Philip Agee

Philip Burnett Franklin Agee (July 19, 1935 – January 7, 2008Will Weissert, [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/01/09/international/i070201S75.DTL "Ex-CIA Agent Philip Agee Dead in Cuba"] , Associated Press (sfgate.com), January 9, 2008.] ) was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) case officer and writer, best known as author of the 1975 book, "", 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. cite book
last =Andrew
first =Christopher
authorlink =
coauthors =Vasili Mitrokhin
year =2000
title =The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB
publisher =Basic Books
location =
id =ISBN 0-465-00312-5 p. 230] [cite book
last=Agee
first=Philip
year = 1975
title = Inside The Company: CIA Diary
publisher =Penguin Books
location =
id =ISBN 0-14-004007-2] cite journal
first =Jonathan
last =Kapstein
authorlink =
coauthors =
year =1975
month =July 28
title =Philip Agee: The spy who came in and told; Inside the Company: CIA Diary
journal =Business Week
volume =
issue =
pages =12
id =
url =http://bailey83221.livejournal.com/98872.html] He died in Cuba in January 2008. [Cite web|url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22571961/|title=Former CIA agent Agee dies in Cuba at age 72|accessdate=2008-01-09|publisher=msnbc.com|year=2008]

Early years

Agee was born in Takoma Park, Maryland. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1956. cite journal
first =
last =
authorlink =
coauthors =
date =January 27
month =1975
title =The Spooks who Rush Into Print
journal =Newsweek
volume =
issue =
pages =28
id =
url =http://bailey83221.livejournal.com/98872.html#B]

Leaving CIA

Agee stated that his Roman Catholic social conscience had made him increasingly uncomfortable with his work by the late 1960s leading to his disillusionment with the CIA and its support for authoritarian governments across Latin America. He and other dissidents took encouragement in their stand from the Church Committee (1975-6), which cast a critical light on the role of the CIA in assassinations, domestic espionage, and other illegal activities.

In the book Agee condemned the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City and wrote that this was the immediate event precipitating him leaving the agency.

While Agee claims that the CIA was "very pleased with his work"p. 551] , offered him "another promotion"p. 551] and his superior "was startled"p. 552] when Agee told him about his plans to resign, the journalist and former CIA staff officer in Berlin [http://spione.adept-press.com/spionewiki/index.php?title=John_Barron] John Barron reports his 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". cite book
last =Barron
first =John
authorlink =
coauthors =
year =1983
title =KGB Today: The Hidden Hand
publisher =Readers Digest Assn
location =
id =ISBN 0-88349-164-8 pg. 227-230]

Possible KGB/Cuban intelligence involvement

Oleg Kalugin, former head of the KGB’s Counterintelligence Directorate, states that in 1973 Agee approached the KGB's resident in Mexico City and offered what Kalugin called a "treasure trove of information." But the KGB was too suspicious to accept his offer.Andrew p. 230, referencing cite book
last =Kalugin
first =Oleg
authorlink =
coauthors =
year =1995
title =Spymaster: The Highest-ranking KGB Officer Ever to Break His Silence
publisher =Blake Publishing Ltd
location =
id =ISBN 1-85685-101-X p. 191-192 Andrew states: "The KGB files noted by Mitrokhin describe Agee as an agent of the Cuban 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."]

Kalugin states that:

For his part, Agee claimed in his later work 'On the Run' that he had no intentions of ever working for the KGB,whom he still considered the enemy, and worked with the Cubans in order to assist left-wing and labour organizations in Latin America against fascism and CIA meddling in political affairs.

While Agee was writing "Inside the Company: CIA Diary," the KGB kept in contact with him through Edgar Anatolvevich Cheporov, a London correspondent of the Novosti News Agency. Andrew, p. 231]

Agee has also been accused of receiving up to $1 million in payments from the Cuban intelligence service. He has denied the accusations, which were first made by a high-ranking Cuban intelligence officer and defector in a 1992 Los Angeles Times report. [http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/06/25/cuba.tourism/]

A later Los Angeles Times article stated that Agee posed as a CIA Inspector General in order to target a member of the CIA's Mexico City station on behalf of Cuban intelligence. According to the article, Agee was identified during a meeting by a CIA case officer. ["Once Again, Ex-Agent Philip Agee Eludes CIA's Grasp", Los Angeles Times, October 14, 1997]

Book published

Because of legal problems in the US, in 1975, "Inside the Company" was first published in Britain, while Agee was living in London. It was eventually published worldwide, in 27 different languages.Fact|date=February 2007 Playboy Magazine (August 1975) published excerpts from his book in the article titled "What You Still Don't Know About The CIA! Ex-Company Man Philip Agee Tells All"

Agee acknowledged that "Representatives of the Communist Party of Cuba also gave important encouragement at a time when I doubted that I would be able to find the additional information I needed." p. 640]

