What happened, where is so and so?” And they’d say, “Well, he's, he's gone up to the European Division. He's gone to Latin America division.” I said, “Well, what are they?” He said, “Well, it's professional level.” I said, “Well, we were told we can't get on a professional level until we get our degrees and they haven't gotten their degrees yet.” But they were gone. Finally, I graduated, and then I received a letter saying, “Congratulations, you've graduated. We look forward to marching for commencement in June.” And so first I went over to Providence Hospital to give it to my dad so he could see it, you know? And he cried, the first time I'd ever seen him cry in my life. The next day I made a thermo fax copy, and I took it to personnel officer. She never looked up from her desk. She just said to me, “I've got you a little piece of paper. What would you like for me to do with it?” And I said, “I would appreciate it if you would schedule me for whatever examinations I have to take to get on professional level.” She said, “Well, you know, we've just moved here into the new headquarters building, so it'll probably be another three or four months,” and then I, uh, received a call and I took the test. I was offered a position as a as an analyst. At that point, and I'd only had one promotion.
Dee: Geez. So what was next for you?
George: So I was a GS four, Step five or something. And so I started working as an analyst, and I shortly found within a few weeks that all of my white colleagues, men and women, were GS fives, sixes, and sevens. And so I went to the supervisor and I said, “Well, you know, all my colleagues here fives, sixes, and sevens, and I'm still a four… When do when I get my five?” He said, “Well, you're an internal, so it'll be at least another three months.” So it was another three months or so before I finally got my five.
Walter: What account were you assigned to? And what did you make of the CIA work you witnessed there?
George: I was working on African matters, and I was beginning to see what the Agency did, and I thought you know, this looks like an exciting work, but, uh I'm not sure I want to stay in this organization because uh, the mantra, which I didn't know at the time but found out subsequently, was male, pale, and Yale. They just were no real Black role models around. It was my friend who came in with me, and he got his degree before me because he was a little bit older. And, uh he told me about going into the junior officer training program, and I thought about it. But I said, you know I just don't know that I wanna make a career here.
Walter: This is the really famous training course for CIA operations officers. What changed your mind?
George: The march on Washington. It was, uh, a march that was gonna bring several hundred thousand, mostly Blacks, into Washington, DC, led by Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior, A. Philip Randolph, and others. And, uh, I decided that uh, this was something that I should do. It was historic. All the media was indicating that there were probably gonna be race riots. Probably some people would get killed. A lot of precautions were taken. Extra police were brought in, uh, from the surrounding area. Military was put on alert. National Guard paratroopers in Fort Bragg were on alert, ready to be flown in. Well, all these precautions were unnecessary. March was absolutely peaceful. But for me, it was the first time that I had seen on Constitution Avenue people from one side to the other, and I had been there as recently as the inauguration for President John F. Kennedy, and as a, uh, child in my elementary school, my all Black elementary school, I was a patrol boy, and we were invited to be in some of the parades on Constitution Avenue. But I had never seen people from one side to the other, never seen that many Blacks and whites together, walking peacefully. I was fortunate enough to get within 100 yards of Reverend Doctor King when he spoke and gave his I Have a Dream speech. I actually, uh, stepped on a white guy's foot and he said “Excuse me” for having his foot under mine before I could say “Excuse me” for stepping on his, and I came away from there feeling that Blacks and whites can work together, can do some things together, that it is important for our country to have diversity, and especially in the Central Intelligence Agency, where we're trying to collect information for the safety of this country and for the free world. And so, uh, I said, I'm not going to let bigotry and discrimination define me. I am going to be a Black spy, and I came back and applied for the junior officer training program and was accepted.
Walter: Wow. What an incredible moment of personal revelation and professional revelation and historical revelation. You hear around this building these days, the mission importance of having a diverse workforce to understand a really complex world and operate in a really complex world. But you're having that thought, you know, half a century ago, when it was very much against the current.
