When George E. Hocker, Jr. started training to become a spy, many areas in America were still segregated. But Hocker broke through barriers to establish himself as one of the first Black undercover agents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the first to establish a CIA station overseas, and the first to head a branch within the Directorate of Operations despite being the only Black person in a class of 75.
Since most CIA officials operate in secret, Hocker’s work and that of other Black trailblazers at the agency were historically ignored. However, the agency recently installed an exhibit honoring Hocker at its headquarters museum, recognizing his accomplishments.
Hocker is now writing a memoir and stated that he planned to use it to impart the perseverance and determination skills he learned from his experiences as a “Black spymaster” to others.
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Born in 1939, Hocker, the oldest of five children, enrolled at Howard University in 1956, where a close friend persuaded him to apply to the CIA. Hocker, who was 18 years old and had no meaningful work experience, included his parents’ church buddies as references to his application. In 1957, he joined the Agency and became one of the few African-American officers on the force.
A few years after he began working for the CIA, he found that his white coworkers were given preference when it came to sponsorships and promotions. But that didn’t stop him from pursuing his dream of becoming a case officer after becoming interested in the idea while working as an analyst at Headquarters and observing information from the field.
He hesitated to sign up for the spy training course because there were no Blacks there. “I had pretty much decided that this was not a place where I wanted to try to make a career,” he said to NBC News.
But after being present at the demonstration where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his infamous “I Have a Dream” speech, he saw things differently, adding that it was a pivotal event in his life. The 1963 demonstration, dubbed “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom”, was attended by both Black and White Americans.
He recounted, “I saw that we can do some things together, all races, if we can come together and if we can strive to be the best that we can be and help our country to be the best example for the rest of the world.”
Hocker went on to make history as the first Black officer to complete escape and evasion training as part of the covert operations training program and he went on to serve on multiple tours throughout Africa and South America.
Apart from being the first black officer to lead a branch inside the DO and establish a new CIA station, Hocker was chosen to work as Special Assistant to Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) William Casey and DCI Stansfield Turner as well as serve as Senior Advisor to the Drug Enforcement Agency, a position he held until his retirement in 1992.
Recently, he returned to the agency to encourage the next generation of officers. He said, “I still feel very privileged and honored to have been able to serve my country as a black spymaster and be in the CIA for 34 years. I think it’s very important for you to be able to be resilient and persevere when things don’t seem to be going your way, especially if you think they’re unjust… If you don’t stand up for yourself, sometimes you won’t be the value to the Agency that you should be.”
