Blee, David Henry

▪ 2001

      American intelligence officer (b. Nov. 20, 1916, San Francisco, Calif.—d. Aug. 4, 2000, Bethesda, Md.), was a master spy (1947–85) in the CIA (and its wartime forerunner, the Office of Strategic Services) and was noted for his deft decision making. While serving as CIA station chief in India, Blee took the initiative in 1965 to spirit away Svetlana Stalin, the Soviet dictator's daughter, after she asked for asylum at the American Embassy; his action came while Washington was considering her request. He then became the CIA chief of the Near East Division, which undertook espionage in the Middle East. Blee played a crucial role in reviving the counterintelligence activities of the agency's Soviet Division after he was placed in charge of the unit in 1971; he diplomatically countered the measures of the erratic chief of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton—who believed that virtually all Soviet defectors were spies—and began recruiting Soviet operatives. In 1976 Blee became deputy director of operations. He retired from the CIA in 1985, just before the defection to the Soviet Union of CIA agent Edward Lee Howard and the later revelations that double agent Aldrich Ames had exposed at least 10 American operatives in the U.S.S.R., which compromised much of what Blee had accomplished.

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