Jean Gately
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Jean Gately, known to colleagues as "Gene", was the CIA officer who commanded the 1961 Bay of Pigs operation against Cuba. He was still in service decades later, working alongside John Kiriakou, by then chief of counterterrorism operations, at the CIA's Pakistan station, one of a handful of roughly 80-year-old contractors on staff.

The Pakistan-station encounter

Per Kiriakou: "To tell you the truth, when I got there, I didn't get his last name. So I only called him Gene. ... And I was there for weeks until somebody said, 'Ask Gately.' I said, 'Who's Gately?' Gene. I said, 'Gene is Gene Gately?' He said, 'Yeah, who'd you think he was?' I said, 'The commander of the Bay of Pigs operation is working for me.' And he said, 'Yeah.'"

The Pakistan station's staff all lived in the same small guesthouse, taking meals together. Kiriakou: "So I went up to him and I said, 'Gene, you're Gene Gately? You commanded the Bay of Pigs?' And he says to me, 'Fucking Kennedy. We could have won that thing.' And that was the very first time I ever saw that kind of flash of anger. And I thought, 'Oh, I understand 1963.'" In a separate retelling, Kiriakou dates the realization to dinner at the shared guesthouse: "I go, 'Gene, I had no idea you were Gene Gately, the Gene Gately.'", with Gately blaming Kennedy for withholding air support during the operation.

In yet another telling, Kiriakou describes running an entire branch in Pakistan of seven old men, all former directors or deputy directors of Near East Operations, one a former deputy director of the CIA itself, who held "green badges" as retirees brought back to work out of patriotism, and all of whom lived together in the same guesthouse. It was in that setting that a colleague mentioned "Gaitley" in passing and Kiriakou realized his "Gene" was Jean Gately of the Bay of Pigs, prompting the same response, "Fucking Kennedy. We could have won that thing", from a man who by then had been at the CIA for 42 years.

See also

- John McCone
- JFK assassination
- John Kiriakou