The London Evening news called Inside the Company: CIA Diary "a frightening picture of corruption, pressure, assassination and conspiracy". The Economist called the book "inescapable reading". 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" Andrew, p. 231 referencing cite book
last = Agee
first = Philip
authorlink =
coauthors =
month =June | year =1987
title =On the Run
publisher =L. Stuart
location =
id =ISBN 0-8184-0419-1 p. 111-112, 120-121.] and it is "an authentic account of how an ordinary American or British 'case officer' operates . . . All of it . . . is presented with deadly accuracy." cite journal
first =
last =
authorlink =
coauthors =
year =1975
month =January 25
title =Book details CIA activities
journal =Facts on File World News Digest
volume =
issue =
pages =37 B3
id =
url =http://bailey83221.livejournal.com/98872.html#C]

The book was delayed for six months before being published in the United States, it became an immediate best seller. The head of the Western Hemisphere Division of the CIA, Ted Shackley, was tasked with stopping the publication of Agee's "CIA Diary."Fact|date=February 2007

Inside the Company

"Inside the Company" identified 250 alleged CIA officers and agents. The officers and agents, all personally known to Agee, are listed in an appendix to the book.. [Philip Agee, "Inside the Company: CIA Diary", Allen Lane, 1975, pp 599-624.] While written as a diary, it is actually a reconstruction of events based on Agee's memory and his subsequent research. [Philip Agee, "Inside the Company: CIA Diary", Allen Lane, 1975, p 9.]

Agee writes that his first overseas assignment was in 1960 to Ecuador where his primary mission was to force a diplomatic break between Ecuador and Cuba, no matter what the cost to Ecuador's shaky stability, using 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.

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

On December 12, 1965 Agee explains how he 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 an Uruguayan, a 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.

Agee also ran CIA operations within the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games and he witnessed the events of the Tlatelolco massacre.

Agee stated that President José Figueres Ferrer of Costa Rica, President Luis Echeverría Álvarez (1970-1976) of Mexico and President Alfonso López Michelsen (1974-1978) of Colombia were CIA collaborators or agents.

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 alleges he was being spied on by the CIA cite journal
first =
last =
authorlink =
coauthors =
year =1975
month =January 11
title =Secret agent; Inside the Company: CIA Diary. By Philip Agee. Penguin. 640 pages. 95p
journal =The Economist
volume =
issue =
pages =87
id =
url =] [Philip Agee, "Inside the Company: CIA Diary", Allen Lane, 1975, pp 573-583]

Expulsion

Agee became somewhat of a minor celebrity in the United Kingdom after the publication of "Inside the Company." Agee revealed the identities of dozens of CIA agents in their London station. After numerous requests from the American government as well as an 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.Fact|date=February 2007 Although Agee fought this and was supported by dozens of left wing MPs, journalists, and private citizens, he eventually departed from the UK on June 3 1977, and traveled to the Netherlands. Andrew, p. 232-233.] Agee was also eventually expelled from Holland, France, West Germany, and Italy.

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 Exxon. 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.

In 1978, Agee and a small group of his supporters began publishing the Covert Action Information Bulletin, which promoted "a worldwide campaign to destabilize the CIA through exposure of its operations and personnel." Mitrokhin states that the bulletin had help from both the KGB and the Cuban DGI. The January 1979 issue of Agee's Bulletin published the FM 30-31B forgery. [CovertAction, Number 3, January 1979.]

In 1978 and 1979, Agee published the two volumes of ', and ' which contained information of 2000 CIA personnel.

Agee told Swiss journalist Peter Studer that “The CIA is plainly on the wrong side, that is, the 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.”cite journal
first =David
last =Horowitz
authorlink =
coauthors =
year =1991
month =December
title =The Politics of Public Television
journal =Commentary Magazine
volume =92
issue =6
pages =
id =
url =http://www.commentarymagazine.com/Summaries/V92I6P27-1.htm
format =Dead link|date=June 2008 – ^{[http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=author%3AHorowitz+intitle%3AThe+Politics+of+Public+Television&as_publication=Commentary+Magazine&as_ylo=1991&as_yhi=1991&btnG=Search Scholar search]} ] [cite news | author = William E. Simon | title = You can't trust the news | publisher = The Saturday Evening Post |date=December 1980]

Agee's US passport was revoked in 1979.Andrew, p. 231, incorrectly states Agee's passport was revoked in 1981.] cite journal
first =
last =
authorlink =
coauthors =
year =1979
month =December 31
title =U.S. Revokes Agee Passport
journal =Facts on File World News Digest
volume =
issue =
pages =991 C2
id =
url =] In 1980, Maurice Bishop's government conferred citizenship of Grenada on Agee, and he took up residence in that island. The collapse of the Grenada Revolution removed that safe haven, and Agee then was given a passport by the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. After a change of government there, this passport was revoked in 1990, and he was given a German passport, the nationality of his wife, ballet dancer Giselle Roberge. They later lived in Germany and Cuba. Agee was later readmitted to both the U.S. and United Kingdom. cite news
author=Duncan Campbell
title=The spy who stayed out in the cold
url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1986660,00.html
publisher=The Guardian |id=
date=2007-01-10
accessdate=2007-03-10 ] Agee's own description of his odyssey was published in his autobiography, "On the Run", in 1987.