George: Yes, it was against the current. So when I, you know, came back and indicated that I wanted to take the test for what was called the junior officer training program, I took the test and then was accepted and started. I was the only Black in my class of 75. And for the first six weeks, we were, uh, learning how to be analysts. And then we split off, and some of us went to what is called the Farm. It was a tense time. It was one gentleman classmate that I had that on the first day I went and sat next to him. He was clearly, you know, from a well-off family. He had the best suit in the room, smoked a pipe and cigars. I had never seen anybody smoking a pipe. But I sat down next to him, and as soon as I sat down next to him, he got up and moved. And so I said, well, maybe it's just something wrong with his chair. So the next day, there was a vacant seat next to him and I sat in it and he got up and moved again. He didn't go down to to the Farm with those of us who were going on the spy side of training, so I never saw him again.
Dee: What was your experience like in in this training course?
George: So we, uh, after the the first six weeks of the uh, JOT training, we separated, and those of us who were gonna go into the clandestine spy side went to the Farm for our training. Exercises had to be developed a little differently for me because of the segregation at the time. So I had more car meetings than restaurant meetings.
Walter: That’s the simulated, training meetings between a CIA operations officer trainee and an instructor playing the role of a foreign citizen who has access to critical information and is willing to relay that to CIA. And you’re saying segregation in this country, in the US, actually impeded where and how you could participate in these trainings?
George: Yes. My colleagues could go have a nice lunch, and I had to go have a meeting in the car.
Walter: This is already, for folks listening at home, one of the hardest training courses in the US government, and you're having to kind of go through additional steps to find places where you can meet with people in an environment that's still segregated.
George: Exactly. So I said a lot, a lot of of meetings in cars. Sometimes, you know, I could I could walk someplace if the exercise required, you know, a short amount of time. And then there were other exercises where I had to to be, you know, member of the surveillance team. I'm wondering whether, how many eyes are on me, whether people see that I'm looking like I'm, you know, following somebody or something, you know, and you just you just don't know. All these things run through your mind when you know that you're different. And when you know that you're in an environment that doesn't respect you because of the color of your skin. So there's more eyes on you, while you're trying to keep your eyes on the person you're surveilling and not be, uh, exposed so that they, uh, don't know where you are and what you're doing.
Walter: This is in addition to the dynamics in the class...
George: And I had to figure out how to do these things as a Black person.
Dee: And on top of all of that you were also, we understand, put through additional training in the name of ensuring you could contend with racism around the world while running operations…
George: Yea. I had to have some special situations for meeting my, uh, role play instructors. And I had one experience where we were going to a restaurant, that was pretty high end, and and it was felt that I could go into the restaurant with my white instructor agent. And so we're walking down the street and all of a sudden he stops, and he says to me, he says, you know, curse word, “They didn't tell me it was gonna be a Negro.” And of course it caught me very much off guard. And then he mumbled a bit. And I said, “Well, I can only tell you that things like this happen sometimes, and that my primary objective is your safety. I will never ask you to do something that will put you in jeopardy. And, uh, you can depend on that because my job is to protect you for the service that you are providing to the United States. I will do everything possible to make sure that you're always safe. And I will never ask you to do anything that will put your life in jeopardy.” And so he mumbled some more things and he kept mumbling with this and questioning this and asking me, you know, how did I get this job? And could he really depend on me, all through the luncheon. And so we finally, you know, made it through the meeting. Students and instructors would pop in the bar sometimes in the evening, get a beer chat, catch up on things, and he would be there. But he never had eye contact with me or said anything for maybe three or four weeks after that exercise. And then he finally pulled me aside, and he said he really wanted to tell me how difficult it was for him to play that role with me because this is not the kind of person he was. And that the, uh, decision to put this into the role play exercise had been made at the highest levels in the Directorate of Operations because they needed to know how a Black officer might respond to this kind of question, which was a legitimate question. And I told him I understood, you know, and we didn't have a long conversation about it, but he was looking, it was like a confession, he was looking for absolution from me, and I said, “Listen it's fine. I understand. You know, we got through it,” and, uh, he said, “Well, you just I just want you to know you did a terrific job. And everybody at headquarters knows that you handled this, you know, in an extremely professional manner,” et cetera.
Walter: We understand that there was also a final exercise in the training course, in which all of the trainees were divided up into teams, and that you were chosen on the basis of your performance in the course to be your team’s leader. And that a classmate came up to you when they heard this news...
