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Jack Downing, Cold War spy who came out of retirement to help CIA, dies at 80 Harrison Smith Jack Downing, a renowned spymaster who became the only CIA officer to run and recruit agents in both Beijing and Moscow during the Cold War, then came out of retirement in 1997 to reinvigorate the agency’s demoralized clandestine branch, died June 27 at his home in Portland, Ore. He was 80. The cause was colon cancer, said his daughter, Wendy. Mr. Downing was the consummate field agent, colleagues said, a Harvard graduate and Marine Corps veteran who served two tours in Vietnam, spoke fluent Chinese and Russian, and delighted in reciting Chinese poetry as well as developing new ways to evade the KGB. “He was everybody’s idealized version of what a spy would be like,” said Jonna Mendez, a former chief of disguise at the CIA. ....