Cold War Anthropology by David H. Price

Author:David H. Price [Price, David H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780822374381
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 2016-03-09T18:30:00+00:00

Field Agents

During the Cold War, the CIA occasionally used archaeological projects as cover for collecting foreign intelligence. A onetime CIA chief of station, Baghdad, Wilbur Eveland later described the agency using archaeology covers in Iraq during the 1950s, when “part of the CIA station in Iraq operating under diplomatic cover was so understaffed that even its two secretaries arranged communications drops and safe-house meetings with agents. Wives of the few CIA officers under ‘deep cover’ (education and archaeological) typed their reports and sequestered their children while their husbands met with informants at home” (1980: 46).

Engineer, philanthropist, and archaeological enthusiast John M. Dimick had no formal training in archaeology, but he was an active presence in major archaeological excavations in Guatemala, Egypt, Turkey, Italy, Greece, and elsewhere from 1946 into the late 1960s. His memoir, Episodes in Archaeology, described how observing excavations at the Herculaneum in 1939 kindled his passion for archaeology. This interest led to fund-raising and managerial roles in archaeological excavations on three continents (Dimick 1968). But there was more going on than Dimick described in his memoir; as his November 29, 1983, Washington Post obituary disclosed, “Following service in Spain during World War II, Dimick combined government assignments with archaeological interest while working in Latin America for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.”

In 1946, Dimick contacted United Fruit Company founder Sam Zemurray and persuaded him to provide $430,000 for three years of work on Mayan monumental archaeological remains in Guatemala (1968: 26). From 1946 to 1960, Dimick directed the project, hiring Alfred Kidder to undertake the initial surveys. Dimick selected Zaculeu for major restoration efforts, and the crew cleared and excavated the massive temple complex (NBAAA1949 3[3]: 4).

Missing from Dimick’s account of Zemurray’s Guatemala is any depiction of a Yankee banana republic; instead, we have a description of Zemurray as a kind benefactor looking out for Guatemalans’ interests. Dimick praised his patron, writing that during his “own years in Guatemala the usual derogatory comment on the Fruit Company was invariably sweetened with stories of how it had conquered the Latin Americas by force. That is not only unjustified, but untrue. The conquistador was Zemurray. He with his wisdom, his love for the country as well as for self-benefit, was the power who employed the force of arms” (1968: 20).

In 1954, two years after Nasser’s Officers Revolution in Egypt, Dimick directed University of Pennsylvania excavations of the Apis embalming house at Mit Rahineh (Dimick 1968: 66). Dimick and his wife, Teena, took an apartment on the top floor of the Semiramis Hotel in Cairo, where they were near “the living quarters for King Saud of Saudi Arabia” (67). Dimick claimed his work with Arab colleagues in Egypt generated mutual aid and assistance, with “no subterfuge, no double talk” (81). Documents from the Eisenhower administration’s negotiations with the Nasser administration during Dimick’s time in Egypt include notes from diplomatic meetings of American envoy Robert Anderson (who traveled with several CIA personnel in his party) and establish that Dimick provided briefings on the political climate of Egypt, including his own evaluations of Nasser and his administration.

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