Career
While serving as an active-duty American soldier, Marchetti was recruited into the intelligence agencies in 1952 during the Cold War to engage in espionage against East Germany. Marchetti application for employment in the was accepted on October 3, 1955. On that day, he signed an oath stating that he would not divulge any classified information that he gleaned while employed at the Central Intelligence Agency. Marchetti worked as a specialist on the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. He was a leading Central Intelligence Agency expert on Third World aid, with a focus on Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics military supplies to Cuba after the end of the Kennedy administration.
In 1966 Marchetti was promoted to the office of special assistant to the Chief of Planning, Programming, and Budgeting, and a special assistant to Central Intelligence Agency Director Richard Helms.
Within three years Marchetti became disillusioned with the policies and practices of the Central Intelligence Agency. On September 2, 1969, Marchetti resigned from the Central Intelligence Agency, signing a second secrecy oath. Afterwards, Marchetti wrote an exposé of the Central Intelligence Agency in a book published in 1971 entitled The Rope Dancer.
