John H. Leavitt Retired RAF bomber, CIA officer

Friday, January 8, 2010

John H. Leavitt, 91, of Hollis, a World War II British Royal Air Force bomber pilot and senior Central Intelligence Agency officer, died Thursday, Dec. 31, 2009.

A graduate of Brown University, he was teaching English at Robert College in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1939 when Britain declared war on Germany. Keen to get into the war effort, he volunteered with the RAF through the British Consulate and trained in Rhodesia and South Africa before returning to England as a Lancaster bomber pilot with the renowned 617 Dambuster’s Squadron.

His first two sorties were against the German battleship Tirpitz – the sister ship of the Bismarck. In the first, his plane took enemy fire and was forced to make an aborted landing with a flat tire from shrapnel damage to the gas tank and landing gear. In the second, his crew scored a near miss off the forward bow, helping to turn the Tirpitz on her side. He flew 11 combat missions and logged 911 hours in the Lancaster. His final mission was a joint British-American operation to destroy Hitler’s “last redoubt,” the Eagle’s Nest, in Berchtesgaden, Germany.

After the war, he joined the Office of Strategic Services – the precursor to the CIA – as an intelligence analyst specializing in Middle Eastern issues and drafting national intelligence estimates, including his favorite assessment in the early 1950s – that it would be a long time before the Arabs and Israelis saw eye-to-eye on any issue.

Preferring to be more engaged in the CIA’s clandestine operations, he transferred to the Directorate of Operations and joined the inner cadre of the agency’s campaign to overthrow Iran’s Mossadeq government and reinstate the shah. He spent 15 of his 30 years of service at U.S. embassies in Tehran, Athens, Ankara and Tel Aviv. Retiring in 1978, he continued working as a private consultant on Middle Eastern affairs, among other things, returning to the agency to assist with the Iran hostage crisis and to investigate the bombing of the American Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1983.

He was married to his first wife, Lilias, an English WAAF signals officer whom he met in England during the war, from 1946 until her death in 1972, and leaves behind their four children, Michael Leavitt and wife, Diane (Tanguay), of Hollis; Jane Farrell and husband, Patrick, of London; Timothy Leavitt and partner, Linda Weisthal, of Stanardsville, Va.; and Gillian Mueller and husband, Albert, of Wellfleet, Mass. He is also survived by his second wife, Joan Leavitt, and her children David, Tom, Lisa and Jim Sterner. His third wife, Judy, also an English former WAAF whom he met at an RAF 617 Squadron reunion in 1983, died in 2003. With her, he leaves behind seven stepchildren, Jackie Player and husband, John, Tessa Begg and husband, Peter, Sue Lemieux, Clair Southwell, Linda Lemieux, Robert Lemieux and wife, Lisa, and Guy Lemieux and wife, Tracey. Grandchildren on both sides of the Atlantic will fondly remember him as “Grandpa John,” including Sean, Jason and Timothy Leavitt, Katrina, Alex and Sophie Mueller, James and Emily Player, Lucy and Hattie Begg, Jessica Kaufmann, Rachel Damaschin, Germaine Colajanni, Chris and Nick Southwell, Kaylee and Hannah Lemieux, and Chloe and Henry Lemieux. Great-grandchildren include Samantha, Sierra and Summer Leavitt, and Rowan Damaschin. He is also survived by his brother, Peter Leavitt, and sisters Ruth Blandin and Ann Wilson.

A memorial service will be held Saturday, Jan. 9, at 11 a.m. at the Hollis Congregational Church, 3 Monument Square, Hollis. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to Merrimack Hospice House, 210 Naticook Road, Merrimack, or to the Alzheimer’s Association via www.alz.org/donate.

Arrangements are in the care of the Farwell Funeral Service of Nashua, www.farwell funeral.com.