John C. Ryan (born 19 June 1938) is a former

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

(FBI) agent and police officer.Antony Schmitz
The Spy Who Said No

Mother Jones Magazine ''Mother Jones'' (abbreviated ''MoJo'') is a nonprofit American left-wing magazine that focuses on news, commentary, and investigative journalism on topics including politics, environment, human rights, health and culture. Clara Jeffery serves ...

, April 1988, pp. 16-19. He had been an FBI agent between 1966 and 1987 before being fired for refusing to investigate nonviolent activists. He lost his job in September 1987 ten months short of retirement. He was thus ineligible for a full pension. In a report by the ''

LA Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper in the U.S. and the large ...

'', he stated his belief that the Bureau could reinstate him to a position which would not conflict with his personal beliefs that U.S. involvement in

Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...

is "violent, illegal and immoral." He was also a critic of

COINTELPRO COINTELPRO (a syllabic abbreviation derived from Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert and illegal projects conducted between 1956 and 1971 by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltr ...

.Hodge, James and Linda Cooper, 2004, ''Disturbing the Peace: The Story of Father Roy Bourgeois and the Movement to Close the School of the Americas'', Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY

References

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents Living people 1938 births {{US-gov-bio-stub