Complementary Careers: The Story Of A West Point Air Defense Officer And An Intelligence Professional

Mary O’Sullivan, the wife of Ken O’Sullivan, USMA 1963, recorded an oral history interview recounting her life with Ken (over 58 years of marriage) and her career with the Central Intelligence Agency. Ken is currently in a memory care center suffering from dementia. Mary grew up in the St. Louis area with her older sister Carol. The family had a house in the city and one in the country. Her father was possibly a bootlegger, and he tried his hand at various business opportunities, including selling cars and real estate and running a bar and grill. His mother, who had seven siblings, was a housewife, telephone operator, and dress shop owner. As a young girl, she was interested in history, travel, and different languages and cultures. She recalls traveling around the United States on vacations, and even driving to Mexico. Mary’s high school was a boarding school, the St. Elizabeth Academy. Carol’s boyfriend, Charlie Nahlik, attended West Point, and that is how Mary was first exposed to the Military Academy. Charlie had attended Christian Brothers High School in St. Louis before attending St. Louis University and West Point. Charlie had roomed with Ken, and when Charlie and Carol were married following graduation, Ken was the Best Man and 16-year-old Mary was the Maid of Honor. That was the beginning of their relationship (they married three years later). At the Academy, Ken had been a swimmer along with his best friend, Mike Kilroy. Both Ken and Mike were in Company M-1, and both joined the Catholic Choir as a way to get away from West Point on weekends. Years later, after Ken retired from the Army and became a “house husband,” he started coaching swimming and over his coaching career, 20 of his swimmers swam for Army. In 1964, Mary graduated from high school and took a secretarial job at St. Louis University. Her job allowed her to take classes for free. In the meantime, Ken, an Air Defense Officer, was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 43rd Artillery in Philadelphia, manning a nuclear-capable Nike Missile site. Ken and Mary were able to keep in touch through letter writing and the occasional free “Space-A” flight for visits. From 1965 to 1966, Ken served as a MAC-V Advisor in the Delta in Vietnam training ARVN units, and Mary continued to work as a secretary at St. Louis University. During this tour, he was injured in the ankle and suffered from amoebic dysentery. On Valentine’s Day, 1965, Ken proposed to Mary, and their wedding date was set for June 11, 1966 (he had arranged a special means of proposing). Ken returned home shortly before their wedding, and Mike Kilroy was supposed to follow and be in the wedding, but he was killed just before his tour in Vietnam ended, and Ken went to Mike’s parents’ house to console them for much of the two weeks before the wedding. After their wedding, they honeymooned in Wisconsin and at the Lake of the Ozarks enroute to the Artillery and Missile School at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. All the young couple owned was a single twin bed and a kitchen table. They spent six months at Ft. Sill and two months at Ft. Bliss, Texas, before reporting to Ft. Dix, New Jersey, where Ken took command of a Basic Training company in 1967. While at Bliss, Mary remembers how easy it was to cross the border, and buying a nativity set at a museum of folk art in Jaurez that remains one of her prized possessions. In New Jersey, they bought a second car so Mary could take courses at Rutgers University. Following company command time, Ken was assigned to MAAG (Military Assistance Advisory Group) Taiwan, with a stop at Ft. Bliss so Ken could qualify on the Hawk Missile. Mary remembers that their sponsor met them at the airport and they moved to Tianmu. While stationed there, Mary took a Chinese language class and she managed the wives’ club gift shop. She describes an adventure on a C-119 flying to Quemoy as part of a delegation with the Taiwanese Army Chief of the General Staff to celebrate Chinese New Year. In 1971, Ken returned to Vietnam, where he served as a District Senior Advisor. This tour was similar to his first in that he worked with the ARVN combatting the Viet Cong. Initially, Mary lived in Rosslyn, Virginia, but later moved to St. Louis, where she worked for the Director of Personnel at St. Louis University. This was at the height of the anti-war protests. Ken was deployed on an eighteen month tour, and he got three R&R. The couple went to Taiwan and Hong Kong, and he returned home for one R&R. In addition to letters, they communicated by mailing audio tapes and the occasional MARS (Military Auxiliary Radio System) call. When Ken returned to the United States in 1972, he was assigned as the Executive Officer for 1st Battalion, 3rd Air Defense Artillery in the 101st Airborne Division. They loved being stationed at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. From 1974 to 1975, while Ken served as the Division Deputy G1, Mary was earning a bachelor’s degree in history and government from Eagle University. In 1976, Ken was assigned to the Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, and Mary commuted from Leavenworth to Lawrence to earn her master’s degree in history from the University of Kansas, focused on Western