AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY OF TIMOTHY E. WELLS
Timothy Edward Wells has led an extraordinary life. He is a New York boy who grew up in Pleasantville, NY. He was born in December 1948 in Utica, NY where his father worked as a civilian employee for the military. His mother and father met while serving in the United States Marine Corps at Cherry Point, North Carolina during WWII. His mother is one of the few surviving woman Marines from WWII. His father passed away in 2002 from a massive heart attack. Tim’s parents divorced in 1956 and he and his mother and brother went to live with his mother's parents in Pleasantville, New York. Tim was a typical young man, member of the Boy Scouts, Explorers and basically a very average high school guy. After he graduated from Pleasantville High School he attended Maryville College in Tennessee where he eventually was asked to leave because he was too much of a "prankster". Upon returning home and working for several months, he decided to join the United States Marine Corps and follow in the family tradition. He enlisted in October of 1968. Tim went to boot camp at Parris Island where his superiors found he had a gift for learning foreign languages, he graduated high in his class. He was sent to Monterey California to language school where he learned Vietnamese. While in Monterey he and a few other Marines took a late night trip to Monterey Bay to make sure other branches of the military knew the Marines had been there. They were never caught for painting their message on the side of a large military vessel. After finishing language school Tim went to Vietnam where he served from May of 1969 until October of 1970. He was awarded three Purple Hearts for wounds he suffered at the hands of the enemy. Due to Tim's language skills most of his time in Vietnam was spent working along side of the South Vietnamese Armed Forces. In October of 1970, while still remaining actively involved in the war effort, his superior realized that Tim’s enlistment was over and that he was now a civilian. They took all precautions to keep him safe until he had reenlisted for four more years in the Marines. He returned to the United States where he spent several weeks in Bethesda Naval Hospital for treatment of shrapnel wounds from a booby trap that exploded near him while in Vietnam, this included surgery on his right eye. As part of Tim’s reenlistment, his request was to attend Marine Security Guard School and become an Embassy Guard, that was to become his next assignment. He graduated in June of 1971 from Henderson Hall Marine Corps Headquarters (Headquarters Marine Corps is now at Quantico, VA), from there he was assigned to Amman, Jordan, this is where his encounters with the Black September Organization (BSO) began. Tim arrived in Amman, Jordan when the Palestinians were being militarily thrown out of the Capital city of Amman. About 2 months after he arrived in Ammon he was brutally attacked on the street by a knife wielding Palestinian, Tim won, the Palestinian did not. Tim was sent to Cairo, Egypt where he obtained a visa to enter Libya so he could assist the short-handed Marine Detachment in Tripoli. The most horrifying event of the six-week stay in Cairo, was witnessing the cold-blooded assassination of the Prime Minister of Jordan, Wasfi Tal, from approximately 60 feet away. Tim was close enough to witness the two assassins lick the blood off of the Prime Minister's body prior to their capture by Egyptian authorities. While in Libya, the Libyan government nationalized British Petroleum, this announcement caused riots in the capital city of Tripoli. The rioters attacked the American Embassy. Tim took charge and arranged for the rioters to be scalded with boiling water if they approached the front door. The boiling water stemmed further rioting at the American Embassy. Shortly after his temporary assignment in Libya, Tim was given change of station orders to serve as the leader of the Embassy Guard Detachment at the American Embassy in Khartoum Sudan. There, he witnessed the assassination and cold-blooded murder of two American diplomats--Cleo Allen Noel, Jr. and George Curtis Moore, plus a diplomat from the Belgian embassy, Guy Eid. On the evening of March 3, 1973, Curtis Moore, chargé d'affaires at the American Embassy in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, was the guest of honor at a reception at the Saudi Embassy as the outgoing Ambassador. Just before 7 p.m., as the reception was winding down, armed members of the terrorist group known as BSO stormed the Embassy, taking Noel, Moore, and three others hostage, two of the hostages were subsequently released. Yassir Arafat, the mastermind of this horrific terrorist attack, was responsible for sending the coded message to the BSO ordering the murder of these three men. A little more than one day after the incident began U.S. President Richard Nixon announced to the world the brutal deaths of the American diplomats. Tim was the NCOIC (Non Commissioned Officer In Charge) at the Embassy and it was his duty to identify the riddled remains of the three victims. (You can find a detailed account of the assassination in the book "Assassination in Khartoum" by David Korn)
Tim served as an Embassy Guard from June of 1971 until Oct 1973 finishing his last tour of duty at the Pentagon where he was a bodyguard for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon. After being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps in October 1974, Tim entered George Mason University and received 2 degrees in 2 ½ years, one in International Relations and one in History, graduating with a 3.29 GPA.
