Richard Welch Richard Skeffington Welch ( December 14 , 1929 – December 23 , 1975 ) , a Harvard - educated classicist , was a CIA Station Chief ( COS ) killed by the Marxist organization Revolutionary Organization 17 November ( 17N ) . Early life and CIA career . Welch , who was born in Hartford , Connecticut , was recruited to the CIA in 1951 upon graduation from Harvard . His first assignment as a case officer was in Athens working as a civilian employee of the U . S . Department of the Army ( 1952 – 59 ) . From 1960 - 64 , he served in Cyprus , and then in Guatemala ( 1965 – 67 ) , Guyana as COS ( 1967 - 69 ) , and Peru as COS ( 1972 – 75 ) . He arrived in Athens , Greece , in July 1975 , at a time when Greece had just come out a tumultuous period of military dictatorship . Welch stayed in the house occupied by several of his predecessors as chief of the CIA station . The night of 23 December 1975 , five men in a stolen Simca followed him home as he returned from a Christmas party . While two men covered his wife and driver , a third shot him dead with a . 45 Colt M1911 pistol at close range . Welch ' s name and address had been published in the Athens News and Eleftherotypia in November 1975 . However , a communiqué sent by 17N to French newspaper Libération in March 1976 demonstrated that the group had been watching Welch ' s movements since the summer of 1975 . He had previously been revealed as a CIA agent in an East German book and a magazine called " CounterSpy " . Legacy and aftermath . Welch was the first CIA officer to be murdered in a terrorist attack . By Presidential Order of U . S . President Gerald Ford , Welch was buried in Arlington National Cemetery . His death helped turn the political tide back in favor of the CIA after the damning revelations by the Church Committee earlier in 1975 . Welch ' s murder contributed to passage of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 , making it illegal to reveal the name of an agent who has a covert relationship with an American intelligence organization . In July 2002 , a hospital employee named Pavlos Serifis ( born 1956 ) confessed that he had participated in Welch ' s murder along with 17N ' s alleged mastermind Alexandros D . Giotopoulos ( born 1944 ) , Pavlos ' s uncle Ioannis Serifis ( born 1938 ) , and a tall , blonde " Anna . " That confession , however , contained factual errors . A code name " Vangelis " assigned to him by police after study of 17N ' s financial notebooks seems to have been incorrect . Charges for the Welch murder were not brought because the 20 - year statute of limitations had expired . Giotopoulos was sentenced to multiple life terms in 2003 as the moral instigator of a string of assassinations , bombings , rocket attacks , and bank robberies from 1983 - 2000 . Ioannis Serifis was acquitted . Pavlos Serifis was convicted of membership in a terrorist group but released on health grounds . An appeals court ruled in 2007 that the statute of limitations had expired for that crime . In fiction . A fictionalized version of Welch appears as a recurring character in the shared world anthology series " Heroes in Hell " , edited by Janet Morris . Welch works for one of Satan ' s various intelligence agencies , interacting with the likes of Julius Caesar and taking fellow agent Tamara Bunke as his lover .