--- alias: - Philip Agee - Phillip Agee - Phil Agee - Philip B. F. Agee - Philip Burnett Franklin Agee born: 1935-01-19 category: Intelligence & Government created: 2026-10-01 died: 2008-01-07 location: Takoma Park, Maryland (born) relations: - end: 1968 fn: 1 role: operations officer start: 1957 type: employed_by with: '[[Central Intelligence Agency]]' - fn: 2 role: active duty start: 1957-08 type: employed_by with: '[[United States Air Force]]' - end: 1969-01 fn: 2 role: cover employment start: 1960-11 type: employed_by with: '[[Department of State]]' - fn: 20 role: reporting to the FBI on his travel plans, 1974 type: subject_of with: '[[Central Intelligence Agency]]' - fn: 27 role: deportation from the United Kingdom start: 1976-11-15 type: subject_of with: '[[Home Office]]' - end: 1977-03-18 fn: 26 reverse: true role: disclosure of classified information in Inside the Company type: investigated with: '[[Department of Justice]]' - fn: 10 role: co-founder start: 1978 type: founded with: '[[Covert Action Information Bulletin]]' - fn: 1 role: revocation of passport start: 1979-12-23 type: subject_of with: '[[Department of State]]' - end: 1981-06-29 fn: 1 role: respondent type: participant_in with: '[[Haig v. Agee]]' - fn: 3 role: online travel agency, with European investors and a state travel agent start: 2000 type: founded with: '[[Cubalinda]]' summary: CIA operations officer in Ecuador, Uruguay and Mexico from 1957 to 1968 whose 1975 book named Agency personnel, whose passport was revoked in 1979, and who died in Havana. tags: - Person - CIA - Defector - InsideTheCompany - Counterspy - CovertActionInformationBulletin - HaigVAgee - IntelligenceIdentitiesProtectionAct - Cuba - KGB - LatinAmerica - Passport - 1970s updated: 2026-10-01 --- Philip Burnett Franklin Agee (January 19, 1935 to January 7, 2008) was an operations officer of the [Central Intelligence Agency](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/) who served in Quito, Montevideo and [Mexico City](/places/mexico-city/) and resigned in 1968. His book Inside the Company: CIA Diary (1975) named CIA officers, agents and contacts in [Ecuador](/places/ecuador/), [Uruguay](/places/uruguay/) and [Mexico](/places/mexico/). He was deported from [Britain](/places/united-kingdom/), [France](/places/france/) and the [Netherlands](/places/netherlands/); in December 1979 the [Department of State](/organizations/state-department/) revoked his passport, and in June 1981 the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the revocation in Haig v. Agee. He died in Havana.[^1][^2][^3] ### Early life and Agency service In a letter of June 10, 1977 authorizing the attorney Melvin L. Wulf to request his government files, Agee stated that he was born on January 19, 1935 at Takoma Park, Maryland, that he was employed by the CIA "from August or July 1957 until January 1969," that from August 1957 to about June 1960 he was on active duty in the [United States Air Force](/organizations/us-air-force/), and that from November 1960 until January 1969 he was employed by the Department of State "under a cover arrangement with the Central Intelligence Agency."[^2] The Supreme Court's opinion in Haig v. Agee gives his employment as 1957 to 1968, in the division responsible for covert intelligence gathering abroad, with training in clandestine operations "including the methods used to protect the identities of intelligence employees and sources."[^1] A CIA unclassified fact sheet of September 1978 states that he worked for the Agency for eleven years before resigning in November 1968.[^4] A CIA reviewer of his book wrote that it began "with an account of his recruitment in 1959."[^5] The [Associated Press](/organizations/associated-press/) reported at his death that he "quit the CIA in 1969 after 12 years."[^3] The CIA reviewer, writing in the Agency's journal Studies in Intelligence in a review released in 1996, placed him in Quito from 1960 to 1963, in Montevideo from 1964 to 1966 and in Mexico City from 1966 to 1968, and wrote that Agee "had rejected going into his family business, had left law school after three months, and left his wife and later his girl friend."[^5] ### Quito, 1960 to 1963 Agee's diary entry describing the founding of the [American Institute for Free Labor Development](/organizations/aifld/) states that "Business leaders are front men on the Board of Directors so that large sums of [AID](/organizations/agency-for-international-development/) money can be channelled to AIFLD," that the institute "is headed by [Serafino Romualdi](/people/serafino-romualdi/), 10 Division's longtime agent," and that its directors included George Meany, J. Peter Grace and Joseph Beirne of the Communications Workers of America.