John Stockwell (CIA officer)

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John R. Stockwell
Born1937 (age 86–87)
NationalityAmerican
Occupations
  • CIA officer
  • Author
Known forcriticism of US foreign policy

John R. Stockwell (born 1937) is a former CIA officer who became a critic of United States government policies after serving seven tours of duty over thirteen years. Having managed American involvement in the Angolan Civil War as Chief of the Angola Task Force during its 1975 covert operations, he resigned and wrote In Search of Enemies.

Early years

Born in

Plan II Honors program at the University of Texas
.

CIA career

As a

Saigon in 1975.[1]

In December 1976, he resigned from the CIA, citing deep concerns for the methods and results of CIA paramilitary operations in Third World countries and testified before Congressional committees. Two years later, he wrote the exposé In Search of Enemies, about that experience and its broader implications. He claimed that the CIA was counterproductive to national security, and that its "secret wars" provided no benefit for the United States. The CIA, he stated, had singled out the MPLA to be an enemy in Angola despite the fact that the MPLA wanted relations with the United States and had not committed a single act of aggression against the United States. In 1978 he appeared on the popular American television program 60 Minutes, claiming that CIA Director William Colby and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger had systematically lied to Congress about the CIA's operations.

Writing career

Stockwell was one of the first professionals to leave the CIA to go public by writing a bestselling book, In Search of Enemies. The CIA retaliated by suing him in the 4th District Court in Washington, D.C.. Part of the suit intended to eliminate the possibility of selling the story for the purpose of making the movie and requested all future publications be submitted to the CIA for review. Unable to afford the travel necessary to contest the case, Stockwell filed for bankruptcy in Austin, Texas. After the litigation was processed through the bankruptcy, the CIA eventually dropped the suit.

A brief story in the book is about a CIA officer having Patrice Lumumba's body in the trunk of his car one night in then Elizabethville, Congo. Stockwell mentions in a footnote to the story that at the time he did not know that the CIA is documented as having repeatedly tried to arrange for Lumumba's assassination.[2][3]

His concerns were that, although many of his colleagues in the CIA were men and women of the highest integrity, the organization was counterproductive of United States' national security and harming a lot of people in its "secret wars" overseas.

Red Sunset was Stockwell's next book and was published in 1982 by William Morrow Publishing Co., Inc. in hardback, then in paperback by Signet a year later. In it he discusses his prediction of a peaceful end to the Cold War. Stockwell presented these ideas in fiction form in order to get it published.

In 1991, Stockwell published a compilation of transcriptions of many of his lectures called The Praetorian Guard.[4][5]

See also

Books

Filmography

References

  1. ^ a b "Former CIA Agent John Stockwell Talks about How the CIA Worked in Vietnam and Elsewhere" – via www.youtube.com.
  2. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved January 19, 2023.
  3. ^ https://twitter.com/onlyafricafacts/status/1048428088072257536
  4. ^ Kuhlenbeck, Mike (24 January 2015). "Exporting Fascism: US Imperialism in Latin America". Foreign Policy Journal. Retrieved 19 January 2023. One of the leading critics against the agency is former CIA case officer John R. Stockwell, who resigned from his post in the late 70s. In his book The Praetorian Guard, he concludes, "Now more clearly than ever, the CIA, with its related institutions, is exposed as an agency of destabilization and repression. Throughout its history, it has organized secret wars that killed millions of people in the Third World who had no capability of doing physical harm to the United States."
  5. ^ "CIA Whistleblower John Stockwell: The Praetorian Guard" – via www.youtube.com.

External links