Constantin Menges

Constantin Menges   (Spook, Academic)
Born	September 1, 1939 Ankara, Turkey
Died	July 11, 2004 (Age 64)
Nationality	US
Alma mater	Columbia University
Parents	Karl Heinrich Menges
Member of	Le Cercle
Senior fellow In office 2000 - 2004 Employer Hudson Institute Also worked there before  Director of the Program on Transitions to Democracy In office 1990 - 2000 Employer George Washington University  Special Assistant to the President In office 1983 - 1986 Employer National Security Council Deeply involved in White House support for the Nicaraguan contras. Attended Le Cercle in 1985  National intelligence officer for Latin American affairs In office 1981 - 1983 Employer CIA

Constantine C. Menges was an American scholar, author, professor, and Latin American specialist for the White House's US National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency. Constantin Menges attended Le Cercle in 1985, and possibly on other occasions.

Family Background

Menges was born in Turkey on September 1, 1939, the son of Karl Heinrich and Valeska Menges, political refugees from Nazi Germany. Karl Heinrich was a linguist known for his expertise on Altaic languages. He was quoted variously as saying he spoke between 24 and "over 50" languages, and said that when he came to the United States he was the only person in the country who could speak Uzbek.

After Menges was arrested because of his contacts in the Soviet Union, released again, but probably continued to be spied on and repeatedly interrogated and had to testify in a trial against a group of Berlin communists, he left Germany in December 1936, fleeing first to Czechoslovakia, then Turkey. Menges taught at Columbia University in New York for 36 years, from 1940 to 1976.

Early years

His parents sent him to the United States in 1943. Menges attended college in Prague. He earned a bachelor's degree in physics and a doctorate in political science from Columbia University.

Career

He helped German refugees escape over the Berlin Wall and organized civil resistance after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 during the Prague Spring

Menges worked to ensure equal voting rights in Mississippi and During the Nixon and Ford administrations, he was deputy assistant for civil rights in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

From 1981 until 1983, he worked for the director of the CIA as the national intelligence officer for Latin America. From 1983 until 1986, he served as special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He helped plan Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada and supported the Nicaraguan Contras and the Salvadoran rebels. Friends and foes gave him the nickname "Constant Menace". He wrote a critical account of his experiences as a government official in his 1988 book, Inside the National Security Council: The True Story of the Making and Unmaking of Reagan's Foreign Policy

In September 2002, Constantine Menges sent a letter to Olavo de Carvalho in which he agreed with the Brazilian philosopher’s analysis of the current political situation in Brazil.

He died of cancer on July 11, 2004, in Washington, D.C., where he had been a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

 

Event Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Le Cercle/1985 (Washington)	7 January 1985	10 January 1985	US Washington DC	4 day meeting of Le Cercle in Washington exposed after Joel Van der Reijden discovered the attendee list for this conference and published it online in 2011

Rating

11 November 2022 Terje 

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