Career
Early career and plane crash
Holm joined the CIA in 1961, and in his first assignment served in the CIA's secret war in Laos against the communists in the lead-up to theReturn to service
His body permanently scarred, Holm returned to service after two years of extensive medical care in the United States, serving for several more decades in the CIA and achieving legendary status within the Agency. Holm was stationed inParis
Holm's final assignment was Chief of the CIA Station in Paris, where he was held responsible when French authorities uncovered a CIA operation involving economic espionage. In the operation, a female American CIA undercover operative, posing as the representative of a US non-profit, enjoyed clandestine meetings with a French official to obtain secret trade information. The American operative fell in love with the French official and allegedly behaved irresponsibly, her lack of discretion leading to the discovery of the operation. Holm was publicly expelled by the French Government along with several other CIA agents posing as diplomats; Holm denied responsibility by claiming the American operative hid her romantic relationship with the French official from the CIA. According to Christopher Lynch, Dick Holm unfairly made the American operative the scapegoat for a series of problems at the station despite her having '"had little or nothing to do with some of the cases and officers involved."Legacy
In 2004, Holm published his memoirs, ''The American Agent'' (). Another volume of his memoirs, The Craft We Chose: My Life in the CIA, was published in August 2011 by Mountain Lake Press (). Holm's life in the Central Intelligence Agency is being chronicled in the 2015 documentary film ''Back to the Shadows: A CIA Officer's Story''.References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holm, Dick People of the Central Intelligence Agency American people of the Vietnam War Living people Recipients of the Distinguished Intelligence Medal Year of birth missing (living people) People of the Congo Crisis