Howard Hart

Howard Hart is a former CIA officer. He worked as the CIA Chief of Station in Islamabad, Pakistan from May 1981 [Coll 57] until 1984. He was succeeded by William Piekney in the summer of 1984.

Hart studied Asian politics and the Hindi and Urdu languages in the United States. He joined the CIA after finishing graduate school in 1965. He spent two years at Camp Peary in Virginia, attending "the standard two-year course for...aspiring case officers." He joined the Directorate of Operations after graduation.Coll 55]

In 1978 Hunt began working the streets of Tehran. His reports that, contrary to over 15 years of CIA estimates, the Shah's rule was far from stable or secure was suppressed by more senior personnel within the CIA. He was captured a few days after the Shah's fall by an armed group of supporters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and escaped summary execution by appealing asking to speak to a mullah, who agreed that the Koran did not sanction such punishment. [Tim Weiner, 2007. "Legacy of ashes" pp368-369.]

Hart jump-started the CIA efforts to equip the Afghani resistance with weapons and supplies to allow them to mount an effective campaign during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Hart was a weapons collector with a "passion for weapons and paramilitary tactics," making him a natural choice for the Islamabad post.In his words: "I was the first chief of station ever sent abroad with this wonderful order: `Go kill Soviet soldiers’. Imagine! I loved it.” “the mission was not to liberate Afghanistan,” “it was a noble goal,”1

Currently, Howard Hart lives in the hills above Charlottesville, Virginia.

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Notes

References

*Coll, Steve. "Ghost Wars : The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001". New York: Penguin, 2004.

[Reference]
1. Cold War II, Noam Chomsky.