{"id":116,"date":"2017-02-11T01:37:16","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T01:37:16","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2017-04-19T19:11:21","modified_gmt":"2017-04-19T19:11:21","slug":"john-c-platt-iii-rest-in-peace-cowboy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erii.org\/dev\/john-c-platt-iii-rest-in-peace-cowboy\/","title":{"rendered":"JOHN C. PLATT III. Rest in Peace Cowboy"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\"><p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_text_separator title_level=&#8221;h1&#8243; title=&#8221;JOHN C. PLATT III. REST IN PEACE COWBOY&#8221; title_align=&#8221;separator_align_left&#8221; align=&#8221;align_left&#8221; color=&#8221;custom&#8221; border_width=&#8221;2&#8243; accent_color=&#8221;#c99d41&#8243;][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<div class=\"field_blog_i10ns\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/erii.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/424.jpg\" title=\"424.jpg\" alt=\"424.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"field_blog_text\">\n<div>\n<p><span>Potomac Falls, VA &#8211; John Cheney Platt III (Jack), aged 80, died unexpectedly on January 4, 2017 of advanced esophageal cancer. Jack, also known as &#8220;Cowboy,&#8221; served proudly as an officer in the&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.legacy.com\/memorial-sites\/marines\/?personid=183615257&amp;affiliateID=600\">United States Marine Corps<\/a><span>&nbsp;followed by 25 years of service in the Central Intelligence Agency. He led a life full of intrigue, mystery and adventure serving his country abroad in Austria, Laos and France. He was a natural leader, a mentor to many, and did not suffer fools lightly.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<div>After retiring from the CIA, he formed the Hamilton Trading Group partnership that allowed him to continue training others on security awareness measures to protect themselves in a dangerous new world. He spent his last few years traveling widely with his wife and friends.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span>Mr. Platt, who was known as Jack, was a gruff former Marine officer who for years ran a training program in Washington to teach C.I.A. case officers how to operate under cover. But he was best known in the spy world for his longtime friendship with Gennadiy Vasilenko, a K.G.B. officer whose betrayal by Aldrich Ames, the Soviet mole at the C.I.A., led to Mr. Vasilenko&rsquo;s imprisonment in Moscow.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span><img decoding=\"async\" height=\"287\" src=\"https:\/\/erii.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/cowboy-and-gennadiy.jpg\" style=\"float: left; border: 5px solid black; margin: 5px;\" width=\"384\" \/>&nbsp;<\/span>Mr. Platt was hired by the CIA in 1963. He was an operations officer with an extensive information collection and counter-intelligence background.&nbsp; In the course of various assignments overseas, he lived and worked in Austria, Germany, France and Laos. He also traveled extensively in Latin America, the Caribbean and to a lesser extent in Eastern Europe. For five years he directed a CIA training program which was awarded a Unit Citation for excellence.&nbsp; This program was successful in preparing U.S. personnel and their families to live and work productively in hostile countries.&nbsp; Upon retirement, Mr. Platt was awarded the CIA&#8217;s Career Intelligence Medal for exceptional performance and commended by the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for his professionalism, zeal and vital assistance to the FBI.<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>Mr. Platt and several like-minded Americans took steps to open a window on the &ldquo;new &nbsp;Russian Federation&rdquo; in the early 1990s. He contacted former Soviet adversaries and pushed for mutual agreements on conducting commercial inquiries and personal security and safety &ndash;in Russia.&nbsp; The joint business efforts of the company and the Russians were favorably described in news stories (<i>LA Times, Palm Beach Post, Forbes Magazine and the NYT<\/i>). Platt&rsquo;s unusual but interesting relationships with &ldquo;former KGB enemies&rdquo; have been cited in TV programs about the CIA and KGB (<i>Discovery Channel<\/i>&nbsp;in 1997 and&nbsp;<i>CBS 60 Minutes II<\/i>&nbsp;in 2001).<\/div>\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>Regrettably, the results of &ldquo;regime change&rdquo; in Russia (i.e., Putin&rsquo;s Kremlin) rendered bilateral business cooperation with Russian contacts as damaged efforts best observed in the rear-view mirror. In 2005, the prime business partner in Russia, retired KGB officer Gennadiy Vasilenko, was arrested in Moscow on trumped up charges and sentenced to a long prison term. After serving 5 &frac12;&nbsp; years of a 3-year sentence in the Russian prison system, Mr. Vasilenko was granted free passage to be resettled with his family in the USA&nbsp; &#8212; being part of a historic &ldquo;Russian- USA spy swap&rdquo; of July 2010.<\/div>\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\n<p><span><span>In addition to his wife, the former Paige Gordon, he is survived by three daughters, Leigh, Michelle and Diana Platt, and one grandson.