CIA pays rare public tribute to fallen officers

Their service is usually secret, and so is their sacrifice.

But Monday, a Memorial Day crowd of 300 at the American Airpower Museum in Farmingdale snapped photos and applauded, as a top Central Intelligence Agency official saluted seven employees from his agency who were killed in Afghanistan last December.

"As a secret organization, we expect no recognition, no parades, no medals," said Michael J. Sulick, director of the CIA's National Clandestine Service.

The 62-year-old former undercover agent, who grew up on 228th Street in Manhattan, went on to say that co-workers at the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Va., were touched by the museum's invitation to participate in what he described as a "rare" public tribute.

The slain CIA officers, including two women - one a base chief - died at a surveillance post in Khost Province near the Pakistan frontier, when an al-Qaida operative pretending to be an informer blew himself up. The bombing was the most deadly attack against the CIA in more than 25 years.

Following Monday's ceremony at Republic Airport, Sulick boarded a World War II-era bomber with museum sponsors and others for a half-hour flight over New York Harbor. As the plane circled, Sulick threw two dozen red roses into the water to commemorate the dead.

Traditionally, deaths of CIA officers are commemorated only in private, once-a-year ceremonies at Langley, or during funeral services in the agents' hometowns. David Kahn of Great Neck, a former Newsday editor and author of "The Codebreakers," a widely cited book on the history of secret codes, noted that the CIA's chief director is usually the sole agency official to speak in public, and only during Congressional hearings.

"But the other guys usually keep a very low profile, and I, for one, have never heard of the director of clandestine services making a public speech," Kahn said.