McCargar, James 1920-2007 (Christopher Felix, James Goodrich McCargar)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born April 20, 1920, in San Francisco, CA; died of cancer, May 30, 2007, in Washington, DC. Diplomat, intelligence officer, consultant, and author. A former spy for the U.S. Foreign Service during and after World War II, McCargar later wrote nonfiction and fiction works about espionage. He earned a B.A. in Russian language and civilization from Stanford University, and worked for newspapers in Oakland and San Francisco, before joining the Foreign Service in 1942. First serving in Moscow and Vladivostok, he was a liaison with the U.S. Navy and later was assigned to Santo Domingo during World War II. Much of his time for the duration was spent in Alaska, however. After the war, he was assigned to Budapest, Hungary, and he was instrumental in helping scientists and politicians escape the country as the Soviets took over. Many other assignments followed in the 1940s and 1950s, including posts as vice consul in Genoa, Italy, chief of the division of Southeastern European Affairs in Washington, DC, and assistant to the vice president, European director of operations, and finally consultant to the president for the Free Europe Committee. He also was cofounder of Americans Abroad for Kennedy. McCargar left government service in 1961 to become a freelance writer. Assuming the pen name Christopher Felix, he published A Short Course in the Secret War (1963; 3rd edition published under his real name, 1992), which is still used as a reference by U.S. intelligence officers, and the spy novel Three-Cornered Cover (1972). A consultant to the president in Paris and Munich from 1971 to 1976, he returned to active government work in 1978 as special assistant for international affairs for the Endowment for the Humanities. Leaving this post in 1982, he continued to write and serve as a consultant for many years. He was a consultant to the AFL-CIO's Department of International Affairs from 1986 to 1995, to the Free Trade Union Institute in Washington, DC, from 1993 to 1995, and to the U.S. Information Agency in 1998. He was also an editorial advisor for Interco Press in Washington from 1988 to 1996. McCargar's more recent books include El Salvador and Nicaragua: The AFL-CIO Views on the Controversy (1985) and the coauthored Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America's Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam (1989).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Washington Post, June 13, 2007, p. B6.