George Daniel Neagoy, 88, a retired Central Intelligence Agency agent who also owned and operated restaurants in the Washington area, died Jan. 19 at Brighton Gardens assisted living facility in Arlington. He had congestive heart failure.
Mr. Neagoy was born in Romania and raised in Cleveland, where he owned a bar and then joined the Army Counterintelligence Corps during World War II.
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While working for the Counterintelligence Corps after the war, Mr. Neagoy helped escort the Gestapo leader Klaus Barbie, whom the Americans had been using as an agent, out of Germany.
The mission became part of Operation Ratline, which moved Soviet informers and ranking military and diplomatic defectors to safe havens.
"Barbie was the only Nazi we took out," Mr. Neagoy told The Washington Post in 1983. He personally escorted Barbie and at least a dozen Soviets to safe havens from 1950 to 1951.
"Barbie and his wife were frightened and concerned the whole trip, like a couple of scared dogs," Mr. Neagoy said.
In 1987, Barbie was imprisoned for life for crimes against humanity. He died in 1991.
Mr. Neagoy joined the CIA in 1951 and used his familiarity with Romania to help political dissidents escape the Communist regime, debrief them for the U.S. government and help them adapt to their new surroundings.
He also worked in Vietnam during the early 1960s before settling in the Washington area in 1966. A longtime Bethesda resident, he had lived at Brighton Gardens since 2002.
Between 1970 and 1989, he and his wife owned and operated Gourmet Snacks restaurants in Rosslyn and Washington as well as the Top of the Town restaurant in Rosslyn.
He also owned and leased out real estate in the Washington area.
He was a former board member of Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Washington, where he also did volunteer work.
Besides English and Romanian, he spoke German, Italian, French and Spanish.
His wife, Angela Badescu Neagoy, whom he married in 1951, died in 2003.
Survivors include three daughters, Doina Neagoy of Aruba, Dutch West Indies, Monica Neagoy of Arlington and Alexandra Ville of Paris; and three granddaughters.
