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Did the CIA Try to Kill Phil Agee?

Alex Constantine - October 31, 2010

AC Note: Several years ago, an editor at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)  flamed me for working the "conspiracy" beat. (Fascism is conspiratorial by its nature. It plots its murders. Its history cannot even be discussed without reference to conspiracies - but people often get confused about what it is that I do for some reason. A Good German or even Good Editor, mentally propelled by American university programming, may not recognize reality when he sees it. My response to the editor at FAIR was scatological, but you expect more from a media ombudsman with left-wing bona fides.)

Now they're  jumping my train. From the "conspiracy theory" Johnny-cum-Latelies at FAIR  ...

2 - Did the CIA Try to Kill Phil Agee?" ... For the rest of his life Agee was a target of CIA assassination threats ... The best evidence of how much can be found in his careful account of CIA efforts to convince him he had been neither forgiven nor forgotten--following him on his travels, spreading rumors about his alleged connection with the KGB and DGI, surrounding him with agents, tapping his telephone and even providing him with an elaborately wired typewriter in order to monitor what he was putting down on paper. ... "

By Peter Hart | FAIR | October 27, 2010

28agee 1 500 198x300 - Did the CIA Try to Kill Phil Agee?CIA whistleblower Phil Agee's papers are headed to a library at New York University. A Washington Post article by Jeff Stein (10/27/10) notes that Agee, who died in 2008, revealed information that was "arguably more damaging than anything WikiLeaks has produced."

But Stein, an intelligence blogger for the Post, devotes some time to critiquing the library's press release, since it "made no mention of the renegade agent's KGB and Cuban intelligence connections." Actually, Agee always denied working with the KGB; he did get help from Cuban intelligence files while writing his expose of his CIA activities in Latin America, but rejected accusations that he was on the Cuban payroll.

Stein continues with his critique of the library, in the process giving a lesson in how a journalist can abuse anonymity:

But it did maintain that "for the rest of his life Agee was a target of CIA assassination threats."

In response to a query, Michael Nash, the library's associate curator, said, "This information came from the Agee book On the Run, and it is supported by some CIA documents that Agee received as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request."

A CIA spokesperson, speaking on the condition of anonymity, dismissed the allegation as "not only wrong, but ludicrous."

42aeb220dca002395eb93010 L  SL500 AA300  - Did the CIA Try to Kill Phil Agee?So the library cites CIA documents. The Washington Post, meanwhile, asks the agency that is accused of targeting Agee, and they tell him, ANONYMOUSLY, that this is "ludicrous." Huh.

An August 2, 1987 New York Times review of Agee's book "On the Run" by Thomas Powers helps provide some details:

Did Mr. Agee's activity hurt the agency? You bet it hurt. The best evidence of how much can be found in his careful account of CIA efforts to convince him he had been neither forgiven nor forgotten--following him on his travels, spreading rumors about his alleged connection with the KGB and DGI, surrounding him with agents, tapping his telephone and even providing him with an elaborately wired typewriter in order to monitor what he was putting down on paper. Most difficult of all was a two-year period in the mid-1970s, when the agency, with high-level help, managed to bar him from residence in Britain, France, Italy and the Netherlands, apparently hoping to hound him until he was forced to take up residence in the Soviet bloc, where his true allegiance (from the agency's point of view) would no longer be in doubt.

Mr. Agee's account of how he finally won a residency permit in West Germany is one of the best parts of his book, an artful blend of law and clandestine strategem. The man is not without ability. Tough as that period was, Mr. Agee suspects still darker plots, a phony drug bust in Spain perhaps, or even an attempt to kill him. He may be right; a Federal judge refused to release secret documents describing ''illegal acts'' targeted on Mr. Agee on the grounds of national security.

This is where the United States Constitution comes in. Mr. Agee would certainly seem to be a prime candidate for prosecution under the espionage laws if it weren't for the legal tangle the agency had created for itself when it planned or carried out ''illegal acts'' against him.

http://www.fair.org/blog/2010/10/27/did-the-cia-try-to-kill-phil-agee-ask-the-cia/

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