George: He came up to me and said, you know, “I was really upset when I found out I was gonna be on your team, and I thought about it. And then I finally decided, well, you wouldn't be team leader and captain of our four-man team unless you were in the top 10% of the class,” so he said, “I just want you to know I'll be all right. And I just wanted to share that with you.” And I said, “I really appreciate you sharing it with me. And don't worry about it, because we're gonna try to come in first place.”
Walter: You guys came in close to first place in the end, right?
George: Yea, yea, I think we came in third out of 10 teams.
Dee: And so you graduate from CIA operations officer training and dive quickly into yet another grueling training—the Agency’s paramilitary course.
George: And that, it it was a difficult time because of so many places that I couldn't go into, and things that were going on in the civil rights movement. You could see Blacks being hosed and dogs being sicked on them, you know, further south. You know, we'd be, especially when I went to demolition training and paramilitary afterwards, and we were sitting there having dinner, and the only Blacks around are those that are serving us and and cleaning our rooms. And none of my white classmates would say anything, and I wouldn't say anything, but we’d have the television on, and we could see all this taking place. So it was, it was in the air, so to speak.
Dee: So, it’s our understanding is you were, in fact, the very first Black officer to take that training?
George: Yea. I was the first Black officer to take paramilitary training. I probably was the only person in my class who, uh, and never, never been in a hotel. Never been on an airplane. Never had vacations other than going to visit family members. So the first time I was in the airplane, I flew, I flew north for this training course, and then when, uh, got into paramilitary training. They had a plane there, and they, the instructors picked me to be the one to be picked up and taken up. So that was my second time in an airplane. My third time in the airplane, I was jumping. We had to make five jumps. Third jump was with a steerable chute. This is kind of square chute. I thought it was great. And I was pulling on the toggles, and all of a sudden I heard the loudspeaker from the ground saying, “Hocker, turn into the wind, Hocker, turn into the wind,” because you're supposed to turn into the wind to have a softer landing, you neutralize the speed. And by the time I started to turn, I was about at tree level, so I came down really hard, on my left side and badly sprained my left ankle, and we had two more jumps. And the next jump was a night jump, that night. And I, uh, managed to get myself up and get close enough to some of the guys walking off the field without chutes to camouflage my, uh, pain and limp. When I got back to my room, I told a couple of guys I said, “You know, I really messed this ankle up, you know, and I gotta make the jump tonight and I gotta make the jump tomorrow.” You know, I wrapped it with a with a wrap, and they kind of shielded me as we went out to make the night jump. I made the night jump, and they then shield shielded me to get off the, uh off the field without being observed by the instructors, that I was really limping. Got back to my room and a couple of them went over to, uh to the bar and got some ice in a bucket and did it clandestinely because nobody could figure out why you take a bucket of ice out of the bar. I put it on ice, and it was, there was one guy in our class who had worked for a chemical company that was developing, uh, ointment for arthritis I think. So he had some ointment to put on my ankle that next morning. It it stained the tile on the floor. We had a medical doctor in the class. He helped to wrap it so that I could get my boot on. And uh, I made my fifth jump, I qualified and I really limped off the field afterwards. The instructors were extremely upset with me that I jumped twice on this sprained ankle. I said, but I, you know, I had to finish. Wasn’t going to quit. And, uh, so they chastised me and everything. They X rayed it and it wasn't broken, it was just badly sprained. But it just bothered me all the rest of my life at times.
Walter: It sounds like you bonded with your classmates, though, and they looked out for you…
George: Yeah. Yeah. A couple of them did.
