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 at the CIA’s Pakistan station.[1]
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.’”[1]
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.’”[2][3]