Good Guys Wear Black

On my way to school to take my “History of American Spying” final exam, I decided to grab a quick burrito at Chipotle in Old Town. So there I was walking down the sidewalk at a quick clip, trying to keep the CIA’s early Soviet infiltration operations straight in my head, when I round the corner and slam into this short guy.

For a split second I think, “Damn this guy’s a brick-wall”, then I look and realize that I have bumped into none other than Chuck Norris! Mr. Walker Texas Ranger himself! Stunned I eeked out a meager “oh excuse me.” He replied “no problem” and we kept on walking.

As I wolfed down my burrito a few minutes later, I thought back to that Chuck Norris movie “Good Guys Wear Black” and remembered what a shitty movie it was. Here is Chuck Norris in the 1970’s trying to be all cutting edge by making a movie about the big old crooked CIA, right in the midst of the Church Commission inquiries, Helm’s perjury, and Carter’s antagonism toward Covert Action.

In “Good Guys…” Chuck was a former member of Operation Phoenix – a CIA assassination program designed to weed out VC leaders in South Vietnam. He ends up back stateside wearing black-turtlenecks, breaking necks and doing flying death-kicks through car windshields.

What does all this have to do with the DC area? Well nothing other than I bumped into Chuck Norris here. But I did find it funny that my random encounter and his bad movie gave me a nice little review for my Spying exam.

PS- If anyone is curious the three CIA infiltration programs were:

REDSOX: Sending recent Russian emigres back into the USSR through clandestine night-drops.
REDSKIN: Turning American tourists going to the USSR into spies.
REDCAP: Encouraging Soviet officials to defect while they are abroad.

Originally published on July 29, 2005.