Miles Axe Copeland Jr. (July 16, 1916 – January 14, 1991) was an American musician, businessman, and

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

(CIA) officer best known for his relationship with Egyptian leader

Gamal Abdel Nasser Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, . (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian politician who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and introduced far-r ...

and his public commentary on intelligence matters. Copeland participated in numerous covert operations, including the

March 1949 Syrian coup d'état The March 1949 Syrian coup d'état was a bloodless coup d'état that took place on 30 March, and was the first military coup in modern Syrian history which overthrew the country's democratically elected government. It was led by the Syrian Army ...

and the

1953 Iranian coup d'état The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état ( fa, کودتای ۲۸ مرداد), was the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favor of strengthening the monarchical rule of ...

. A

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

influenced by the ideas of

James Burnham James Burnham (November 22, 1905 – July 28, 1987) was an American philosopher and political theorist. He chaired the New York University Department of Philosophy; his first book was ''An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis'' (1931). Burn ...

, Copeland was associated with the American political magazine ''

National Review ''National Review'' is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by the author William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. Its editor-in-chief ...

''. In a 1986 ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'' interview, he stated "Unlike ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'',

Victor Marchetti Victor Leo Marchetti Jr. (December 23, 1929 – October 19, 2018) was a special assistant to the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency who later became a prominent critic of the United States Intelligence Community and the Israel l ...

and

Philip Agee Philip Burnett Franklin Agee (; January 19, 1935 – January 7, 2008)Will Weissert"Ex-CIA Agent Philip Agee Dead in Cuba" Associated Press (sfgate.com), January 9, 2008. was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) case officer and writer of t ...

, my complaint has been that the CIA isn't overthrowing enough anti-American governments or assassinating enough anti-American leaders, but I guess I'm getting old."

Background and family life

The son of a doctor, Copeland was born in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

, Alabama.Cook, Joan (Jan. 19, 1991)
"Miles Copeland, 74, Expert on Mideast, Writer and Ex-Spy"
(

obituary An obituary ( obit for short) is an article about a recently deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on positive aspects of the subject's life, this is not always the case. Ac ...

). ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. p. 18. Archived fro
the original.
/ref> He did not graduate from college. According to history professor Hugh Wilford, there is nothing in Copeland's CIA files to suggest he was a professional musician, but "several relatives and friends have testified to his musical ability." Copeland's books contain "several impressive statements about his days as a jazz musician," including that "he spent a week playing fourth trumpet in the

Glenn Miller Alton Glen Miller (March 1, 1904 – December 15, 1944) was an American big band founder, owner, conductor, composer, arranger, trombone player and recording artist before and during World War II, when he was an officer in the US Army Air Forc ...

orchestra," although this claim has been discredited. Copeland was married to archaeologist Lorraine Adie. He was the father of music manager

Miles Copeland III Miles Axe Copeland III (born May 2, 1944) is an American music and entertainment executive and former manager of The Police. Copeland later managed Sting's musical and acting career. In 1979, Copeland founded the I.R.S. Records label, producing ...

, booking agent

Ian Copeland Ian Adie Copeland (April 25, 1949 – May 23, 2006) was an American music promoter and booking agent who helped launch the new wave movement in the United States. Early life Copeland was born in Rif Dimashq near Damascus, Syria, the second of fo ...

, film producer Lorraine (Lennie) Copeland, and drummer

Stewart Copeland Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is a Scottish-American musician and composer. He is best known for his work as the drummer of the English rock band the Police from 1977 to 1986, and again from 2007 to 2008. Before playing with th ...

, a founding member of the rock band

The Police The Police were an English rock band formed in London in 1977. For most of their history the line-up consisted of primary songwriter Sting (lead vocals, bass guitar), Andy Summers (guitar) and Stewart Copeland (drums, percussion). The Polic ...

Career

CIA founding

At the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Copeland joined the National Guard, and contacted Rep.

John Sparkman John Jackson Sparkman (December 20, 1899 – November 16, 1985) was an American jurist and politician from the state of Alabama. A Southern Democrat, Sparkman served in the United States House of Representatives from 1937 to 1946 and the United St ...

of Alabama, who arranged a meeting with

William J. Donovan William Joseph "Wild Bill" Donovan (January 1, 1883 – February 8, 1959) was an American soldier, lawyer, intelligence officer and diplomat, best known for serving as the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the Bur ...

. The two hit it off immediately, but Copeland nonetheless was not recruited to Donovan's

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...