Europe. Next, the Army sent Ken to the Defense Language Institute to learn Chinese, so Mary decided to enroll in classes too. In 1977, Ken was assigned to the 1st Psychological Operations Battalion at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (SWCS). Mary kept busy buying a house, working as an assistant registrar for Campbell College, and teaching in the evenings at Fayetteville State. Next, Ken was assigned to the American Embassy in Taiwan in 1978, and in preparation he took a second year of Chinese, and so did Mary. She also studied Japanese and then backpacked through Japan for three months. In 1979 Ken, now a FAO (Foreign Area Officer), was assigned to the Defense Liaison Office (USDLO) in Hong Kong, and as part of his job traveled throughout southeast Asia. Ken established an Army language school in Hong Kong with the British language school and Ken and Mary traveled throughout China. Later in 1979, they returned to the Washington area, where Ken was assigned to the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (OACSI) and Mary decided she should take a job. In 1980, Mary’s sister Carol contacted friends who worked in the Central Intelligence Agency to see if her younger sister could get a job. Mary passed the exam, but a hiring freeze under President Carter kept her from starting at the CIA until November of 1980. In 1983, Ken transferred to the Defense Intelligence Agency and retired from the Army in 1984, but Mary’s career in the CIA was just beginning. She had a 28-year career with the CIA as an Intelligence Officer, a Senior Manager, the Chancellor of the CIA University, and as the Deputy Director in the Office of Policy Support. Mary started out in the reference office, tasked with writing leadership profiles of foreign officials. Her work supported a “bunch of different agencies.” Once, when she was delivering an envelope to the Pentagon, her contact made the correlation between Mary, who was working China issues in the CIA, and Ken, who had been a Chinese FAO, and he said, “Isn’t that cute.” Mary responded, “’Cute’ is not exactly how I’d describe my professional career,” and handed him the envelope. In her early years at the CIA, she learned that the Agency was “not a kind and caring outfit,” but “I was moving along.” She learned to “make yourself known for one or two things.” In her case, she took over converting files to a new word processing pilot. She also felt like “I could question my job and role, and I felt listened to.” In the meantime, Ken was getting frustrated with his job at DIA and decided to retire. When Mary became pregnant, Ken opted to stay at home to raise their daughter. At the Agency, Bob Gates had been appointed the Head of Analytics and Mary wanted to work at the Pentagon in International Security Affairs. She was assigned to work on Korea. When Caspar Weinberger was going to China, Mary prepared his briefing book for the press. This was her first breakthrough as a “real analyst.” Mary states, “I understood Gates’ requirement.” She fondly remembers Rich Armitage for the “power of thanks, and appreciation, and leadership.” She then transferred to the office that produced the president’s daily brief, where she served as an editor and briefer to the president. Once, she was tasked to write a letter from President Reagan to the Chinese Premier. She describes dealing with “crazy calls” in the Operations Center. She served as a briefer for President George Herbert Walker Bush whom she calls “the most gracious person.” Next, she worked for the Office of Political Psychology, where she was in charge of a bunch of doctors and she questioned, “How do I lead them?” Throughout her career in the CIA, she had wonderful managers and leaders at many levels, but the fact that women were “half the ranks of analysts, but not half of the leadership” concerned her. She then spent time in the Comptroller’s Office to learn where the money goes before taking charge of the Analysts Office. She then began pioneering a program for professionalism within the Agency, where she sought to change the culture from the top down, starting with a two-week course. A leadership course at the University of Michigan followed, where she learned from an investment banker discussing a merger the concept of “we’ll carry the wounded, but shoot the betrayers.” She then became the head of the Office of Training and Development and the Chancellor of the CIA University, where all training was brought together under one roof. After the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, Mary describes what changed within the Agency. After retiring from the CIA, Mary spent time teaching others within the intel community how to write (AIMS – Audience, Issue, Message, and Story) and how to effectively deliver an “elevator pitch.” In 2008, Mary and Ken’s daughter Caroline graduated from West Point as an Engineer Officer and deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 as a Route Clearance Platoon Leader. In 2013, she transitioned to the National Guard, where she continues to serve as a Lieutenant Colonel commanding an Engineer Battalion and is part of the Army Warrior Fitness Team. Reflecting on her service to the Nation, Mary states that she “took advantage of Ken’s service” to launch her own meaningful service to America. She is proud of West Point and her family’s lifetime of service.