Former IU students become husband, wife, CIA partners

L is for living in multiple foreign countries.

O is for operating missions undercover in Russia and Greece.

V is very, very extraordinary.

E is even more delegates to explore.

But love was made for Jan and Gene.

Jan and Gene Coyle met at IU in the 1970s. Within seven weeks of their first date, they were engaged. They were married at Beck Chapel and have had a life of missions and undercover investigations ever since. Gene Coyle joined the CIA in 1976, and Jan Coyle joined 10 years later. The tandem couple posed as boyfriend and girlfriend and as an engaged couple throughout their espionage missions in Russia, New Zealand and Greece.

“Whenever we went out to do an operational act, we had to do a three- to four-hour detection route to make sure we weren’t being followed,” Jan Coyle said. “If we were being followed, we would have to abort the mission. Literally only one act in Moscow did Gene do it by himself. We operated as a couple undercover.”

Throughout their many years in the CIA, they lived in numerous cities, became accustomed to the local food and completed many successful missions. Unlike what Hollywood productions portray, Gene Coyle said his life does not include women constantly throwing themselves at him.

“Contrary to the James Bond movies where there’s always some gorgeous woman trying to seduce him, the closest that ever came was (when) I was down in Keshinyon Negova and (we) were in the hard currency bar,” Gene Coyle said. A gorgeous woman walked in and invited him up to her room for imported chocolate and vodka. Gene Coyle told her he didn’t like chocolate.

“I wrote this up to a telegram back to CIA headquarters, and for many months thereafter I was known as Gene ‘I-don’t-like-chocolate’ Coyle,” he said.

After working for the CIA for 30 years, the couple has retired and now resides in Bloomington where Gene Coyle teaches on campus.

“(Gene’s) going to be teaching a Russian spy detective course, a two-credit-hour, second-eight-weeks course,” said Shelley Scott, administrator for the Slavic Language and Literature Department. “He’s doing that to help promote the interest in Russian because it’s a challenging language, but there are a lot of career opportunities. He says that it has served him well.”

Along with being the recipient of the CIA Intelligence Medal of Honor, Gene Coyle is the author of “The Dream Merchant of Lisbon,” a spy novel. He is currently working on a second novel. He has also taught classes such as “The Role of Intelligence During Wartime” and “The American Intelligence Community.

“He’s wonderful at recruiting and getting people interested in the language,” Scott said.