<\/span><br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span><span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><em>Rest in Peace Cowboy. You will be greatly missed. J.D.L. ~<\/em><\/div>\n<div><em>&nbsp;<\/em><\/div>\n<div><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.legacy.com\/obituaries\/washingtonpost\/obituary.aspx?pid=183615257\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.legacy.com\/obituaries\/washingtonpost\/obituary.aspx?pid=183615257<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.legacy.com\/guestbooks\/washingtonpost\/john-c-platt-condolences\/183615257?cid=full\"><\/a><\/em><\/div>\n<div><em>&nbsp;<\/em><\/div>\n<div><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.legacy.com\/guestbooks\/washingtonpost\/john-c-platt-condolences\/183615257?cid=full\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.legacy.com\/guestbooks\/washingtonpost\/john-c-platt-condolences\/183615257?cid=full<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/02\/06\/us\/john-platt-dead-cia-agent.html\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/02\/06\/us\/john-platt-dead-cia-agent.html<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n<div><em>&nbsp;<\/em><\/div>\n<div><em><a href=\"http:\/\/comsecllc.blogspot.com\/2017\/02\/john-c-platt-iii-rest-in-peace-cowboy.html\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/comsecllc.blogspot.com\/2017\/02\/john-c-platt-iii-rest-in-peace-cowboy.html<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n<div><em>&nbsp;<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_text_separator title_level=&#8221;h1&#8243; title=&#8221;JOHN C. PLATT III. REST IN PEACE COWBOY&#8221; title_align=&#8221;separator_align_left&#8221; align=&#8221;align_left&#8221; color=&#8221;custom&#8221; border_width=&#8221;2&#8243; accent_color=&#8221;#c99d41&#8243;][vc_column_text] Potomac Falls, VA &#8211; John Cheney Platt III (Jack), aged 80, died unexpectedly on January 4, 2017 of advanced esophageal cancer. Jack, also known as &#8220;Cowboy,&#8221; served proudly as an officer in the&nbsp;United States Marine Corps&nbsp;followed by 25 years of service in the Central Intelligence Agency. He led a life full of intrigue, mystery and adventure serving his country abroad in Austria, Laos and France. He was a natural leader, a mentor to many, and did not suffer fools lightly.&nbsp; After retiring from the CIA, he formed the Hamilton Trading Group partnership that allowed him to continue training others on security awareness measures to protect themselves in a dangerous new world. He spent his last few years traveling widely with his wife and friends.&nbsp; Mr. Platt, who was&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0},"categories":[7,33,34],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v20.8 (Yoast SEO v20.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>JOHN C. PLATT III. Rest in Peace Cowboy - ERII<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/erii.org\/dev\/john-c-platt-iii-rest-in-peace-cowboy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"JOHN C. PLATT III. Rest in Peace Cowboy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_text_separator title_level=&#8221;h1&#8243; title=&#8221;JOHN C. PLATT III. REST IN PEACE COWBOY&#8221; title_align=&#8221;separator_align_left&#8221; align=&#8221;align_left&#8221; color=&#8221;custom&#8221; border_width=&#8221;2&#8243; accent_color=&#8221;#c99d41&#8243;][vc_column_text] Potomac Falls, VA &#8211; John Cheney Platt III (Jack), aged 80, died unexpectedly on January 4, 2017 of advanced esophageal cancer. Jack, also known as &#8220;Cowboy,&#8221; served proudly as an officer in the&nbsp;United States Marine Corps&nbsp;followed by 25 years of service in the Central Intelligence Agency. He led a life full of intrigue, mystery and adventure serving his country abroad in Austria, Laos and France. He was a natural leader, a mentor to many, and did not suffer fools lightly.&nbsp; After retiring from the CIA, he formed the Hamilton Trading Group partnership that allowed him to continue training others on security awareness measures to protect themselves in a dangerous new world. He spent his last few years traveling widely with his wife and friends.&nbsp; Mr. Platt, who was...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/erii.org\/dev\/john-c-platt-iii-rest-in-peace-cowboy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"ERII\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/EspionageResearchInstitute\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-02-11T01:37:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-04-19T19:11:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"jdleasure\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ERIINTL\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ERIINTL\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"jdleasure\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/erii.org\/dev\/john-c-platt-iii-rest-in-peace-cowboy\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/erii.org\/dev\/john-c-platt-iii-rest-in-peace-cowboy\/\",\"name\":\"JOHN C. 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PLATT III. Rest in Peace Cowboy - ERII","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/erii.org\/dev\/john-c-platt-iii-rest-in-peace-cowboy\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"JOHN C. PLATT III. Rest in Peace Cowboy","og_description":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_text_separator title_level=&#8221;h1&#8243; title=&#8221;JOHN C. PLATT III. REST IN PEACE COWBOY&#8221; title_align=&#8221;separator_align_left&#8221; align=&#8221;align_left&#8221; color=&#8221;custom&#8221; border_width=&#8221;2&#8243; accent_color=&#8221;#c99d41&#8243;][vc_column_text] Potomac Falls, VA &#8211; John Cheney Platt III (Jack), aged 80, died unexpectedly on January 4, 2017 of advanced esophageal cancer. 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