Filenews 29 August 2021
He was called "Mister Dirty" or "James Bond of the poor." His colleagues and superiors in the CIA considered him tangy, stinking and nervous. Greek-born agent Gust Avrakotos managed to create a legend around his name by carrying out the most expensive mission in the history of the CIA, using 70% of its budget.
He was born in 1938 in the city of Alikipa in Pennsylvania and was the son of a Greek immigrant from Lemnos. He was forced to drop out of school as a child to help his poor family.
He initially worked in a steelworks and later sold cigarettes in the taverns of the area. He returned to school and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1962.
In the year of his graduation he was hired by the CIA, which at the time gave university graduates the opportunity to develop within the Langley institution. With the main qualification of knowledge of the Greek language, he began his career in Greece just before the coup d'état of April 21st.
But he soon faced the first difficulty of his career. He remained in the CIA squad in the Greek capital until 1978, when he was retracted to Washington, D.C., because he was "burned" as an agent by the revelations of his colleague Philip Aji.
Link with the juntas
Avrakotos was a liaison of the CIA with the junta government and especially with the dictator Ioannidis who was united by the same fanatical anti-communist sentiments.
He was the one who advised them not to give a passport to Andrew Papandreou, as the White House demanded, but urged them "to execute the bum, for he will return."
The 17N and the bad profile
After the assassination of his superior Richard Wells, by 17N, in December 1975, he asked to take over the case personally in order to discover the killers and pay them with the same currency. The request was rejected because of his poor profile. They considered him unworkable and aggressive. For a long time he did not work in any case.
After surviving a great liquidation in the late 70s, he finally found a place at the CIA station in Beirut, where he excelled and made a big name for himself.
The Beirut office also included the area of Afghanistan, which the Soviets had invaded since 1979 to support their friendly regime. The Americans were alarmed and President Carter set up an office in the White House to monitor the situation. At first, the office was under-operating, but Ronald Reagan's coming to power changed the scene.
The great moment of his career
With the support of the powerful Congressional committee on secret services, presided over by a passionate anti-communist, Democratic Senator Charles Wilson, a gigantic covert operation was prepared to bolster the Afghan mujahideen, who were fighting the Soviets.
It was the largest operation in the history of the CIA, absorbing 70% of its budget. Avrakotos was the man who carried it out.
He went to Cairo and bought hundreds of thousands of "Kalashnikovs" from the Egyptian army's reserves, while in agreement with the Pakistanis, the mujahedin were trained on their territory by CIA men.
The problem of the transfer of weapons to the rugged territories of Afghanistan was tackled in an imaginative manner. He bought mules from Cyprus, loaded them on a ship and through Pakistan the ammunition reached the most inaccessible lairs of the rebels with the help of these four-legged friends.
The final blow for the Soviets came with the anti-aircraft missiles "Stiger", supplied by Avrakotos to the rebels. These missiles caused heavy losses to the Soviet air force.
And without adequate air cover they were doomed. The Soviets then found themselves in a very difficult position. Operation "Afghanistan" cost them more than $3 billion a year, the casualties were many, the country's economy was failing. Thus, Mikhail Gorbachev made the decision to withdraw Soviet forces from the region in 1989.
Boomerang for Americans
The contribution of the Greek-American agent was decisive in the so-called "Russian Vietnam", which was the death knell of the Soviet Union. But in the long run, this operation turned against the Americans, and the armament and money they gave to the Mujahedin nurtured the phenomenon of the Taliban and bin Laden, whom, until recently, the Americans were fighting in Afghanistan and beyond.
Avrakotos retired in 1989 and then worked as a journalist and analyst at Rubert Murdoch's News Corp. In 1997 he returned as an advisor to the CIA, when another Greek-American, George Tenet, was at the helm.
In 2003 he left the agency for good and died on December 1, 2005. He had two marriages and a son.
His action remained almost unknown, until in 2003 the American journalist George Krail released his book "The War of Charlie Wilson", ("Charlie Wilson's War").
The rights to the book were bought by Tom Hanks and he financed the film of the same name. It was directed by Michael Nichols and starring Toms Hanks and Julia Roberts. The role of Avrakotos in the film is played by the well-known actor Philip Seymour Hoffman....
Source: Hellasjournal.com
