In the autumn of 1941, after graduating from Yale with a BA (with grades in the lowest quarter of his class), Angleton moved on to Harvard Law School. It was now obvious that the United States would soon be involved in the war in Europe, and Angleton's move to Harvard was not the consequence of any strong ambition to study law. Rather, like many young men at the time, he was putting his future on hold.

On December 7, Angleton was emerging from a Boston cinema when he saw newsboys hawking special editions announcing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Angleton turned to William Wick and said, "Come on, Willy, let's go to The Oyster House and get drunk. The war was just around the corner and Angleton's short sojourn at Harvard Law School would be dominated less by study than romance.

"There he was," says Cicely Angleton, describing how she first set eyes on her husband-to-be in 1941 in a student's attic in Cambridge. "There was nothing in the room except a large reproduction of El Greco's View of Toledo. It showed a huge unearthly green sky. Jim was standing underneath the picture. If anything went together, it was him and the picture. I fell madly in love at first sight. I'd never met anyone like him in my life. He was so charismatic. It was as if the lightning in the picture had suddenly struck me. He had an El Greco face. It was extraordinary."

Cicely d'Autremont, a nineteen-year-old coed from Vassar, came from a wealthy, well-placed family from Duluth, Minnesota. Her grandfather, Chester Congdon, had created the family's fortune mainly from mining and lumber, and by the turn of the century the Congdons were one of the richest families in Duluth. Cicely majored in English at Vassar, but in keeping with the times, made no plans to study for a professional career, a decision she later bitterly regretted. (She did, however, earn a master's degree in medieval history in 1970, and a Ph.D. in the same subject in 1984.)

In that tense autumn of 1941, as the two stared starry-eyed at each other for the first time, the future seemed to promise years of hope and fulfillment. Cicely's passion was not instantly requited, however, and the two did not become engaged until April 1943, a few weeks after Angleton had been drafted into the Army. When the obligatory meeting with his parents took place, Hugh Angleton was coldly disapproving, arguing that his son was without a job and didn't know the girl very well. Jim, in turn, was respectful but unyielding throughout the painful meeting, which had little impact. The wedding took place quietly three months later on July 17, in Battle Creek, Michigan, where the groom was already undergoing Army training.

Angleton and his wife, Cicely, had two daughters and a son. As a couple, the Angletons were deeply attached, but the relationship was uneven and they separated several times. His own children were troubled by their father's remoteness. Cicely continued her education and after many years received a Ph.D. in medieval history. Kennedy White House social secretary Letitia Baldrige might well have been thinking of Cicely Angleton when she noted wryly that in the r9Sos, "If you had a husband working for the CIA you learned to become a specialist in medieval art or gardening or something so you had your own life, because your husband would not talk to you.

At the OSS office on the Via Archimedes, Angleton confided in his old friend about a personal problem: the effect his work was having on his marriage. As Angleton later put it, "I left Cicely at home with our first child to do this work. I felt guilty about it. So he helped me think things through."

Cicely and Jim Angleton appeared to families and friends to be very much in love. But "once I met Philby, the world of intelligence that had once interested me consumed me. The home life that had seemed so important faded in importance," Angleton admitted. Angleton nearly ignored the birth of his son, James. He wrote faithfully to Cicely, but he did not come home. Cicely decided that their marriage was "no longer viable," although she continued it anyway.

Unlike Wisner and Dulles, Anglcton did not find joy in his work. He never took a moment out to celebrate the victory in the war or his Legion of Merit for his work in Italy. "I had this ability to see dangers that others ignored. Some people called this a phobia. Maybe I just have seen too much," Angleton said. Plagued with insomnia ever since his days at Yale, he was sleeping but a few hours a night and worrying. He told whoever would listen that the Soviets would try to devour the West.

Cicely Angleton, 89, a poet and history scholar who was the wife of a former CIA director of counterintelligence, James J. Angleton, died Sept. 23 at her home in Great Falls. She had congestive heart failure, according to her daughter Guru Sangat Kaur Khalsa.

Mrs. Angleton was married in 1943 and graduated from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., in 1947.

She and her husband lived in Arlington County for many years. During the summers, they often vacationed in northern Wisconsin, where Mrs. Angleton wrote and directed musical plays for children.

She spent the summer of 1962 in southern France, where she studied the Cathars, a breakaway medieval sect of the Catholic Church. She devoted many years to studying the group and received a doctorate in medieval history from Catholic University in 1984.

After her husband’s death in 1987, Mrs. Angleton became a widely published poet, with several volumes of poetry. Many of her poems had a wry, humorous edge. She was interviewed for a Library of Congress series of podcasts called “The Poet and the Poem.”

Cicely Harriet d’Autremont was born in Duluth, Minn., and grew up in Tucson.

She was a member of Rock Spring Congregational United Church of Christ in Arlington and often attended Washington-area gatherings of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, a meditative and spiritual group. She was also a longtime participant in programs of the Writer’s Center in Bethesda.

Survivors include three children, James C. Angleton of Los Angeles, Guru Sangat Kaur Khalsa of Great Falls and Siri Hari Kaur Angleton-Khalsa of Espanola, N.M.; two grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.