[^6] The entry for Quito, July 11, 1963 records that a four-man military junta had replaced President Carlos Julio Arosemena after a banquet for the president of the Grace Lines, and that Agee watched the Presidential Palace from a room arranged by Jorge Andino, whom he describes as a support agent and the owner of the Hotel Majestic, while monitoring the military intelligence radio and reporting to the station, which sent progress reports to headquarters and to the military commands in [Panama](/places/panama/). The entry of July 13 states: "we've already started passing data from the Subversive Control Watch List to Major de los Reyes here in Quito and to Colonel Lugo in Guayaquil which they are using with military colleagues in the arrests campaign," and records that more than a hundred Communists and other leftists had been jailed in Guayaquil alone. The entry of July 31 records [United States](/places/united-states/) recognition of the junta that day and that "all along we've kept busy getting information to Major de los Reyes and Colonel Lugo."[^7] ### Mexico City and resignation Agee's entry on his assignment to Mexico City records a briefing on the station's operations, which he describes as "heavily weighted towards liaison (which rests on the unusually close relationship between Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, the President of Mexico and Winston Scott, the Chief of Station) and operational support (surveillance, observation posts, travel control, postal intercepts, telephone tapping)."[^8] The September 1978 CIA fact sheet states that "At the time of his resignation in Mexico City, Agee gave no indication of disaffection," that his resignation letter "had only praise and good wishes for the Agency and his colleagues," and that "he was asked to resign because of personal/marital problems which threatened to expose him publicly in Mexico City as a CIA officer."[^4] In January 1977 the British journalist Anthony Holden reported Agee's own account that before the 1968 Olympic Games he had told his CIA superiors in Mexico City of his intention to resign, and that he was then in a custody dispute with his former wife, who had threatened to expose him as a CIA officer to make him back down.[^9] Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin wrote that he "had been forced to resign in 1968 after complaints at his heavy drinking, poor financial management and attempts to proposition wives of American diplomats."[^10] The CIA reviewer wrote: "In Mexico City his increasing dissent amounts to defection."[^5] ### Writing Inside the Company, 1970 to 1972 Agee wrote in the book's introduction that "In order to write this book, I have spent most of the last four years in intensive research to reinforce my own recollections."[^11] A diary entry dated Mexico City, January 1971 records his decision "to name all the names and organizations connected with CIA operations" and "to seek ways of getting useful information on the CIA to revolutionary organizations that could use it to defend themselves better."[^12] An entry of March 1971 records a trip to Montreal to meet a publisher's representative, with whom he discussed doing the research in [Paris](/places/paris/), [Brussels](/places/brussels/) or [Cuba](/places/cuba/). Agee listed his fears about Cuba: "my past work against Cuba and communism, possible Soviet pressures, my reluctance to engage in sessions for counter-intelligence ploys, problems with the CIA afterwards," and wrote that he feared the CIA "would begin a campaign to denigrate me as a traitor." He agreed to go if the trip could be arranged and added: "Presumably the book will have to be politically acceptable to the Cubans and the research materials available."[^13] An entry dated Paris, August 1971 states: "In May I went to Havana to discuss the research materials needed, and they agreed to assist with what they have available, which appears to be a good deal. They also invited me to stay there to finish as much as possible, which I accepted." An entry of October 1971 is headed Havana.[^14] An entry of August 1972 states that he went to Havana again in May 1972 and that "For reasons I fail to understand there is a lack of confidence in my intentions about the book's political content," that research left pending in Cuba had not been done, and that "the Cubans wouldn't want to be embarrassed by a politically unacceptable book."[^15] In the book's acknowledgements Agee wrote that in Havana the Biblioteca Nacional José Martí and the Casa de las Américas "provided special assistance for research and helped find data available only from government documentation," and 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."[^16] The CIA reviewer, in a review whose editor's note states that it "does not purport to examine the possibility or extent of Soviet involvement in Agee's actions, from the start or at an early stage," wrote: "One assumes that when he visited Havana he received editorial assistance from the Cubans and Soviets, but how much is, of course, not clear."