Lieutenant Colonel John Bessette, US Air Force (Ret), is a veteran Air Force navigator and intelligence officer who flew in various combat aircraft during the Cold War. For three years he flew as navigator in C-97G cargo aircraft configured for spy missions over East Germany and the Baltic region. From May 1968 to August 1969 he was assigned to the 3rd Special Operations Squadron at Bien Hoa Air Base, Vietnam, where he flew more than 1,200 hours as a navigator in AC-47 "Spooky" gunships. A three-year assignment in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) followed, supporting the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Joint Reconnaissance Center (JRC) with assessments on the military and political risks of reconnaissance missions worldwide and the anticipated intelligence gain from them. He subsequently served in NATO air intelligence positions, retired from the Air Force in 1979, and after a year, rejoined DIA as an intelligence analyst specializing in the Soviet and Warsaw Pact air forces. He retired from DIA in 1996 to begin a third career as a researcher and author.
