Haviland Smith, CIA agent who pioneered counter-surveillance techniques in the Soviet bloc – obituary
Haviland Smith, who has died aged 94, was a former CIA station chief who served in Europe and the Middle East and spent three years in the 1970s as chief of the agency's counterterrorism staff; he was particularly known for developing counter-surveillance techniques which became standard for CIA personnel stationed behind the Iron Curtain.
In 1958 he was appointed CIA station chief in Prague, managing agents across Czechoslovakia – and finding himself under constant surveillance. Once, after a stroll round the city, he learnt from intercepted radio messages that he had been monitored by more than two dozen vehicles.
At first he tried to outpace his pursuers, but that only made them more vigilant. Instead he concluded that the best way to distract their attention was to become extremely boring, maintaining a regular schedule and taking the same routes to carry out routine chores. Gradually, his minders stopped paying close attention, creating what became known in spycraft as "the gap" – a few seconds in which messages or a dead drop could be delivered.
Smith found that by adding corners to his routine, making two right turns for example in quick succession, he could create some vital seconds of opportunity.
Later he developed a technique known as the brush pass, in which agent and contact, often carrying identical-looking objects, such as a newspaper, briefcase, or magazine, "brush" past one another – typically in a public place and preferably a crowd, where other people interfere with any visual surveillance – so that watchers do not see information being exchanged.
Haviland Smith was born in Manhattan on August 25 1929, and grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy before taking a degree in English and Russian at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. After service in the US Army in Europe he did graduate work in Russian at the University of London, then served in the US Army Security Agency, intercepting Russian-language messages, before joining the CIA in 1956.
His experience intercepting radio messages proved vital in Prague, where he cracked the radio codes used by the Czech secret police and planned his activities accordingly.
Smith went on to serve in Berlin and spent five years in the Middle East, where he was stationed in Beirut during the 1967 Six-Day War.
He was there when Israeli forces attacked the USS Liberty, a "technical research" (i.e. spy) ship in the eastern Mediterranean, killing 34 and wounding 171. At the time the US government appeared to accept Israeli claims that the attack had been a case of mistaken identity by Israeli pilots who had confused the US Navy's most distinctive ship with an Egyptian horse-cavalry transport.
Four decades later however, declassified internal White House documents showed that the Israelis' explanation was not believed at the time, and a number of intelligence specialists recalled seeing transcripts of communications between Israeli pilots and their ground control station, showing that they knew perfectly well that Liberty was American, but that the pilots had been ordered to attack and sink it and ensure they left no survivors.
Smith, too, recalled hearing about the transcripts, but had been told that they had been "deep-sixed" (irretrievably disposed of) because the administration did not wish to embarrass the Israelis.
In the 1970s Smith led the CIA's counterterrorism staff at Langley and served as an executive assistant to the CIA's deputy director, Frank Carlucci, before retiring in 1980.
Later he bought a farm in Vermont, where he raised fallow deer and turned wooden bowls on a lathe. He also wrote op-ed pieces for newspapers castigating US policy in the Middle East as "totally simplistic". Donald Trump, meanwhile, he accused of promoting policies that "would appear to be in line with the goals of the Russian leadership to weaken their American rival".
Smith was twice awarded the Intelligence Medal of Merit.
His first marriage, to Martha Allen, was dissolved. He is survived by his second wife, Dolores, by their daughter and by two sons from his first marriage. Another son from his first marriage predeceased him.
Haviland Smith, born August 25 1929, died June 20 2024
