The spy who turned his back on the C.I.A. - Philip Agee

[groovedaddy]

Philip Agee’s inaugural appearance in a major newspaper was on March 7, 1968. The article was datelined Mexico City, and Agee, identified as a U.S. Embassy official attached to the Olympic Games section, was describing a cultural program “of art treasures, performing artists and folklore and scientific exhibits.” The next time Agee showed up in the papers, it was 1974, and he was about to publish “Inside the Company: C.I.A. Diary,” very much against the wishes of his actual former employer — which was not the Olympics section. “I did not write this book for the K.G.B.,” Agee, who worked for a decade as a spook, announced. “I wrote it as a contribution to socialist revolution.”

The saga of Philip Burnett Franklin Agee, who died this year in exile in Havana, was one of the signal melodramas of what pundits called the “Year of Intelligence.” Americans were reeling from the resignation of Richard Nixon. The Watergate story was itself thick with C.I.A. shenanigans; then, in December 1974, Seymour Hersh published a blockbuster Times exposé revealing that the agency spied on American antiwar activists. Senate and House committees were impaneled to investigate C.I.A. abuses, including attempts at assassination of foreign leaders. Agee’s book became available in the middle of the mess.

The C.I.A., Agee explained to interviewers abroad (he would never return to live in the United States), was “promoting fascism around the world.” His chronicle frequently justified the hyperbole — he told of being ordered to fabricate a report “establishing” Communist infiltration of the Uruguayan government. The document was shown to a police chief; while the chief was reading the report, Agee heard the agonized screams of a torture victim in the next room — apparently someone Agee had named to the police, not necessarily a Communist. “All I wanted to do was to get away from the voice and away from police headquarters,” he wrote of the dawn of his apostasy.

The idealistic former altar boy joined the C.I.A. because he wanted to be part of the solution. It was 1957. Agee had tried law school and considered entering the family business — but blanched at the prospect of finding himself as one more drone in a gray flannel suit. He thrilled, as a young C.I.A. trainee, to explanations of the underlying purpose of the adventure he was about to embark upon: to secure democratic governments in order to help them “effect the reforms that will eliminate the injustices on which communism thrives.” He soon found himself in a vicious circle: “the more we work to build up the security forces like the police and military, particularly the intelligence services, the less urgency, it seems, attaches to the reforms.” The years went by; the Marxisant revelations unfolded inexorably. He started to wonder whether protecting oligarchs, while keeping their states in peonage to U.S. investors under cover of “development,” wasn’t in fact the purpose of U.S. policy. He was, Agee now reckoned, part of the problem.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/magazine/28Agee-t.html?th&emc=th

[Judi Lynn]

1. He was able to retrieve his conscience. Hope to hear more about Agee, as it becomes available.

A lot has been mentioned by Agee himself regarding the rancor George H. W. Bush has held for him these many years. It's mentioned in this Washington Post article:

Former president George H.W. Bush, who directed the CIA in 1976-77, accused Mr. Agee of identifying Richard Welch, the CIA chief in Athens who had been assassinated by Greek terrorists in December 1975. Bush maintained in 1989 that by publicly identifying Welch, Mr. Agee was responsible for his death. Former first lady Barbara Bush repeated the accusation in her 1994 autobiography, and Mr. Agee sued her for libel. As part of a legal settlement, she agreed to remove the allegation from the paperback edition of her book.

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/09/AR2008010903619.html

http://media3.washingtonpost.com.nyud.net:8090/wp-dyn/content/photo/2008/01/09/PH2008010903621.jpg

Philip Agee, a former CIA agent who lost his passport
after publishing outspoken criticisms of U.S.
intelligence actions, lived in Germany and Cuba.
(1981 File Photo By Thomas Grimm -- Associated Press)

If only there were more people willing to make a stand, like this man.

Thanks for the article.