Arvin Sloane

Arvin Sloane, played by Ron Rifkin, was the former director of SD-6 on the television series, Alias.

Bio

Arvin Sloane was the cold, calculating leader of SD-6, directing its operations against the U.S. government under the guise of being a secret organization within the government itself. He was eventually promoted to being a full member of "The Alliance", the organization that operates above each individual SD cell.

Sloane was married to his long-time spouse, Emily, who was suffering from apparent terminal cancer. Sloane, presuming that Emily was near death, told his wife everything about what he did for a living. However, SD-6 soon caught wind of this fact and said that a condition of Sloane being promoted to a full member of the Alliance was that he must kill his wife, who now knew too much. Unable to bring himself to actually do this, Sloane initially tried to flee. Before the fall of SD-6, Sloane set up an elaborate ruse, including the amputation of Emily's finger, to convince the alliance that she was dead. After going underground, Emily collaborated secretly with the CIA to expose her husband's new crimes, but her heart was not in it. In a botched operation to capture Sloane with Emily's consent, Sloane was able to sway Emily from her cooperation with the CIA. They attempted to flee together, but Emily was shot and killed accidentally by Marcus Dixon, a CIA and former SD-6 agent. In retaliation, Sloane later had Dixon's wife killed in a car bomb explosion.

Following the downfall of The Alliance and SD-6, Sloane went underground, continuing his obsessive pursuit of the artifacts of eccentric 16th century inventor, Milo Rambaldi. Between seasons 2 and 3 (the two-year gap where Sydney Bristow went missing), Sloane turned himself into the U.S. government and, in exchange for his freedom, utilized all of his knowledge to help bring down various terrorist organizations. Sloane then moved to Zurich, Switzerland, setting up a humanitarian organization and apparently becoming a philanthropist, claiming that his research into Rambaldi's secrets led him to one word: peace. Sloane still occasionally worked for the CIA through utilizing Sloane's contacts with the Covenant, but his motives still incited suspicion within the government, and particularly from Sydney, who never forgave him for authorizing the murder of her fiance during the SD-6 days.

Around this time, it was learned that Sloane had a brief tryst with Irina Derevko, Jack Bristow's wife and Sydney Bristow's mother. For a time it was thought that Sloane was, therefore, Sydney's real father when, in fact, he and Irina had another daughter, Nadia Santos, who would also grow up to be a secret agent.

Sloane and Nadia briefly teamed up to go in search of Rambaldi artifacts, but Nadia left her father and returned to Argentina. Sloane was subsequently recruited by the CIA to head up a new black ops division patterned after SD-6, called Authorized Personnel Only (APO). Sloane's first task was to hand-pick the agents he wanted to serve in the APO, choosing Sydney, Jack Bristow, Marcus Dixon and Michael Vaughn. He later successfully convinced Nadia to join and added Marshall Flinkman and Eric Weiss.

Sloane's biggest challenge as the head of APO is in convincing Sydney, Vaughn, and Marcus that his intentions are genuine. Under orders by CIA superiors to keep close tabs on Sloane, the three agents have on several occasions sparked false alarms as to Sloane's loyalty. Meanwhile, Sloane and Jack have been following an agenda of their own, that appears to be related to the surviving sisters of Irina Derevko.

Late in season four it was revealed there was another man, dubbed "Arvin Clone" (played by Joel Grey), that was virtually identical to Arvin Sloane in every way who was still tracking down Rambaldi artifacts in Sloane's name and committing numerous criminal acts in the process. "Arvin Clone" is blamed for Irina Derevko's death by setting her up to appear as if to have contracted assassins to kill Sydney.

Since the start of the fourth season, it has been kept ambiguous as to whether Sloane has truly reformed, of if he is still following his own agenda. The introduction of "Arvin Clone" has cast doubt on whether the real Sloane is responsible for all of the recent actions for which he is blame.

At the conclusion of the fourth season, Sloane abandons his post as APO director in order to apparently join Elena Derevko's scheme to destroy civiilization using the Rambaldi-designed Mueller device. In reality, Sloane is infiltrating Elena's organization in order to stop her plans, but along the way is forced to shoot and seriously wound Marcus Dixon who attempts to stop him. During the final mission to stop Elena, he aids APO, but in doing so is forced to shoot Nadia (who has been transformed by a chemical into a killing machine and is strangling Sydney). As the season ends, Sloane is imprisoned by the CIA, but receives an unexpected visit from Sydney who tells him she believes his motives were good as she arranges for him to visit with his daughter.

See also

• List of characters from Alias

External links

• ABC: Arvin Sloane Profile (http://abc.go.com/primetime/alias/profiles/cia_sloane.html)