Antonio Joseph
Mendez is a retired CIA intelligence officer, an author
and an artist. He lives with his family and works in
his studios and gallery on his forty acre farm in rural
Washington County Maryland. He is an award winning painter
with an international reputation. His first book, The
Master of Disguise; My Secret Life in the CIA, was published
by William Morrow in November 1999 on the tenth anniversary
of the Wall coming down in Berlin. Since that time he
has been appearing on various national media across
the United States, while traveling and lecturing regarding
his CIA experiences. He has appeared on Dan Rather Evening
News, Charlie Rose, C-Span, CNN, Fox News Channel, Good
Morning America, and Fresh Air, to name a few. His presentation
for the Smithsonian Associates in Washington, DC was
sold out to over 600 attendees.
Mendez was
born in 1940 in Eureka, Nevada where his ethnically
diverse family dated back six generations to the time
before the gold rush. He moved to Colorado when he was
fourteen. He attended the University of Colorado and
worked as a plumber and an illustrator/tool designer
for Martin Marietta where he was responsible for designing
electronic components for the Titan IIIC ICBM. In 1965
he was recruited from Denver through a blind ad to work
as an espionage artist for the Technical Services Division
of the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington D.C.
Twenty months later he and his family moved to the Far
East where they stayed for seven years while Mendez
worked in the CIA's technical operations in South and
Southeast Asia.
For twenty-five
years he worked under cover, often overseas, participating
in the shadow conflicts in some of the most important
theaters of the Cold War. His book chronicles many of
these covert action and human intelligence collection
operations. He tells about the most exotic applications
of his specialty, making false documents and disguises
for intelligence officers. He held various positions
of increasing responsibility moving up to Senior Intelligence
Service (SIS) executive rank over the course of his
career. While Chief of Disguise and later as Chief of
the Graphics and Authentication Division, he and his
subordinates were responsible for changing the identity
and appearance of thousands of clandestine operatives,
allowing them to move securely about their business
of spying. Nowhere was this more difficult than on the
streets of Moscow where they succeeded in devising deception
operations using disguise and illusion against the overwhelming
forces of the KGB. Equally harrowing were the hundreds
of rescue operations he and his comrades planned and
executed to bring our foreign agents and their families
out of harm's way. In January 1980 Mendez was awarded
the Intelligence Star for Valor for single-handedly
engineering and conducting the rescue of six U.S. diplomats
from Iran during the hostage crisis. This rescue operation
involved creating an ostensible Hollywood film production
company, complete with personnel, scripts, publicity
and real estate.
By the time
Mendez retired in November 1990, the Cold War was over.
He had been promoted to SIS-2, the equivalent of a two
star General in the military. He had earned the CIA's
Intelligence Medal of Merit as well as the Intelligence
Star and two Certificates of Distinction. In September
1997 on the fiftieth anniversary of the CIA, he was
one of fifty officers, chosen from the tens of thousands
who had worked at CIA over the years, awarded the Trailblazer
Medallion. Mendez was proud to be in the company of
Richard Helms, Allen Dulles and other luminaries in
the Agency's history. As DCI George Tenet wrote, "...the
CIA Trailblazer Award recognizes and honors fifty CIA
officers who by their actions, example, or initiative
have helped shape the history of this Agency."
In October 2000 Mendez was awarded the Order of the
Sphinx which is the Interallied Distinguished Service
Cross for serving the Allied cause for freedom behind
enemy lines.
He has continued
to act as a consultant to the U.S. Intelligence Community
and has published articles in their journals. He is
invited on a regular basis to act as a key note speaker
for the CIA and DIA training courses as well as participating
in the Distinguished Lecture Series of the Joint Intelligence
College of the Department of Defense. He also regularly
addresses World Affairs Councils and similar organizations
across the United States. He and his wife Jonna are
consultants and on the Board of Advisors for the International
Spy Museum across "F" Street from the National
Portrait Gallery in Washington DC and are technical
consultants on the CBS Television series "The Agency",
which began airing in September 2001.
To
date, Mendez has been a part of 22 different documentaries,
including works for Discovery, Travel Channel, the
Canadian History Channel, AMC and a PBS piece entitled "Escape
from Iran; The Hollywood Connection" (tapes
available) which most
recently aired marking the twenty-fifth anniversary
of the Iranian Hostage Crisis
.
Two for Travel Channel include "Secrets of the International
Spy
Museum" and "Washington DC; City of Spies." Work for Discovery
Channel includes a one hour show entitled
"The Master of Deception" which chronicled
the espionage exploits of Mendez and his wife, Jonna,
who was also Chief of Disguise and worked at CIA for
twenty-seven years.
In addition
to writing "The Master of Disguise", Mendez
and his wife Jonna completed another book entitled "Spy
Dust" chronicling their intelligence exploits
in Moscow during the last years of the Cold War and
their budding romance which ended in marriage after
Mendez retired in 1990. Both books are
recommended reading for new
recruits in the US Intelligence Community and are part of the cirriculum
for the Intelligence Community as well as several colleges and universities.
Mendez
is married and has four children ranging in ages
from school age to adult, and two grand children.
After returning to painting full time in 1990, Mendez
has had scores of exhibits in the U.S. and abroad,
won many prizes and is represented by several galleries
around the United States. The Washington DC Commission
for the Arts recently purchased seven of his paintings
of Washington DC for their permanent collection.
He was also one of the Arts for the Parks "Top 200" in
2004 and 2005.
