CIA officer. Academic. Cattle rancher. Such are the many faces of History Prof. Gerald K. Haines.
Teaching at the University as part of the CIA Officer-in-Residence program, Haines said he is "delighted to be here."
And it shows.
In his large lecture classes, Haines strolls up and down the aisles, hands in his suit jacket pockets, looking at his students face-to-face. In his office, he reclines in his chair and laughs often.
But wouldn't you know, he ended up in history only after discarding art ("the only place you could get a job as an art major was in the automobile industry, and I didn't think I was good enough to go to New York," he said) and professional baseball playing ("and I didn't do well enough to do that").
History was choice number three, and Haines' plan was to be an academic.
When he finished his graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a major in diplomatic history and a minor in Latin American foreign affairs, however, "there weren't a whole lot of jobs," he said.
Instead, Haines became a foreign affairs specialist at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., where he worked for six years.
Following that, he began his career in U.S. intelligence at the National Security Agency in Maryland.
Haines stayed there six years as well, playing an active role in several important U.S. intelligence developments.
"During that time, thanks to [New York Sen. Daniel} Moynihan, we got the Venona materials released, [which were] the decryptions of the Soviet message traffic which implicated not only the Rosenbergs but Alger Hiss and so forth," Haines said. "So that was pretty exciting stuff."
His next stop was the Central Intelligence Agency.
Working at CIA is "very strange," Haines said. "Of course, it's very secretive. You have to be willing to put up with polygraphs. They're very conscientious about classification of documentation, and rightfully so, because there are secrets that need to be secret. What recruits you have an Iraq, for example -- that could kill them. So you don't want those names out there."
After pausing to consider this, Haines added, "To me it's absolutely amazing -- the United States Intelligence community, in particular the CIA, I think releases more material on what it does than any other agency in the world. We're the only one that actually has a gift shop, so you can buy a CIA T-shirt or coffee mug!"
Haines eventually became deputy chief of the CIA history office -- a department that, according to Haines, many people don't know exists.
As a CIA historian, Haines faces the oddity of not having his work immediately released to the public.
"I always tell my wife I'm going to be famous in a hundred years, when what I've written is finally released," he said.
So how long exactly must we wait until we can get our hands on this secret stuff?
It's not up to the CIA.
"That's determined by the various administrations through their executive orders," Haines said, although he noted that 30-50 years is common. "There are some materials that they won't release today even from World War I that are considered sensitive."
After taking a hiatus to work in the National Reconnaissance Office, Haines returned to become chief historian at the CIA for six years, and then finally ended up at the University.
One of the courses he teaches is on the United States in Latin America in the Twentieth Century.
"I've always been interested in Latin American studies," Haines said. "We tend to ignore it here in the United States. But it's extremely, and increasingly, important."
At the CIA, Haines was part of a team that studied the 1954 coup that overthrew Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz. The CIA's role in the coup has been a subject of much debate.
One allegation was that the U.S. government and the CIA had made assassination attempts at the time of the coup. Haines had a chance to check the validity of that claim.
"We went back and put together all the records we could find on the Guatemala coup, PBSUCCESS 1954, and lo and behold what we found in one of the boxes -- and it's called a Black Tape Box and it holds very sensitive information -- and I opened that box and I was just astonished because in the box were not only lists of the Guatemalans whom we had targeted for 'removal,' but photographs of Arbenz and his cabinet, seating positions in the cabinet, assassination manual, and I said, 'by God, they truly are taking this very seriously,'" he said.
But Haines' role as historian was to probe further, and he soon discovered that the materials were misleading.
In reality, the U.S. never carried out these attempts -- although the plans were genuine.
"What had happened that gave you this misconception was that the Agency officers brought together all the records relating to Guatemala," Haines said. "So they had taken them out of different files. The assassination manual, for example, came from a training facility. The photos of Arbenz and the cabinet room came from a psychological side of the house. So they were never brought together in one place, to appear as if this is imminent, this is going to happen."
Haines said the gravity of this discovery "was one of the exciting historical finds."
When he needs to get away from papers and polygraphs, Haines puts on his (figurative) cowboy hat and goes to his cattle ranch near Lynchburg, Virginia. On the 730-acre property, Haines and his brother raise calves starting every spring and sell them in the fall.
"And for everybody that's concerned about animal safety, they live a happy six months on our farm," Haines said.
Although he said "it's an escape," he stressed that "I don't recommend it for making a living."
Fortunately, Haines doesn't need to.
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