Philip Agee

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Philip Agee
Metropolitan Borough of Coventry, West Midlands, England
EducationUniversity of Notre Dame
University of Florida
EmployerCentral Intelligence Agency
SpouseGiselle Roberge Agee
Children2

Philip Burnett Franklin Agee (

case officer and writer of the 1975 book, Inside the Company: CIA Diary,[2] detailing his experiences in the CIA. Agee joined the CIA in 1957, and over the following decade had postings in Washington, D.C., Ecuador, Uruguay and Mexico. After resigning from the Agency in 1968, he became a leading opponent of CIA practices.[2][3][4] A co-founder of the CounterSpy and CovertAction series of periodicals, he died in Cuba in January 2008.[5]

Early years

Agee was born in

University of Florida College of Law.[6] He served in the United States Air Force from 1957 to 1960.[6] Agee then worked as a case officer for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1960 to 1968, including postings to Quito, Montevideo, and Mexico City.[6]

Leaving the CIA

Agee stated that his

authoritarian governments across Latin America. In his book Inside the Company, Agee condemned the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City and wrote that this was the immediate event precipitating his leaving the agency. Agee wrote that the CIA was "very pleased with his work" and had offered him "another promotion", and that his manager "was startled" when Agee told him about his plans to resign.[8]

John Barron wrote in his book The KGB Today (1983) that Agee's resignation was forced "for a variety of reasons, including his irresponsible drinking, continuous and vulgar propositioning of embassy wives, and inability to manage his finances".[9][10] Agee said these claims were ad hominem attacks meant to discredit him.[11]

Allegations of links to Cuban intelligence

Russian exile Oleg Kalugin, former head of the KGB's Counterintelligence Directorate, claimed that in 1973 Agee approached the KGB's resident in Mexico City and offered a "treasure trove of information." According to Kalugin, the KGB was too suspicious to accept his offer.[12]

Kalugin writes that Agee then went to the Cubans, who "welcomed him with open arms." The Cubans shared Agee's information with the KGB, but Kalugin continued to regret the missed opportunity to have direct access to this asset.[12]

According to Mitrokhin, while Agee was writing Inside the Company the KGB kept in contact with him through a London correspondent of the

Novosti News Agency.[13]

Agee was accused of receiving up to US$1 million in payments from the Cuban intelligence service. He denied the accusations, which were first made by a high-ranking Cuban intelligence officer and defector in a 1992 Los Angeles Times report.[14]

A later Los Angeles Times article claimed that Agee posed as a

CIA Inspector General staff member in order to target a member of the CIA's Mexico City station on behalf of Cuban intelligence. According to this story, Agee was identified during a meeting by a CIA case officer.[15]

Vasili Mitrokhin's KGB files claim that Inside the Company: CIA Diary was "prepared by Service A, together with the Cubans". Mitrokhin's notes however do not indicate what the KGB and DGI contributed to Agee's text. Mitrokhin claims that Agee removed all references to CIA penetration of Latin American Communist parties from his typescript before publication at the request of Service A.[16]

In 1978 Agee began the publication of the

Covert Action Information Bulletin. Mitrokhin's files claim that the bulletin was founded on the KGB's initiative and the group running it was "put together" by First Chief Directorate counter-intelligence and that Agee was the only member of the group who was aware of KGB or DGI involvement. According to Mitrokhin's files, KGB headquarters assembled a team to keep the Bulletin supplied with material specifically designed to compromise the CIA. A document titled Director of Central Intelligence: Perspectives for Intelligence, 1976-1981 was supplied to Agee by the KGB. Agee highlighted in his commentary Director of Central Intelligence William Colby's complaint that the Covert Action Information Bulletin was among the most serious problems facing the CIA.[16] Also from Mitrokhin's files: In Dirty Work 2: The CIA in Africa, it is said that Agee met with Oleg Maksimovich Nechiporenko and A. N. Istkov of the KGB, and they gave him a list of CIA officers working in Africa. The files also claim that Agee decided not to identify himself as an author out of fear he would lose his residence permit in Germany.[16]

To the end of his life, Philip Agee consistently and categorically denied ever having worked for any intelligence service after leaving the CIA. He said that his motives were purely altruistic. In support of this he adduces the relentless persecution he endured from the CIA, as it and the U.S. State Department revoked his passport and succeeded in having him deported from several Western European countries, one after the other, until he finally found refuge in Cuba.[17][page needed]

Memoir

Because of legal problems in the United States, Inside the Company was first published in 1975 in Britain, while Agee was living in London.[13] In a Playboy magazine interview after the book's publication, Agee said: "Millions of people all over the world had been killed or at least had their lives destroyed by the CIA ... I couldn't just sit by and do nothing."[18]

Agee said that "Representatives of the Communist Party of Cuba also gave me important encouragement at a time when I doubted that I would be able to find the additional information I needed."[8][19][20]

The

Miles Copeland, Jr., a former CIA station chief in Cairo, said the book was "as complete an account of spy work as is likely to be published anywhere"[21] and it is "an authentic account of how an ordinary American or British 'case officer' operates ... All of it ... is presented with deadly accuracy."[22]