[^5] ### Paris, 1971 to 1972 Agee wrote that in late 1971 he sent a letter to the Montevideo weekly Marcha about possible CIA election operations against the Frente Amplio. According to his entry of January 1972, a few days after Christmas a former training colleague, whom he names as Keith Gardiner, appeared at his Paris hotel with a copy of the published letter and said that [Richard Helms](/people/richard-helms/) wanted to know "just what I think I am doing"; Gardiner told him that the Paris station, then headed by David Murphy, had located him through the French liaison service, and suggested that he was being manipulated by the Soviets through his publisher.[^17] In the entry of August 1972 Agee wrote that after returning from Cuba he recognized street surveillance in Paris, which he suspected was the French service acting at CIA request, and that he was befriended by Americans including a freelance journalist he names as Sal Ferrera and a woman he names as Leslie Donegan, who offered to finance him and read the manuscript.[^15] His June 1977 authorization letter lists his Paris mail address from May to October 1972 as care of Ferrera.[^2] The entry of October 6, 1972 states that in September the CIA's General Counsel visited his father in [Florida](/places/florida/) and his former wife "to express Helms's concern over the book and my trips to Cuba," leaving copies of a recent court decision on the secrecy agreement.[^18] The entry of October 14, 1972 states that a typewriter Donegan had given him contained "an elaborate installation of transistors, batteries, circuits, wiring and antennas, also a tiny microphone for picking up voices," which he found after detecting a beeping signal on his radio and seeing a couple he took to be monitors outside the studio where he was living. An entry of October 24, 1972, written in [London](/places/london/), states that a friend in Paris had been arrested and questioned for several hours at the Ministry of the Interior about him and the book.[^19] ### Publication and the London campaign, 1974 to 1975 A memorandum written shortly before the press conference by the CIA Director of Security, Charles W. Kane, asked the Deputy Director for Administration to approve a memorandum to the [Federal Bureau of Investigation](/organizations/federal-bureau-of-investigation/), at the telephoned request of the Chief of [Latin America](/places/latin-america/) Operations, stating that "Information has been received from a usually reliable source that Philip Agee plans to return to the United States immediately after a press conference which he has scheduled in London for 3 October 1974." It cites a CIA memorandum to the FBI of August 23, 1974 "and Previous Correspondence."[^20] At the London press conference Agee announced "a new campaign to fight the United States CIA wherever it is operating," with two functions: "to expose CIA officers and agents and to take the measures necessary to drive them out of the countries where they are operating" and "to seek within the United States to have the CIA abolished." He said that the list released that day "was compiled by a small group of Mexican comrades whom I trained to follow the comings and goings of CIA people before I left Mexico City."[^1] The book carried an appendix that the CIA reviewer counted as 429 names and descriptions of "CIA Employees, Agents, Collaborators and Organizations."[^5] Andrew and Mitrokhin wrote that it identified approximately 250 Agency officers and agents, that it was first published in Britain "Because of legal problems in the United States," and that a review in The Spectator by [Miles Copeland](/people/miles-copeland/), a former CIA station chief in [Cairo](/places/cairo/), called it "as complete an account of spy work as is likely to be published anywhere."[^10] The Stonehill Publishing edition was distributed in the United States by George Braziller; the CIA review cites a 1975 Penguin Books edition.[^5][^11] ### Counterspy and the death of Richard Welch In December 1975 Richard Welch, the CIA chief of station in Athens, was shot dead outside his home after an English-language newspaper in Athens named him as chief of station.[^1][^21] On December 29, 1975 the National Public Radio program All Things Considered reported that CIA Director [William Colby](/people/william-colby/) had denounced the Fifth Estate, a Washington group that published the quarterly Counterspy and had named Welch in September 1975, for what he called "irresponsible and paranoid attacks" on employees of the agency. The group's spokesman Douglas Porter said that Welch had been exposed in 1967 in an East German publication, "Who's Who in the CIA," in British Guiana in 1969, and in [Peru](/places/peru/), and that the group reprinted only names already published abroad.