Born
August 25, 1929
New York, New York
Died
June 20, 2024
Monroe Township, New Jersey
Details of services
No service date set.
Haviland Smith Jr., who was born in New York City in 1929, passed away peacefully on June 20, 2024 at his home in Monroe Township, New Jersey.
His parents were Haviland Smith Sr. and Charlotte Adams Hawes. He subsequently lived with his maternal grandmother, Henrietta Houston Hawes, in Ridgewood, New Jersey and attended New England boarding schools — The Fenn School in Concord, Massachusetts and Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. From Exeter, he went to Dartmouth College where he played hockey and lacrosse and received a degree in Russian in 1953.
After leaving Dartmouth during the fall of his senior year, he served three years in the Army Security Agency during which time he was taught Russian at the Army Language School in Monterrey, California. This was followed by an honorable discharge and by two years of graduate work at London University in Russian regional studies.
During his time in London, he was approached by the CIA, and when he returned to the U.S. in 1956, he signed on with them. After two years of training, he was posted to Prague and from there to Berlin in 1960.
His experience in Prague and Berlin led him to concentrate on the development of techniques for handling agents in hostile, heavily surveilled environments. Ultimately, he came up with the philosophy — you can never be sure you are not under surveillance — and the tradecraft —working in the “gap”, brush contacts, car tosses, etc. — that made it possible for the CIA to successfully handle productive agents throughout the then Soviet empire. These are all discussed in “The Moscow Rules” by Antonio and Jonna Mendes, “A Secret Life” by Benjamin Weiser and “The Billion Dollar Spy” by David E. Hoffman.
During subsequent tours abroad in the Middle East he focused on the recruitment of Soviets and East Europeans. He later learned from CIA headquarters management that he was the first CIA officer ever to target, develop and recruit a Soviet source. When he managed that again he was the first to have done it twice. He was twice rewarded with the Intelligence Medal of Merit for those efforts.
His tours in headquarters included as executive assistant to the deputy director, as chief of the counterterrorism staff and as chief of operational support for CIA’s worldwide Soviet and East European recruitment operations. He was also chief of two of the Agency’s field stations.
After his retirement in 1980, he and his wife moved to their farm in Vermont where they built their own home plus a guest house. He then fenced 25 acres for raising fallow deer, served in the Court Diversion Program, on the Brookfield School Board, on the Randolph Union High School Board, on the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Board, taught downhill skiing at Killington and was coach of girls lacrosse at Randolph Union High School.
He was a passionate hunter and fly fisherman, and as an avid collector of wild mushrooms, he often lectured on that subject. He also turned wooden bowls from local trees on his lathe.
He was a profuse writer of op-eds and over the years had literally hundreds of them published in newspapers and other publications along the entire East Coast. In addition, he lectured frequently from Vermont to Texas on a wide variety of subjects ranging from hunting and fishing to international affairs.
He was predeceased by two sons, an infant in 1953 and Haviland III in 2008. He is survived by his wife of 45 years, Dolores Tuohey Smith, son Gordon and his husband Tim, son Holbrook and his wife Michelle, daughter Elizabeth, former daughter-in-law Wendy (widow of Haviland III), grandsons Haviland IV, Blake, Taylor and Jordan and great granddaughters Scarlett and Ellie.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Haviland Smith Jr..