The book was delayed for six months before being published in the United States; it became an immediate best seller.[13]

Inside the Company identified 250 alleged CIA officers and agents.[3] The list of officers and agents, all personally known to Agee, appears in an appendix to the book.[23] While written as a diary, the book actually reconstructs events based on Agee's memory and his subsequent research.[24]

Agee describes his first overseas assignment in 1960 to Ecuador, where his primary mission had the aim of forcing a diplomatic break between Ecuador and Cuba. He writes that the technique he used included bribery, intimidation, bugging, and forgery. Agee spent four years in Ecuador penetrating Ecuadorian politics. He states that his actions subverted and destroyed the political fabric of Ecuador.[4]

Agee helped bug the United Arab Republic code-room in Montevideo, Uruguay, with two contact microphones placed on the ceiling of the room below.[4]

On December 12, 1965, Agee visited senior Uruguayan military and police officers at a Montevideo police headquarters. He realized that the screaming he heard from a nearby cell was the torturing of a Uruguayan, whose name he had given to the police as someone to watch. The Uruguayan senior officers simply turned up a radio report of a soccer game to drown out the screams.[4]

Agee also ran CIA operations within the 1968

Mexico City Olympic Games and he witnessed the events of the Tlatelolco massacre.[citation needed
]

Agee identified President

Luis Echeverría Álvarez (1970–1976) of Mexico and President Alfonso López Michelsen (1974–1978) of Colombia as CIA collaborators or agents.[25]

Following this he details how he resigned from the CIA and began writing the book, conducting research in Cuba, London and Paris. During this time he said that the CIA spied on him.[4][25][26] The cover of the book featured an image of the bugged typewriter given to Agee by a CIA agent as part of their surveillance and attempts to stop publication of the book.[17]

In 1982, the United States Congress passed the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), legislation that seemed directly aimed at Agee's works. The law later figured in the 2003 Valerie Plame affair.[7]

Expulsion

Agee gained attention from the

MI6 report that blamed Agee's work for the execution of two MI6 agents in Poland, a request was put in to deport Agee from the UK.[13] Agee fought this and was supported by MPs and journalists. The Labour MP Stan Newens promoted a parliamentary bill, gaining the support of more than 50 of his colleagues, which called for the CIA station in London to be expelled.[27] The activity in support of Agee did not prevent his eventual deportation from the UK on June 3, 1977, when he traveled to the Netherlands.[28] Agee was also eventually expelled from the Netherlands, France, West Germany and Italy.[29]

On January 12, 1975, Agee testified before the second Bertrand Russell Tribunal in Brussels that in 1960 he had conducted personal name-checks of Venezuelan employees for a Venezuelan subsidiary of what is now ExxonMobil. Exxon was "letting the CIA assist in employment decisions, and my guess is that those name checks ... are continuing to this day". Agee stated that the CIA customarily performed this service for subsidiaries of large U.S. corporations throughout Latin America. An Exxon spokesman denied Agee's accusations.[22]

In 1978 Agee and a small group of his supporters began publishing the

FM 30-31B,[30] which was claimed by the United States House Intelligence Committee to be a hoax produced by the Soviet intelligence services.[31][32][33][34][35]
In 1978 and 1979, Agee published the two volumes of Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe and Dirty Work: The CIA in Africa which contained information on 2,000 CIA personnel.[28]

Agee told

capitalistic side. I approve KGB activities, communist activities in general. Between the overdone activities that the CIA initiates and the more modest activities of the KGB, there is absolutely no comparison."[36][37]

Agee's US passport was revoked by the US government in 1979. The State Department offered him an administrative hearing to challenge the passport revocation, but Agee instead sued in federal court. The case reached the Supreme Court, which ruled against Agee in 1981.[38]

In 1980

Sandinista government in Nicaragua. After a change of government there, this passport was revoked in 1990, and he was given a German passport, in accordance with the working status of his wife, the American ballet dancer Giselle Roberge who was working and living in Germany at the time. Agee was later readmitted to both the U.S. and United Kingdom.[39] Agee's own description of his odyssey was published in his autobiography, On the Run, in 1987.[18]

Later activities

In the 1980s NameBase founder Daniel Brandt had taught Agee how to use computers and computer databases for his research.[40] Agee lived with his wife principally in Hamburg, Germany and Havana, Cuba, founding the Cubalinda.com travel website in the 1990s.[41]

libel. Barbara Bush agreed to remove the allegation from the paperback edition of her book as part of a legal settlement.[29]

On December 16, 2007, Agee was admitted to a hospital in Havana, and surgery was performed on him for perforated ulcers. His wife said on January 9, 2008, that he had died in Cuba on January 7 and had been cremated.[1][42]

Bibliography

Articles

Books

Interviews

Reports

Articles by other authors

Talks given by Melvin Wulf, William Schaap, and Len Weinglass at a memorial for Philip Agee held at the West Side Y in New York City, on May 3, 2009.