(OSS) and instead joined the

Corps of Intelligence Police The Corps of Intelligence Police (CIP) was founded by Ralph Van Deman in 1917 as an intelligence agency within the United States Army, and the War Department. In World War I, many of the intelligence disciplines still in use today were deployed fo ...

, which became the

Counterintelligence Corps The Counter Intelligence Corps (Army CIC) was a World War II and early Cold War intelligence agency within the United States Army consisting of highly trained special agents. Its role was taken over by the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps in 1961 and ...

(CIC) in January 1942. Meyer, Karl E. and Shareen Blair Brysac (2009). ''Kingmakers: The Invention of the Modern Middle East''. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. pp. 348–380. . Copeland was stationed in London and reportedly gained the top-secret "

Bigot Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, rel ...

" clearance and took part in discussions about

Operation Overlord Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Norm ...

. After the conversion of the OSS into the

Strategic Services Unit The Strategic Services Unit was an intelligence agency of the United States government that existed in the immediate post– World War II period. It was created from the Secret Intelligence and Counter-Espionage branches of the wartime Office o ...

on 1 October 1945, Copeland joined what would become part of the

(CIA). Serving in London, he became a lifelong

Anglophile An Anglophile is a person who admires or loves England, its people, its culture, its language, and/or its various accents. Etymology The word is derived from the Latin word ''Anglii'' and Ancient Greek word φίλος ''philos'', meaning "fr ...

. He married Lorraine Adie, a Scot he had met during the war when she was serving in the

Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its p ...

CIA career

After the end of World War II and the creation of the CIA, Copeland was asked to organize the agency’s information-gathering unit in the Middle East. He was stationed in

Damascus, Syria )), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , ...

, as a CIA case officer under the cover title "cultural attaché," beginning a long career in the Middle East. Together with Stephen Meade (1913–2004) he played a role in supporting the

."BBC Miles Copeland Interview 1969,"
BBC.co.uk Working with

Kim Roosevelt Kermit Roosevelt Jr. (February 16, 1916 – June 8, 2000) was an American intelligence officer who served in the Office of Strategic Services during and following World War II. A grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United St ...

, he was instrumental in arranging

Operation Ajax Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Man ...

, the 1953 technical coup d'état against Prime Minister of Iran

Mohammad Mosaddegh Mohammad Mosaddegh ( fa, محمد مصدق, ; 16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967) was an Iranian politician, author, and lawyer who served as the 35th Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, after appointment by the 16th Majlis. He was a member of ...

.Buckley, Priscilla L. (Feb. 11, 1991)
"Miles Copeland, R I P - former CIA official"
(

). ''

''. In 1953, Copeland returned to private life at the consulting firm

Booz Allen Hamilton Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation (informally Booz Allen) is the parent of Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., an American management and information technology consulting firm, headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in Greater Washington, D.C., with 8 ...

while remaining a non-official cover operative for the CIA. He traveled to Cairo to meet

, who had overthrown

King Farouk Farouk I (; ar, فاروق الأول ''Fārūq al-Awwal''; 11 February 1920 – 18 March 1965) was the tenth ruler of Egypt from the Muhammad Ali dynasty and the penultimate King of Egypt and the Sudan, succeeding his father, Fuad I, in 1 ...

and taken power in Egypt, advising Nasser on the development of the

Mukhabarat ( ar, مخابرات, also transliterated '' / ''), is the Arabic term for intelligence, as used by an intelligence agency. In most of the Middle East, the term is colloquially used in reference to secret police agents who spy on civilians. Org ...

and becoming Nasser's closest Western advisor. Copeland opposed major paramilitary CIA operations such as the failed

Bay of Pigs Invasion The Bay of Pigs Invasion (, sometimes called ''Invasión de Playa Girón'' or ''Batalla de Playa Girón'' after the Playa Girón) was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban exiles, covertly fin ...

of Cuba in 1961 on the grounds that they were impossible to keep secret due to their size. Copeland was known for his "Machiavellian sense of pessimism about human nature", which he derived in part from ''The Machiavellians'', a book written by his "intellectual mentor", the

Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...

-turned-conservative

. Copeland requested Burnham's "advice about ways to shore up revolutionary governments" and distilled Burnham's teachings into three key points: 1) The major priority of any government is perpetuating its rule; 2) Political leaders must remain cognizant of the irrationality of their subjects; and 3) A successful revolution requires a certain degree of political repression, although it is more advantageous if repression is kept to a minimum. In ''The Game Player'', Copeland recounted that he was sent to Egypt to assess the feasibility of assassinating Nasser "on the tacit understanding that he would reach a negative assessment" and thus "discourage any British attempt".

