<SANITIZED>LOUIS A. O'JIBWAY

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06903490
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: July 11, 2023
• Document Release Date: February 15, 2022
• Case Number: F-2015-02404

Approved for Release: 2022/01/13 C06903490
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Louis A. O'Jibway (1918 � 1966)
Fast Facts:
Directorate served:
Directorate of Plans (now
National Clandestine
Service)
Position title:
Operations Officer
Grade:
GS-13
Award date:
1974
,(21 Louis A. O'Jibway drowned when the helicopter in which he was a
passenger crashed into the Mekong River in August 1965.
O'Jibway was born on an Indian reservation in Sault Ste. Marie,
Michigan. He was left fatherless at the age of three. During the next
15 years he was shunted around, living in various places and shifting
from one Indian school to another. But he was able to use his superb
athletic skills in football and boxing to his advantage throughout his
teens, and in college, and then during a short stint in professional
sports.
,(.8f O'Jibway served in the US Army from 1941 to 1946, spending
three of those years as an intelligence officer with the Office of
Strategic Services in the Far East. His Indian background helped him
compete successfully for advanced scouting missions in which he
would parachute into Japanese-held areas to enlist local partisans in
support of coming invasions.
O'Jibway was honorably discharged from the Army in 1946 as a
Captain. He attended the University of New Mexico and Bacone
College, where he studied petroleum, history, and economics. He
worked briefly for Douglas Aircraft and then became a professional
athlete, boxing and playing professional football for the Los Angeles
Dons team in the now defunct All-America Conference. O'Jibway
joined the CIA in October 1951 as an intelligence/paramilitary officer.
From 1951 to 1954, O'Jibway served in Taipei as a CIA
paramilitary instructor and intelligence officer. He was hired as a staff
agent, at that time a form of contract employment used by the Agency
to provide a better cover umbrella for employees serving under
extremely sensitive or difficult cover situations. Over the course of his
Agency career, he moved back and forth between staff employee and
staff agent status.
JeSIO'Jibway returned to CIA headquarters in 1955 for operational
training. He was planning to continue his successful career as an
instructor at the Agency's paramilitary training site. In 1957 he was
integrated into the US military as a Major in the US Army and assigned
to Korea. Around this time he "adopted" a Korean leper colony.
O'Jibway worked closely with medical missionaries and an Air Force
chaplain to secure surplus drugs and needed hospital supplies for the
colony. His volunteer work with the leper colony was lauded by
Koreans and the US military and was reported in newspaper articles in
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the United States.
(S) O'Jibway returned again to Agency training work in 1959 as a
branch chief and senior training officer. In 1961 he was assigned to
Ubon, Thailand, as a paramilitary officer. Two years later he
transferred to Udom Base (also in Thailand) where he served as a
senior operations officer, advisor, and project leader for a large third-
country group.
(S) In 1965, while he was on one of his frequent missions to survey the
region and visit tribal leaders at area villages, the helicopter carrying
Louis O'Jibway crashed into the Mekong River during a heavy
rainstorm. O'Jibway was listed as "missing in action" for nearly a year.
An official "presumptive determination" was then made that Louis
O'Jibway's date of death was 20 August 1966. He was 48 years old.
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Approved for Release: 2022/01/13 C06903490