Obituaries

-- Matt Schudel

Frank Anton LevyCIA Operations Officer

Frank Anton Levy, 88, a retired Navy captain and former CIA operations officer, died of complications from a stroke Jan. 22 at the Johnson Center at Falcons Landing in Potomac Falls.

Capt. Levy began working for the CIA in 1952 as an operations officer assigned to the clandestine service, and he left in 1975 in the wake of the Church Committee hearings into intelligence-gathering activities by the agency.

He returned as a contract employee for the agency, working for 20 years. He helped declassify papers, including those of William J. Donovan, head of the Office of Strategic Services during World War II.

Born in Chester, Pa., Capt. Levy graduated from Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa., where he played football, baseball and basketball and was voted into the athletic hall of fame. He also played on the Little All-American football team in the early 1940s.

While waiting for a Navy commission, he was drafted into the Army during World War II but was able to switch services. He served in the Navy in Alaska and Maryland during the war as a supply corps officer. From 1947 to 1949, he was assigned to Moscow as an assistant naval attache.

After returning to the United States, he was assigned to the relatively new Central Intelligence Agency. He resigned from the Navy in 1954 but stayed in the Navy Reserve for several years.

A longtime resident of McLean, he was a member of St. Johns Episcopal Church, coached in a Babe Ruth baseball league and was a timer at local summer swimming meets. He also volunteered to talk to Georgetown University Medical Center patients before open-heart surgery, having survived his own in 1983.

Capt. Levy enjoyed fixing things around the house and welcoming new residents to the neighborhood.

A son, Steven C. Levy, died in 1996.

Survivors include his wife of 54 years, Barbara Coggins Levy of Potomac Falls; two sons, Frank A. Levy Jr. of McLean and Michael N. Levy of Columbia, S.C.; a sister; and three grandchildren.