Name J.C. King | Died 1977 | |
Education United States Military Academy | ||
Joseph Caldwell King (October 5, 1900 – January 27, 1977) was the Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division of the CIA in the 1950s and 1960s. He was also known by his CIA code name of Oliver G. Galbond and as Colonel J.C. King.
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Early life and marriage
On October 5, 1900, Joseph Caldwell King was born to Warren Charles King and Jessie Calhoun Caldwell in Brooklyn, New York. King would go on to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point as part of the Class of 1923 and will be assigned the Cullum Register Number 6992.
Joseph Caldwell King will marry twice. His first marriage was to Cristina Patricia Pernas (March 15, 1907 to April 8, 1989). His second marriage was to Frances Anne Smith (December 13, 1925 to May 2, 1988).
Career
King became a vice-president at Johnson and Johnson in charge of Brazil and Argentina. Then, he joined Nelson Rockefeller's Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA).
He was stationed in Argentina from 1941 to 1945, where he was engaged in feeding deceptive information to Japanese agents (see Thaddeus Holt,The Deceivers). For his service in 1943 to 1946 as a military attaché in Argentina, Lt. Col. King was awarded the Legion of Merit.
Having been ordered into Central America by the second CIA Director, Walter Bedell Smith, to see if he could find opponents to the Jacobo Arbenz Guzman-led government, King was in Guatemala from 1952 to 1953, as CIA Chief of its Western Hemisphere Division.
While with the CIA, King is believed to have advocated assassination of Che Guevara and Fidel and Raul Castro as early as December 11, 1959. He is also believed to be the CIA point man of the overthrow of João Goulart, President of Brazil, in 1964.
King officially retired from the CIA in 1967 but soon came back as a CIA consultant. He was CEO of the Amazon Natural Drug Company, known as a front for the CIA.
Later life
King's health was deteriorating at that time due because of age and Parkinson's disease, and he died on January 27, 1977 in Washington, D.C.. However, King was buried at the United States Military Academy Post Cemetery in West Point, New York. His second wife, Frances Anne Smith King Babbitt (1925-1988), remarried on July 1, 1978 but rests beside him.