Obituaries

In Memoriam

Helen Hix - CIA U2 Project Officer and Radio Operator

Helen Joyce Hix passed away peacefully on December 14, 2025. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, on July 8, 1937, she was the youngest child of Henry and Lula Mae Wilson.

Aldrich Ames - CIA Mole

Aldrich H. Ames, the CIA officer whose spying for Moscow was the most damaging breach in the agency’s history, reportedly causing the deaths of at least 10 recruited CIA or allied intelligence agents, died Jan. 5 at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland. He was 84.

George Rader - Decorated former CIA Executive

George Stanley Rader passed away quietly at home on October 12 with his loving wife by his
side. He was 97 years old.

Brian Bramson - Former CIA Executive

Brian Hugh Bramson passed peacefully at home Thanksgiving morning 2025 with his wife of 34 years Andrea by his side. We want to think he waited for everyone to be in town for the holiday before taking his last breath at 8:20 a.m.

Tom Pamatier - Former NSA Cryptographer

Tom Palmatier, devoted husband, father, grandfather, and friend to so many, passed away suddenly from cardiac arrest on November 18, 2025.

Ken Minihan - Former DIA and NSA Director

Lieutenant General Kenneth A. Minihan, United States Air Force, a Texas-born son of a World War II bomber pilot and longtime Florida resident who rose to lead both the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency and later helped build America's modern cyber capabilities from the private sector, died November 1, 2025 in FL.

Dan Edwards - Former Intel Community Computer Pioneer

Daniel J. Edwards, retired computer scientist and early computer pioneer passed away peacefully Monday, January 27, 2025 close to his home in Troutville, Virginia.

Eugene Hasnfus - Former CIA Pilot of Iran-Contra Fame

Eugene Hasenfus, who as a 45-year-old former Marine and laid-off construction worker was thrust into the national spotlight in 1986 when, on a covert mission sponsored by the C.I.A., his gunrunning cargo plane was shot down over Nicaragua, setting off what would become known as the Iran-contra affair, died on Wednesday at his home in Menominee, Mich. He was 84.

Eli Zeira - Former Israeli Military Intelligence Chief who Dismissed Yom Kippur War Warnings

Eli Zeira, the Israeli major general and military intelligence chief who was forced out of his job after dismissing warnings that Syria and Egypt were on the verge of the attacks in 1973 that started the Yom Kippur War, died on Friday. He was 97.