Filmography

Documentaries

Television

Public Speaking

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Will Weissert, "Ex-CIA Agent Philip Agee Dead in Cuba", Associated Press (sfgate.com), January 9, 2008.
  2. ^
    ISBN 0-14-004007-2
    .
  3. ^
    ISBN 0-465-00312-5
    . p. 230
  4. ^ a b c d e Kapstein, Jonathan (July 28, 1975). "Philip Agee: The spy who came in and told; Inside the Company: CIA Diary". Business Week: 12. Archived from the original on October 20, 2006.
  5. ^ The Associated Press (9 January 2008). "Former CIA agent Agee dies in Cuba at age 72". NBC News. Retrieved 9 January 2008.
  6. ^ a b c d e Joe Holley (10 January 2008). "Philip Agee, 72; Agent Who Turned Against CIA". The Washington Post. Retrieved 13 November 2010. Mr. Agee was born in Tacoma, Fla., attended Jesuit schools and graduated cum laude from the University of Notre Dame in 1956. He told the New York Times in 1974 that the CIA attempted to recruit him while he was at Notre Dame, offering a package plan that included Air Force duty. He said no but reconsidered while studying law at the University of Florida.
  7. ^ a b c d Shane, Scott (January 10, 2008). "Philip Agee, 72, Is Dead; Exposed Other C.I.A. Officers". The New York Times. Retrieved December 14, 2018.
  8. ^ a b Inside The Company: CIA Diary, p. 640
  9. ISBN 0-88349-164-8
    .
  10. ^ "Philip Agee". The Times. London. January 9, 2008. Retrieved December 14, 2018. (subscription required)
  11. ^ Philip Agee, Inside the Company: CIA Diary, Allen Lane, 1975
  12. ^
    DGI
    and give details of his collaboration with the KGB, but do not formally list him as a KGB or DGI agent. vol. 6, ch. 14, parts 1,2,3; vol. 6, app. 1, part 22."
  13. ^ a b c d e Andrew, p. 231
  14. CNN.com. 2000-06-25. Archived from the original
    on March 17, 2008. Retrieved 2008-12-12.
  15. ^ "Once Again, Ex-Agent Philip Agee Eludes CIA's Grasp", Los Angeles Times, October 14, 1997
  16. ^
    OCLC 42368608.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  17. ^ a b Agee, Philip (June 1987). On the Run. L. Stuart.
  18. ^ a b Davison, Phil (January 11, 2018). "Philip Agee: Former CIA agent who accused his government of 'state terrorism'". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 2022-05-26. Retrieved December 14, 2018.
  19. ISSN 0190-8286
    . Retrieved 2022-08-29.
  20. ISBN 978-0-374-71865-7
    .
  21. ISBN 0-8184-0419-1
    . p. 111-112, 120-121.
  22. ^ a b "Book details CIA activities". Facts on File World News Digest: 37 B3. January 25, 1975. Archived from the original on October 20, 2006.
  23. ^ Philip Agee, Inside the Company: CIA Diary, Allen Lane, 1975, pp 599-624.
  24. ^ Philip Agee, Inside the Company: CIA Diary, Allen Lane, 1975, p 9.
  25. ^ a b "Secret agent; Inside the Company: CIA Diary. By Philip Agee. Penguin. 640 pages. 95p". The Economist. January 11, 1975. p. 87.
  26. ^ Philip Agee, Inside the Company: CIA Diary, Allen Lane, 1975, pp 573-583
  27. ^ "Philip Agee". January 10, 2008. Retrieved December 14, 2018.
  28. ^ a b c Andrew, p. 232-233.
  29. ^ a b c Holley, Joe (2008-01-09). "Philip Agee, 72; Agent Who Turned Against CIA". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2013-12-14.
  30. ^ CovertAction, Number 3, January 1979.
  31. Christian Science Monitor
    .
  32. ^ "House Intelligence Committee Begins Inquiry into Allegations of Forgeries". The Washington Post. 1979-01-17.
  33. ^ U.S. House. Hearings Before the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Soviet Active Measures. 97th Congress, 2nd session. July 13, 14, 1982.
  34. ^ U.S. House. Hearings Before the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Soviet Covert Action (The Forgery Offense). 96th Congress, 2nd session. February 6, 19, 1980.
  35. S2CID 154096664
    .
  36. ^ Horowitz, David (December 1991). "The Politics of Public Television". Commentary Magazine. 92 (6). Archived from the original on April 23, 2005.
  37. ^ William E. Simon (December 1980). "You can't trust the news". The Saturday Evening Post.
  38. ^ "Haig v. Agee 453 U.S. 280 (1981)". supreme.justia.com.
  39. ^ Duncan Campbell (January 10, 2007). "The spy who stayed out in the cold". The Guardian. London. Retrieved March 10, 2007.
  40. ISBN 9780226356686
    .
  41. ^ Campbell, Duncan (January 10, 2008). "Philip Agee". The Guardian. London. Retrieved December 14, 2018.
  42. ^ https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/death-of-cia-whistleblower/IL4OQFPZID6YL324OKJKAX34NQ/

External links

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