WASHINGTON, DC – HELIAS DOUNDOULAKIS, an accomplished civil engineer, inventor, and author, received the Distinguished Service Award from the OSS SOCIETY at its annual banquet, held on November 7th at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C. This award was presented to Doundoulakis and posthumously to his brother, George, for their valor and service during World War II as members of the resistance, the ENGLISH INTELLIGENCE SERVICE and the OSS, the precursor to the CIA. The decoration was presented by REAR ADMIRAL BRIAN LOSEY. Current CIA Director JOHN BRENNAN attended the ceremony and paid tribute to the honorees.
Doundoulakis, grew up in Archanes, Crete. In his last year of high school, 1941, he witnessed the German invasion of the island. At 18, he joined a resistance group headed by his brother George, and supplied crucial information to the SOE, an arm of the English Intelligence Service. This resistance group was uncovered and hastily evacuated to Cairo, Egypt.
In Cairo, Doundoulakis and his brother were asked to join the English Intelligence Service, but rather, pursued the American OSS, or the Office of Strategic Services, the newly formed American Intelligence counterpart. They were enlisted into the US Army, and attached to the OSS, where Doundoulakis was trained in the Secret Intelligence sector.
After being transformed into a skilled spy, he was sent back to Greece undercover, and along with a Greek naval intelligence officer, set up a communication cell in Thessaloniki, whereby daily coded messages to OSS headquarters in Cairo were sent. One such message describes the course of events surrounding the bombing of the main railroad yard in Thessaloniki and the loss of thousands of German troops.
Doundoulakis recently published these wartime exploits in the book TRAINED TO BE AN OSS SPY, and was featured in the History Channel documentary, “CAMP-X: SECRET AGENT SCHOOL.”
Doundoulakis recently celebrated his 92nd birthday with his family in Puerto Rico. He and his wife, Rita, have four sons – James, Stephen, Plato, and Thomas – and ten grandchildren.
LOS ANGELES, CA – Greek-American celebrity JOHN STAMOS, current star of the sitcom GRANDFATHERED, pleaded no contest to reckless driving in June. SUPERIOR COURT COMISSIONER JANE GODFREY sentenced Stamos to three years’ probation and has ordered him to attend two ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS meetings, as well as a two-hour drug and alcohol counseling session. Stamos checked himself into a residential rehab facility and via Twitter expressed his gratitude to the BEVERLY HILLS POLICE and hospital personnel for taking care of him. His lawyer says if he can complete his sentence, his case will be dismissed.
NAPLES, FL – “ISLAM, THE UNTOLD STORY,” a BBC documentary by historian and English novelist TOM HOLLAND was scheduled to be shown on December 3 at the ST. KATHERINE GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH in Naples. The film explores the origins of Islam, an ABRAHAMIC religion that developed in Arabia in the 7th century; it criticizes the orthodox Islamic account of this history, claiming that it lacks sufficient supporting evidence. Holland explores the origins of Islam and asks why it took several decades after the death of MUHAMMAD for his name to appear on surviving documents or artifacts. Arguing that there is little evidence for how the faith was born, he does not dispute Muhammad’s existence as a real historical figure; he claims that much of the Islamic origin story was developed much later in the early years of the Arab empire.
The event was presented by the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN NETWORK, whose Chairman is HARRY DIMOPOULOS.
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