Arriving in Cairo, Miles immediately confessed his mission to Nasser, whereupon the old friends began gaming out possible assassination plots. "How about poison?" the American asked the Egyptian. "Suppose I just wait until you turn your head and then slip a pill into your coffee?" "Well, there's Hassan standing right there," replied Nasser. "If I didn't see you Hassan would." "But maybe we could bribe a servant to poison the coffee before bringing it in?" "The coffee would only kill the taster." And so the conversation carried on—at least in Miles's recollection.

Retirement

Copeland retired from the CIA in May 1957 to start the consulting firm Copeland & Eichelberger in Beirut, Lebanon, with his CIC and CIA colleague James Eichelberger; he did, however, continue to perform assignments for the Agency on request. Copeland and his family returned to London in 1970. He made regular appearances on British television as an intelligence expert and pursued work in journalism, writing books on foreign policy, an autobiography, and contributing to the conservative American magazine ''National Review''. He helped

Waddingtons Waddingtons was a British manufacturer of card and board games. The company was founded by John Waddington of Leeds, England and the manager, actor and playwright Wilson Barrett, under the name ''Waddingtons Limited''. The name was changed in ...

design a board game, ''The Game of Nations'', in which superpowers compete for influence in "the imaginary region of Kark"; the game was loosely based on Copeland's book of the same name. Copeland's memoirs have a strong literary quality and contain many embellishments, making it difficult to gauge the historical accuracy of the covert operations he describes. He was active in 1970s political efforts to defend the CIA against critics, including the

Church Committee The Church Committee (formally the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) was a US Senate select committee in 1975 that investigated abuses by the Central Intelligence ...

. In 1988, he wrote an article titled "Spooks for Bush" which asserted that the intelligence community overwhelmingly supported George H. W. Bush for president; he had named Bush his favorite CIA director.

Books

''The Game of Nations: The Amorality of Power Politics''.
New York:

Simon and Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest pub ...

; London:

Weidenfeld & Nicolson Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd (established 1949), often shortened to W&N or Weidenfeld, is a British publisher of fiction and reference books. It has been a division of the French-owned Orion Publishing Group since 1991. History George Weidenfeld a ...

(1969). * ''Without Cloak or Dagger: The Truth About the New Espionage''. New York:

(1974). ** Published in the United Kingdom as ''Real Spy World''. London:

Weidenfeld and Nicolson Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd (established 1949), often shortened to W&N or Weidenfeld, is a British publisher of fiction and reference books. It has been a division of the French-owned Orion Publishing Group since 1991. History George Weidenfeld ...

(1974). * ''Beyond Cloak and Dagger: Inside the CIA''. New York:

Pinnacle Books Kensington Publishing Corp. is an American, New York-based publishing house founded in 1974 by Walter Zacharius (1923–2011)Grimes, William"Walter Zacharius, Romance Publisher, Dies at 87,"''New York Times'' (MARCH 7, 2011). and Roberta Bender ...

(1975). * ''The Game Player: Confessions of the CIA's Original Political Operative''. London:

Aurum Press The Quarto Group is a global illustrated book publishing group founded in 1976. It is domiciled in the United States and listed on the London Stock Exchange. Quarto creates and sells illustrated books for adults and children, across 50 countr ...

(1989).

References

Bibliography

* Copeland, Miles, Jr. (1969) ''The Game of Nations: The Amorality of Power Politics''. * Copeland, Miles, Jr. (1989). ''The Game Player: Confessions of the CIA's Original Political Operative''. London:

. * * Meyer, Karl E. and Shareen Blair Brysac (2009). ''Kingmakers: The Invention of the Modern Middle East''. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. pp. 348–380. . *

External links

Miles Copeland, Jr.
at

IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Copeland, Miles Jr. American Cold War spymasters 1916 births 1991 deaths Military personnel from Birmingham, Alabama Musicians from Birmingham, Alabama American jazz trumpeters American male trumpeters American spies Booz Allen Hamilton people Cold War spies Board game designers 20th-century American musicians 20th-century trumpeters The Police Copeland family Jazz musicians from Alabama American male jazz musicians CIA operatives in Iran American expatriates in Iran American expatriates in the United Kingdom Alabama National Guard personnel CIA activities in the Middle East 20th-century American male musicians People of the Office of Strategic Services