Tim was determined that his next goal was to become a CIA intelligence officer. While being interviewed for the CIA, a pschycologist, asked Tim if he was "THE" Tim Wells from Maryville College". Apparently the memory of Tim and his pranks at Maryville College went on for a number of years after he was asked to leave.
Tim entered the CIA in the fall of 1978 and worked as a case officer in several countries in Africa including Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia, plus brief stints in Belgium, Nigeria, Djibouti and Togo.
Tim’s two years in Uganda were the closest thing to total anarchy that he had ever read or studied about, let alone lived through. The leader of Uganda, Milton Obote, was the person that taught Idi Amin everything he knew about torture and death. Life, working clandestinely there, was extremely dangerous. Car hijackings were a constant threat along with the local Army and Police shooting at each other at any given time. Once, while driving to Entebbe, a grenade thrown by the Ugandan Vice President's convoy shattered Tim’s windshield. The grenade did not explode. A week later, tragically, a local child found the grenade; he sustained minor shrapnel wounds when the grenade exploded while he was playing with it. Uganda was a harrowing assignment.
Shortly after having his upper spine fused together at a hospital in the United States, due to an automobile accident three years before in Kenya, Tim was assigned to Ethiopia. Mengistu Haille Mariam was then ruling Ethiopia after his brutal overthrow of Emperor Haille Selassie in 1974; the country was in desperation for Mengistu’s removal.
From 1974 to 1991, Mengistu's "Dergue" regime was responsible for human rights violations on a massive scale. Tens of thousands of Ethiopians were tortured, murdered or "disappeared". Tens of thousands of people were also killed as a result of humanitarian law violations committed during Ethiopia's many internal armed conflicts. Many others, perhaps more than 100,000, died as a result of forced relocation ordered by the Mengistu regime. Tim was a CIA case officer in Ethiopia during this time. Tim was meeting at the home of some of his contacts that were comprised of a group of Ethiopian civilians who wanted Mengistu overthrown, when Mengistu’s secret service burst into the house taking all but Tim captive (The people who Tim was meeting with had hidden him in a concealed closet) Tim was eventually found by the Ethiopian secret service and taken captive where he was forced to hear his friends tortured and murdered. Tim himself was held and tortured for 42 days until the United States government finally was able to locate him with the help of a friendly foreign intelligence agency. President Ronald Reagan’s appointed emissaries were flown to Addis Ababa to secure Tim’s release once the CIA knew that he was still being held captive and had not been killed. An article was published in 1990 by a well-known journalist explaining Tim’s torture and captivity in Ethiopia. Many people upon hearing of Tim’s life experiences have told him he should write a book, at some point in his life he will.
In September of 2008 Tim had two heart attacks within several days of each other. Now, because of treatment for his depression caused by his heart attacks and his ongoing PTSD, Tim is involuntarily recalling his past and the events that he had participated in or witnessed over the past 40 years. Tim’s current health issues and the resulting depression, along with Tim’s severe PTSD from his service in both the United States Marine Corps and the CIA, is causing Tim to suffer much emotional pain.
Tim has one birth child, four stepchildren and seven grandchildren. He was married twice to women he met while serving overseas, both marriages ended in divorce. His daughter, born in 1985, is by his second wife. Tim’s third wife is Denise, who Tim fell in love with and became engaged to in May of 1971 while he was in Embassy Guard School in Arlington, Virginia. Once Tim went overseas to Jordan and the other Middle Eastern Countries where he served, he became involved with members of the CIA and decided that Denise would not fit in with that sort of lifestyle. Denise received a "Dear Jane" letter in August of 1972; she was devastated at the loss of this wonderful man and prayed that Tim would return to her one day. In August of 2001, after 30 long years, Tim and Denise found each other again and realized they were still as deeply in love with each other as they were in 1971. Tim and Denise were finally married in May of 2005 in a private ceremony. They currently reside on an island in the Chesapeake Bay. This is a very beautiful and safe place where they are able to leave their house and cars unlocked at night without the worry of the present world’s troubles entering their lives. It is also a very peaceful place for Tim that is far away from the brutal world he was involved with for so many years.
Tim has a long road ahead of him learning how to live his life without being haunted by his past, but with the love and support of Denise, his family and good friends, and the support system provided through the Veteran’s Administration, he will get there eventually.
January 28, 2009 Timothy E. Wells and Denise A. Wells