Intelligence Identities Protection Act

In 1982, the United States Congress passed the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), legislation that seemed directly aimed at Agee's works. The law would later figure in the investigation into the Valerie Plame scandal into whether Bush administration officials leaked a case officer's name to the media as an act of retaliation against her husband.

Late activities

Until his death, Agee ran a website in Havana, Cubalinda.com cite web
title =Cuba Travel Agency
work =cubalinda.com
url =http://www.cubalinda.com/
accessdate=2006-07-30 ] cite web
title =Spy's Tourist Agency
work =cvni.net
url =http://www.cvni.net/radio/e2k/e2k001/e2k01news.html
accessdate=2006-07-30 ] which uses loopholes in American law to arrange holidays to Cuba for American citizens, who are generally prohibited by the Trading with the Enemy Act statute of US law from spending money in Cuba. In the 1980s NameBase founder Daniel Brandt had taught Agee how to use computers and computer databases for his research.Hand, Mark (January 3 2003). [http://www.counterpunch.org/hand01032003.html "Searching for Daniel Brandt"] . "CounterPunch"] According to an author's biography attached to an essay by Agee in March, 2007 in the Alexander Cockburn-edited magazine Counterpunch, Agee "has lived since 1978 with his wife in Hamburg, Germany. He travels frequently to Cuba and South America for solidarity and business activities." The Cubalinda travel service was begun in 2000.

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

Quotes

Bibliography

*cite book
last = Agee
first = Philip
authorlink =
coauthors =
year =1975
title =Inside the Company: CIA Diary
publisher =Penguin
location =
id =ISBN 0-14-004007-2
*cite book
last = Agee
first = Philip
authorlink =
coauthors =Louis Wolf (Editor)
year =1978
title =Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe
publisher =Lyle Stuart
location =
id =ASIN B000I8NARO
id =ISBN 0-88029-132-X
*cite book
last = Agee
first = Philip
authorlink =
coauthors =Louis Wolf (Editor)
month =January | year =1979
title =Dirty Work 2: The CIA in Africa
publisher =Lyle Stuart
location =
id =ISBN 0-81840-294-6
*cite book
last = Agee
first = Philip
authorlink =
coauthors =
month =June | year =1987
title =On the Run
publisher =L. Stuart
location =
id =ISBN 0-8184-0419-1
*cite book
last = Agee
first = Philip
authorlink =
coauthors =
year =1982
title =White Paper Whitewash
publisher =Deep Cover Books
location =
id =ISBN 0-940380-00-5

See also

*Frank Snepp
*John Stockwell
*Ralph McGehee
*Lindsay Moran
*Victor Marchetti
*L. Fletcher Prouty
*Ray McGovern
*Allegations of state terrorism committed by the United States
*Peter Wright

References

Further reading

*Andrew, Christopher; Mitrokhin, Vasili. "The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World". Basic Books (2005)
*Andrew, Christopher; Mitrokhin, Vasili. "The Sword and the Shield". Basic Books (2001)
*cite book
last =Barron
first =John
authorlink =
coauthors =
year =1983
title =KGB Today: The Hidden Hand
publisher =Readers Digest Assn
location =
id =ISBN 0-88349-164-8

External links

* cite web
title = Stunning Contrast - The Descent of the US; the Rise of Latin America (magazine article)
url =http://www.counterpunch.org/agee03142007.html
accessdate=2006-03-14
* cite web
title =CIA Diary Inside the Company, Excerpts from the book
work =Third World Traveler
url =http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA/CIA_Diary_Agee.html
accessdate=2006-07-30
* cite web
title =Former CIA agent attempts to draw U.S. tourists to Cuba over Internet
work =CNN
url =http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/06/25/cuba.tourism/
accessdate=2006-07-30
* cite web
title =USA & International Terrorism - By Philip Agee
work =
url =http://eagle.westnet.gr/~cgian/philipagee.htm
accessdate=2006-07-30
* cite web
title =Biography of Agee with a number of quotes and articles by him
work =
url =http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKagee.htm
accessdate=2006-07-30
* cite web
title = Counterintelligence/Espionage Case
work =
url =http://www.cicentre.com/Documents/SPY_Philip_Agee.html
accessdate=2008-01-16

Persondata
NAME=Agee, Philip Burnett Franklin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Former CIA agent; author; expatriate American
DATE OF BIRTH=July 19 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH=Tacoma Park, Florida
DATE OF DEATH=7 January 2008
PLACE OF DEATH=Cuba