Walter: Wow. So, what was the paramilitary course like? It was held in a swampy region, swampy territory… there are wildlife risks, snakes, and other even more dangerous aquatic life that you’re having to contend with…
George: All that. Yeah. And and mosquitoes the size of horses. I did a jungle survival, and we were in three-man teams. And one of the guys on my team was, had been a smoke jumper, out in in the western United States. And he was really good at, you know, navigating and moving through the the bush. And we were in, we were in jungle, where the canopy was really high, with the trees. And so it was, uh, hard to stay in in eyesight of each other. And we were not walking close to each other. And so all of a sudden, somehow or other, he disappeared. And he was the best at navigating this of the three of us. And so this other guy and I, you know, we just lost him, and, uh, he lost us, or maybe he got tired of us not moving as fast as he did, but he disappeared. It was almost dark, and we reached a point where there was a checkpoint, because they had checkpoints out there, and we knew we couldn't get past that checkpoint. But there was a body of water off the side of this road we were on. And I said to to my buddy, I said, “Look, why don't we just get in this water and we can try to, you know, move stealthily past where that roadblock is and then eventually get back to to where the exercise ends.” Well, he said, “Well, you going in first.” And I went in first, and it was over my head, and it was foul smelling water from dead wood that had deteriorated in there. So I said, “Well, we can't get by this and I'm getting out of here.” So I was stuck in, had wet clothes all night. Shortly before daybreak, we were able to sneak past that that checkpoint and made it back to where the exercise was was to end. So we were the last two getting in, and they were wondering where we were. Gave us kudos for staying in the jungle all night because we were the only ones who stayed in the jungle all night.
Walter: So that was one end of the environmental extreme, but you had another adventure on the other side of the environmental extreme while in this training.
George: Yes. I was coming back from being home for the weekend on Sunday night, and it was snowing like crazy. There was a blizzard coming, and they, uh, brought us big sheets of white canvas and a ball of twine and a nail, large nail, that had the head flattened with a hole in it, and a pair of scissors. And we were to take our fatigue jacket and our pants and make ourselves snowsuits. So we had to cut em out and then sew em up with this cord and everything, and then get out there. And the next morning we dropped off at our at our first point, and then you would get to the second.
Dee: So this was a navigation exercise, where you’re charting a course from point to point.
George: Exactly. Well, because of just 23 inches of snow and snow drifts, it was difficult to find them because they were all on white posts. They did not anticipate this. They thought the white post would stand out with this green background of regular foliage. So I found the first one and then I was struggling to find the next one, and I didn't really find the next one. But I was the only one who was out there in that snow all day. No water, no food, anything. But I would not quit. And finally, military police picked me up on as I was crossing the road. It was almost dark. And they said, “Are you George Hocker?” And I said yes. And they said “we've been looking for you for the last four hours or so.” You know, and they said, “everybody else is in. The guys just quit because they couldn't do it.” And so I got in there and the instructors are saying, “Are you crazy? What were you doing?” I said, “I was trying to finish the course and I wasn't going to quit.” I was freezing, but I learned, you know, I, I can I can survive, you know, even extreme cold weather.
Dee: Wow, and I know we’ll get to this eventually, but that kind of like navigating-under-stress training will definitely turn in to something handy when you’re eventually tasked with navigating the African countryside by night in order to get a Soviet officer who’s been working with the CIA to safety.
Walter: Sir, if we could ask, what kept you motivated throughout all that, and all the additional hurdles that you, alone in this course, really, had to contend with?
George: You know, I, I had a certain sense of pride of being the only Black there, knowing that I didn't have other role models that I could really talk to about what they were doing. And so, I think what kept me going was the desire to never fail and to do the best that I could and I believed that I could do this. And so I was very diligent and paid a lot of attention to figuring out how to do things clandestinely, having no idea of where I would serve or what I would do. But I just knew that I had to get everything possible out of the training.
Dee: So you’re now a certified CIA operations officer—qualified to clandestinely acquire secret intelligence abroad on behalf of the United States of America. And you’re about to be sent overseas, to a country in turmoil, to do just that.
Walter: That’s where we’re going to have to leave it for Part One of this special two-part episode of The Langley Files. To our listeners: tune in to Part Two, because as challenging as CIA operations training was, George Hocker’s career with the Agency is just getting started—and only going to get more intense. In short order he’ll find himself on the wrong end of an AK-47 rifle, in the middle of a mystery that had beguiled the local CIA station for years, and ultimately, tasked with exfiltrating a key KGB asset under cover of darkness.
Dee: And he’ll do it all while facing attempts to sideline and undercut him within his own organization—and yet ultimately rise to the Agency’s senior-most ranks. So stay tuned.