Country Boy Escorted Nation Across a Historic Threshold

The main thing that Dave Hall would tell you about himself was that he was just a country boy. He grew up on a Mitchellville farm and liked to hunt, garden, make clocks out of wood, play bluegrass music and build model airplanes.

"What you see is what you got," said Esther Hall, who married him 45 years ago.

Well, not exactly. Dave Hall, who died of cancer Nov. 19, was a federal intelligence agent who was stationed at a listening post on the Germany-Czechoslovakia border right after World War II; who enforced the civil rights of black students on southern college campuses in the early 1960s; who debriefed USS Pueblo sailors held hostage by North Korea in 1968; and whose passport bore stamps from Iceland, China and other exotic spots. But he never said much about his work.

"Nobody realized he never talked about his job at parties because he could talk to anybody about anything -- flying, hunting, astronomy," said his only child, Kimberly Hall Summerville.

"He got along with everybody," his wife agreed.

For 40 years, the Halls lived on a cul-de-sac in McLean that was a little United Nations, with families from Syria, Germany, Latvia, Lebanon and Peru. His daughter remembered her shock when he slipped easily into German in conversation with new neighbors; she did not know he spoke that language, and Russian as well. Another time, he was at CIA headquarters and ran into a Syrian woman from the cul-de-sac. They both raised their eyebrows in surprise but never spoke a word to each other about it, then or later.

What was not a secret was how much he loved his work, his family and his life. "He never hated to get up and go to work," his wife said. Every night, the couple would go for a walk, holding hands. He was popular with children, including his two grandchildren, whose questions he could always answer.

Hall was proud of his work in the early 1960s, right after he joined the U.S. Marshals Service. He was among the deputy marshals sent to the University of Mississippi in 1962 to escort and protect James Meredith, a black student who had enrolled at the historically white institution.

"That was a bad one," his wife said. "There was tear gas. There was shooting. He never said much about it, but it was unpleasant."

It could easily have been worse than unpleasant. Riots broke out on campus while he was there, and two people were killed.

Hall also was at the University of Alabama in 1963 when Gov. George Wallace tried to bar the front door. He was among the marshals who protected a very young Ruby Bridges when she was one of the first students to integrate the New Orleans public schools. A photograph of marshals escorting the young girl inspired artist Norman Rockwell to paint "The Problem We All Live With," a portrait of the young girl surrounded by marshals.

"I don't think Dave had a prejudiced bone in his body," his wife said. "He felt that he was doing what needed to be done. . . . I think what he was saying was that everyone should have the same opportunity."

After three years of tumultuous duty in the South, Hall was assigned to Washington, where he first protected the children of Robert and Ethel Kennedy after President John F. Kennedy's assassination and later escorted federal prisoners to court. But the job was not challenging, so when a handball partner suggested that he join him at the Office of Naval Intelligence, Hall did. A few years later, he moved to the Naval Security Group, where he worked until retiring in 1989.

He put his photographic memory to use in music, which he played by ear, and in poetry, which he recited, some in Old English.

Fascinated by airplanes since his youth, he loved to fly, although he never soloed, and he could identify an aircraft by the sound of its engine. While he was in Fauquier Hospital in Warrenton on Veterans Day, apparently asleep, two vintage planes flew by. Hall opened his eyes and immediately said, "Those are T6s." They were, and unbeknownst to him, they were piloted by friends who were delighted to learn that the flyby gave him a moment of pleasure.

Hall didn't like politics because of the interagency politicking he'd seen. In retirement, he told his wife that "we are not doing what we need to do to protect our own country," she said. "He'd say we can help the world, but we can't save the world."

As his daughter showed off a photo of her father from his college graduation, her mother brushed off teasing comments about his good looks.

"It was what was inside with Dave," she said. "He was just a good man."