George A. Doole Jr.
George Arntzen Doole, Jr. (1909, Liberty, Illinois - 9 March 1985, Washington, D.C.) was a former U.S. Army officer and pilot who ran the Central Intelligence Agency's proprietary airline network, Pacific Corporation.[1]
Career
Doole joined the U.S. Army in 1931, where he trained as a pilot. He later became a pilot for Pan-Am, which included experience flying in Central America between Guatemala and Panama.[1] In the late 1940s he left Pan-Am, and chartered the Pacific Corporation in 1950.[2]
In 1953 (or perhaps earlier[2]) Doole transferred to the Central Intelligence Agency.[1] Although never officially employed by the CIA, Doole was "a legend" in the CIA for his role in creating and managing the agency's proprietary airline network, the Pacific Corporation. At its mid-1960s peak this included dozens of airlines, including Civil Air Transport and Southern Air Transport, and employed nearly 20,000 people - as many as the CIA itself, and operated around 200 aircraft. Doole so successfully obfuscated the ownership and control of companies and aircraft that even the CIA was unsure precisely how many were involved.[1]
Doole formally retired in 1971, after newspaper investigations and Congressional hearings exposed the network, forcing the CIA to sell it off. Doole remained a director of Evergreen International Aviation, which acquired one of Doole's CIA companies, Intermountain Aviation, in 1975. Doole arranged the 1980 charter flight, on an Evergreen aircraft, which took the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to Egypt.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e Evan Thomas, TIME, 7 April 1986, in Arizona: A Spymaster remembered
- ^ a b New York Times, 30 December 1985, HANGAR PLAQUE HONORS C.I.A.'S AIR OPERATIVE