[^21] On January 5, 1976 the Christian Science Monitor reported that the [Department of Justice](/organizations/department-of-justice/), at the request of the CIA, was examining whether to prosecute Counterspy's editors, Tim Butz, Margaret Van Houten, Winslow Peck and Porter.[^22] [David Atlee Phillips](/people/david-atlee-phillips/), president of the Association of Retired Intelligence Officers, wrote in a letter published in the Washington Star on January 28, 1976 that the journalist Norman Kempster had, in Phillips's summary, suggested "that the death of Richard Welch in Athens had been deftly exploited by the CIA" and that the press had "swallowed the bait" of a CIA stratagem to blame the Fifth Estate. Phillips confirmed that he had said Welch's death "became inevitable" when "a few American ex-intelligence officers joined Philip Agee in his sordid campaign of identifying American intelligence officials abroad," and added: "I certainly don't know who pulled the trigger."[^23] Agee wrote in a letter to the editor published on March 1, 1976 and signed from Cambridge: "I never 'fingered' Richard Welch to Counterspy, the Athens News or to any other publication or person. However, I continue to help other journalists, and would have helped the Athens News in identifying the [CIA] people if asked." He wrote that Welch had been identified in print as a CIA officer as early as 1968.[^24] The September 1978 CIA fact sheet states that Agee "has attempted to downplay his indirect contribution to the assassination of Athens Station Chief Richard Welch."[^4] The New York Post reported on December 17, 1979 that Agee "heatedly denied any connection."[^25] Agee later sued Barbara Bush for $4 million for defamation over a passage in her autobiography linking his book to Welch's death; the Associated Press reported that she revised the book to settle the case.[^3] ### Deportation from Britain, 1976 to 1977 Agee had lived in Britain since 1972; his June 1977 letter lists addresses in London from November 1972, in Cornwall from May 1974 to August 1975 and in Cambridge from September 1975.[^2][^26] On November 18, 1976 Home Secretary Merlyn Rees told the House of Commons that on November 15 Agee and the journalist Mark Hosenball had been informed of his decision to make deportation orders against them under section 3(5)(b) of the Immigration Act 1971, as being conducive to the public good in the interests of national security. Agee was told that the Home Secretary had considered information that he "had maintained regular contacts harmful to the security of the United Kingdom with foreign intelligence officers," had been involved in disseminating information harmful to its security, and had aided and counseled others in obtaining such information for publication. There was no statutory right of appeal; an advisory panel of Sir Derek Hilton, Sir Clifford Jarrett and Sir Richard Hayward would hear representations. Rees said he was "not prepared to go into greater detail." Judith Hart asked him to read pages 567 and 570 of Agee's book; Winston Churchill asked whether there would be concern "that individuals have been maintaining contact with Cuban and Soviet bloc intelligence services."[^27] On January 9, 1977 the Sunday Times published an article by Anthony Holden on what it called the Polish connection. It reported that on January 12, 1976 Murray Seeger, the [Los Angeles Times](/organizations/los-angeles-times/) correspondent in Bonn, had written a story from Brussels, citing "qualified western sources," that blamed Agee for the arrest of the fencer Jerzy Pawlowski and 120 other [NATO](/organizations/nato/) agents in [Poland](/places/poland/) by giving their names to the [KGB](/organizations/kgb/) in Cuba in 1971. The Los Angeles Times never printed it; its foreign editor, Bob Gibson, said it "needed further checking." Seeger told the Sunday Times his sources were "highly reliable" and would not comment on whether they had CIA connections. Pawlowski had been arrested in June 1975 and sentenced in April 1976 to 25 years. Agee described the story as a smear by his former colleagues in the CIA and argued that, had he passed the names in 1971, the ring would not have survived until 1975. Holden reported that, according to an intermediary, Rees had told a senior politician that he was deporting Agee "because he has betrayed two of our men behind the Iron Curtain."[^9] On January 10, 1977 the journalist Lindsay Mackie reported Agee's statement that he had heard, from what he called "a second-hand second-hand source," that Rees had told the Liberal leader David Steel that Agee was responsible for the deaths of two men in Poland; Agee denied it, and said that the only link between himself and Pawlowski was that both had been at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.[^28] The panel hearings at 116 Pall Mall opened on January 11, 1977.