Frank Sturgis
United States military, undercover operative (1924-1993)
Frank Anthony Sturgis (December 9, 1924 – December 4, 1993), born Frank Angelo Fiorini, was an American CIA agent who was one of the five Watergate burglars whose capture led to the end of the presidency of Richard Nixon.
Sturgis served in several branches of the United States military and, in the Cuban Revolution of 1958, worked as an undercover operative for the Central Intelligence Agency, and is alleged by conspiracy theorists to have been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Early life and military service
When still a child, his family, which was of Italian heritage, moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On October 5, 1942, in his senior year of high school, 17-year-old Frank Angelo Fiorini joined the United States Marine Corps and served under Colonel "Red Mike" Merritt A. Edson in the First Marine Raider Battalion in the Pacific Theater during the Second World War.
"On April 14, 1942, William Donovan, as Coordinator of Information (forerunner of the Office of Strategic Services), activated units charged with gathering intelligence, harassing the Japanese through guerrilla actions, identifying targets for the Army Air Force to bomb, and rescuing downed Allied airmen." This was what led to Stilwell's Chinese forces, Wingate's Raiders, and Merrill's Marauders involvement in the war, and Frank got trained in guerrilla tactics and gathering intelligence, which became useful in his later events.
Honorably discharged as a corporal in 1945, he enrolled at Virginia Polytechnic Institute but left college after only one year and joined the Norfolk Police Department on June 5, 1946. He soon discovered a corrupt payoff system and brought it to the attention of his superiors, who told him to overlook the illegal activities. On October 5, 1946, he had a confrontation with his sergeant and resigned the same day. For the next 18 months, he managed the Havana-Madrid tavern in Norfolk, a bar that catered to sailors from the many foreign ships that visit the port to load and unload cargo.
On November 9, 1947, Fiorini joined the United States Naval Reserve at the Norfolk Naval Air Station and learned to fly while still working at the tavern.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Frank Sturgis” as united States military, undercover operative (1924-1993). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1350791. VIAF identifies the subject as 121258579. The Library of Congress control number is no2010084400. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1924, 1993, 1958 and 1942.
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This entry incorporates text from “Frank Sturgis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.