Michael D'Andrea

D'Andrea was raised in Northern Virginia.[1] His family has ties to the CIA that span two generations.[2] He met his wife while working overseas with the Central Intelligence Agency, and converted to Islam in order to marry her.[1][3] His wife, Faridah Currimjee D'Andrea is a daughter of a wealthy Muslim family from Mauritius with Gujarati origins.[4] She serves as a senior director of Currimjee Group, a business conglomerate owned by her family with holdings including print media, telecommunications, real estate, tourism, financial services and energy.[5][6]

D'Andrea joined the CIA in 1979, and he was considered an underperformer at "The Farm", the CIA's training center at Camp Peary, Virginia.[7] D'Andrea reportedly began his overseas career in Africa, and he is listed as a foreign service officer at the Embassy of the United States in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.[7][8] D'Andrea previously served as chief of station in Cairo, Egypt and later in Baghdad, Iraq.[7][9]

Because of the secretive nature of his career in clandestine service, D'Andrea has been described using a number of aliases. During his time at the Counterterrorism Center many reporters referred to him only by the first name of his cover identity "Roger", which is considered unusual for an official not posted overseas.[3][7][9] A surly, chain smoking workaholic who sometimes slept in his office, other nicknames attributed to D'Andrea by colleagues and reporters include "Ayatollah Mike", "the Prince of Darkness",[16] "the Dark Prince",[1] and "the Undertaker."[17] In Kathryn Bigelow's 2012 film Zero Dark Thirty, a fictionalized CIA officer based on D'Andrea is known simply as "The Wolf".

Despite years in a prominent CIA assignment, D'Andrea's real name did not become public until a 2015 profile by Mark Mazzetti of The New York Times,[10] one month after leaving the role of CTC director.[18] His outing by the paper while still an active undercover officer of the CIA prompted backlash from many former intelligence officers, particularly after Iranian state media published photos of D'Andrea and his wife the following day.[19][20] Several cited the murder of Bill Buckley in their criticism, the Beirut station chief kidnapped, tortured, and executed by Islamic Jihad in 1985, as well as Valerie Plame, a covert officer outed by Robert Novak in the Plame affair in 2003.[21][22] Mazzetti defended his decision, contending he was compelled to act after a January 2015 signature strike in the southern Pakistani region of Waziristan, which led to the collateral deaths of aid workers Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto. The strike was authorized by D'Andrea and CIA leadership independent of White House oversight, and also killed American-born al Qaeda commanders Adam Yahiye Gadahn and Ahmed Farouq, who were the intended targets.[9]

At 8:30 AM (UTC) on January 27, 2020, a United States military aircraft crashed in eastern Afghanistan. Soon after, several websites affiliated with Russia and Iran[23][24] subsequently reported that D'Andrea died in the crash after the U.S. Air Force Bombardier E-11A Battlefield Airborne Communications Node aircraft was shot down by the Taliban.[14] Reports speculated that D'Andrea's body, along with top secret CIA documents, were taken by militants.[14][25]

Early reports from an Iranian television network provided no evidence to confirm D'Andrea was killed.[15][23] According to witnesses and officials, the plane crashed and was not shot down.[14] Asia Times reported that the photos of the wreckage did not look like the wreckage of a plane that was shot out of the sky.[25] Time described reports that D'Andrea had died in the crash as "propaganda" and a "dubious story", quoting two anonymous sources within CIA who denied the story, saying it’s “business as usual” for the senior official, stating that if someone as senior as D’Andrea were killed, he’d likely be buried with full honors in Arlington Cemetery, and within 24 hours of his demise in keeping with Islamic funeral custom.[24] Polygraph.info said the claims D'Andrea died in the crash were unsupported and likely false.[14] According to their reporting, there has also been no confirmation of D'Andrea's involvement in Soleimani's death.[14] Voice of America reported that all five people on board were killed.[26] The Department of Defense only confirmed two fatalities recovered at the crash site.[27]

The CIA neither confirms nor denies whether any of their personnel were onboard.[24]

D'Andrea was the inspiration for the character of "The Wolf" in Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty.[3][9]