Richard David Kovar

Richard David Kovar was born in Pittsburgh on Valentine's Day, 1929. He was a breech baby, feet first; some of us think that's why he was directionally challenged all his life. He was the second of four boys: Bob first, then, six years later, Dick, Chuck, and Tim, each two years apart. Blessed with an amazing singing voice, he became a paid choir member at an Episcopal church before the age of ten, which launched him on a life-long love of music. He sang in an amateur male quartet, played trombone in high school and military bands and in a dance band, and often reminisced about playing the lead in high school operettas, musical revues, and the senior class play (he was the Forest Prince).



After a distinguished academic career-he won several scholarships and was editor of the Pitt News-Dick graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in journalism and political science. Through the serendipitous intervention of an aunt, he obtained an interview at CIA and was offered a job as editor at the Foreign Broadcast Information Service in Okinawa. He first needed to fulfill his military service, however, and served briefly with the 502nd Airborne Infantry Regiment before reporting to FBIS, where he spent the rest of the Korean War monitoring and editing Chinese and North Korean broadcasts, along with broadcasts from most of Asia and part of the Soviet Union. Hard work and talent brought promotions to chief editor at the Tokyo Bureau in 1953 and the Saigon Bureau in 1956, and he helped open the bureau in Kaduna, Nigeria in January,1961. While in Saigon, he was married (by proxy, to simplify travel costs) to Mary Grace Munn, whom he had dated in college; the two quickly became known as "the fun-loving Kovars."

Mary Grace's pregnancy brought the couple back to Washington, where Dick took on a series of ever more responsible posts at CIA. He served as executive assistant to four CIA Deputy Directors for Intelligence. He became the coordinator of intelligence production on Vietnam but asked for a transfer in 1967 when he became convinced that reporting and analysis of the enemy order of battle was dangerously flawed. He served a tour as intelligence production officer for the Middle East-Africa Division, then as chief of the Arab States-Israel Branch, where he headed analytic task forces during the "Black September" attack on Jordan in 1970 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Something of a workaholic, Dick's focus on his job allowed his marriage to crumble. Following the separation and divorce, he remarried Carolyn Fisher, a CIA political analyst working on Jordan and Israel.

Dick spent a year studying at the National War College before becoming chief of CIA's Latin America Division. He requested the job of deputy director of the Center for the Study of Intelligence, which involved editing CIA's professional journal Studies in Intelligence, but later disillusionment with the reorganization of current intelligence prompted his decision to take early retirement in 1980. For Dick, "retirement" meant working for two years as a writer-editor for Time-Life's World War Two history series before returning to CIA as a retired annuitant, first as editor and briefer on the staff of the President's Daily Brief (where he wrote unofficial humorous pieces for Vice President George Bush) and, later, as editor of the National Intelligence Daily. Always restless and in search of new outlets for his talents, as an analyst and technical writer for several government contracting firms and as vice-president of Striges, Inc., he contributed to a variety of policy, planning, and analytical studies for the White House Military Office, and directed a team of veteran CIA officers in scripting and playing roles in Continuity of Government exercises. As an independent contractor, he edited National Intelligence Estimates of foreign military threats, contributed to the redaction of the Kennedy Assassination files, and edited and published a massive two-volume military history of the Balkan Wars. His final service to the intelligence community was as a senior intelligence reviewer for the National Counter-Terrorism Center, from which he retired in 2015.

But varied and impressive as Dick's career may have been, it touched only the surface of his life. Music-and performing-were at the core, and he blossomed as a member of the chorus of the Washington Revels in its annual Christmas productions and other appearances throughout the year. Those who know him best know he was a ham at heart and will never forget his portrayal of Jacob Marley in Victorian Revels-so convincing that new cast members were actually afraid of him. He made an impressive Mark Twain, too, in a Montgomery College production of "Big River."

Dick always loved spending a couple of summer weeks at the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and Carolyn happily joined him, along with their daughter Caroline, in time. It took some persuading before he was willing to consider a European vacation instead, but Carolyn soon developed an impressive ability to plan trips, and Dick has taught bartenders all over Europe how to mix his preferred martini.

Dick is survived by his wife Carolyn, his son David, his daughters Elspeth Kovar and Caroline Kovar Boris, and his granddaughter Caroline Elizabeth (Caeli) Boris, in addition to many nephews, nieces-in-law, grand-nephews, and grand-nieces.