DAVID FORDEN

FORDEN DAVID WARNER FORDEN Of Arlington, Arlington VA, died on February 12, 2019 from complications caused by Alzheimer's. He was 88. Forden was born on September 11, 1930 in Buffalo, New York. He grew up in East Aurora, N.Y with his parents William Theodore "Ted" Forden and Amy Adams Forden and sister Mary Elizabeth Forden. An Eagle Scout and bugler, he was often called on to play Taps at the local cemetery. He played football, baseball, read gas meters, delivered newspapers. He developed lifelong passions for skiing and tennis. "Chip," as he was called, graduated with honors from East Aurora High School in 1948, winning a scholarship to Wesleyan University. There he sang in the Glee Club, spent a memorable summer digging ditches in Yellowstone National Park and earned a BA in Government in 1952. At the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, he roomed with football-player-poet Alan Goldfarb and Peter Falk, who went on to star as the rumpled television detective, Colombo. With an MA in public administration and a desire to serve the government, he traveled to Washington, D.C. in 1953 with Falk and other graduates in search of jobs. But under President Dwight Eisenhower's reduction in force policy, no agency was hiring other than the CIA. Forden was accepted on condition that he complete Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia. The training included six months of paratrooper training with the 82nd Airborne. Forden's CIA career stretched from 1956 to 1988, spanning seven presidents and more than three decades of the Cold War. He served in Germany, Argentina, Poland, Mexico City, Vienna and Greece, including as station chief in Warsaw, Vienna and Athens. While he often referred to himself as "just another dumb case officer," Forden won numerous merit certificates and achievement awards over the years, rising to become chief of the Soviet-Eastern European Division. He was granted the CIA Distinguished Intelligence Medal in October 1988. Ahead of each foreign assignment, Forden mastered the language and immersed himself in the cultural, geographical, and political landscape of the new country. His love for Poland and its people held a special place in his life. Field officers operating behind the Iron Curtain were forced to gather intelligence under heavy surveillance. In Warsaw in the mid-1960s, Forden perfected the use of a technique called the "brush pass" to exchange sensitive information with local sources. While out on a stroll, agents would quickly turn a corner and pass intelligence to a source in the brief moment before surveillance caught up, thus operating "in the gap." But Warsaw's streetscape was better-suited to driving than walking. Using the same concept, Forden developed a new technique he called the "moving car delivery." Forden's knowledge of the Polish language, history and culture would prove invaluable years later when the CIA gained one of its most productive sources of Soviet war plans: then Polish Lieutenant Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski. Recognizing the enormous risks that Kuklinski put himself and his family though in an effort to move Poland away from Soviet dominance, Forden built a trusting relationship with Kuklinski over the nine years of their operation. In 1981, Forden helped Kuklinski and his family escape to the U.S. and the two men developed a close friendship that lasted their lifetimes. Forden is survived by his three children, Sara Gay Forden; Daniel Warner Forden and Katherine Carson Forden, their mother Sally (m. 1955, divorced 1983) and four grandchildren: Julia Franchi Scarselli, Alex De Lazzari, Isabel Forden and Maxwell Forden. His second wife, Aurelia Bachmeyer of Mariahof, Styria, Austria (m. 1984), died of pancreatic cancer in 2003. He is survived by his sister-in-law Elisabeth Lavoie, and his sister, Mary Elizabeth Whitman, 89, and her four daughters. A memorial service will be held in the spring, with details to follow. Donations may be made to the Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC) and the Southern Poverty Law Center.A memorial service will be held in the spring, with details to follow. Donations may be made to the Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC) and the Southern Poverty Law Center.