[^28] Andrew and Mitrokhin wrote that Agee's character witnesses included Stan Newens, Hart, Alex Lyon, Ramsey Clark, Morton Halperin and Seán MacBride, and that a KGB file noted by Mitrokhin claimed the London residency had been used "to direct action" by Labour Party, union and journalists' leaders against the decision, a claim they described as "greatly exaggerated."[^10] On February 16, 1977 Rees told the Commons that the panel's advice had not changed his decision and that he had made a deportation order against each man, served with notices requiring them to report weekly to the police.[^29] Agee left England for the Netherlands on June 3, 1977.[^10] ### The Justice Department investigation, 1977 On March 22, 1977 the Associated Press reported that the Justice Department had closed its investigation of Agee and told him he was free to return without facing prosecution for disclosing CIA secrets. The decision was made the previous Friday, March 18, by the new head of the Criminal Division, Benjamin R. Civiletti, a day after he met Agee's attorneys; several weeks earlier Civiletti's predecessor, Richard L. Thornburgh, had told Agee that he might be charged for disclosing classified material in the book. Civiletti said the investigation had "reached a logical end without producing ground for prosecution." A CIA spokesman said the agency was "upset," and Director [Stansfield Turner](/people/stansfield-turner/) said he was weighing a campaign for new laws.[^26] ### The Greek article, 1977 On June 13, 1977 Anne Weaver reported from Athens that an article by Agee, "The American factor in Greece: old and new," written in April 1976, had appeared in the left-of-center biweekly Anti, naming 64 Americans whom he said were CIA employees in Greece and 175 who he said had served there. An opposition deputy, Virginia Tsouderou, called for clarification of what they were doing and for some expulsions; a member of Constantine Karamanlis's New Democracy party called the article "an open invitation to assassination."[^30] Newsday reported that the Greek government had tried to stop publication by offering the magazine full financial compensation, according to a senior staff member.[^30] ### Freedom of Information Act request, 1977 to 1978 On November 9, 1977 Wulf sent requests under the [Freedom of Information Act](/events/freedom-of-information-act/) on Agee's behalf to the CIA, the [National Security Agency](/organizations/nsa/), the FBI and the Departments of Defense, State and Justice for "all files and records of every description" relating to him. A memorandum of March 22, 1978 from John F. Blake, assistant for information to the CIA's Deputy Director for Administration, records that the CIA had asked the other agencies to refer to it any document containing CIA information, that the FBI had referred four, two of them CIA documents found in FBI files, and that "Nothing has, as yet, been released to Agee or his lawyer."[^2] ### The Covert Action Information Bulletin and Dirty Work, 1978 to 1979 A CIA fact sheet delivered on September 7, 1978 to the staff of Senator Lloyd Bentsen states that at the World Youth Festival in Havana Agee announced Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe, "said to contain biographies of 700 CIA and [NSA](/organizations/nsa/) personnel abroad," and the launch of the Covert Action Information Bulletin, which he hoped would become "a permanent weapon in the fight against the CIA, the FBI, military intelligence, and all other instruments of U.S. imperialist oppression throughout the world," and that he intended to organize a worldwide network called "CIA Watch." The fact sheet dates his first public break to a 1971 letter to a Uruguayan newspaper.[^4] A newspaper column of August 19, 1978 states that William Schaap, an attorney of the National Lawyers Guild, announced from the Havana Libre Hotel a group called Counter-Watch, and quotes the bulletin's July 1978 first issue asking readers to send, "anonymously if you desire, copies of U.S. diplomatic lists." It states that Welch was killed on December 23, 1975.[^31] On August 11, 1979 Isaiah J. Poole reported in the New York News World that CIA Director Turner had said that as a result of the bulletin's exposures "Nearly all major foreign intelligence services with which we have liaison relationships have undertaken review of their relations with the Agency," that Agee then lived in Hamburg, and that the staff included Schaap, Ellen Ray and Louis Wolf, who said "We are not out, per se, to destroy the CIA."[^32] Andrew and Mitrokhin wrote that KGB files claim the bulletin was founded "on the initiative of the KGB" and that the group running it, codenamed RUPOR, which first met in Jamaica early in 1978, was "put together" by the counterintelligence directorate of the KGB's First Chief Directorate; that a KGB task force under V. N. Kosterin supplied it with material; that early in 1979 Oleg Nechiporenko and A. N. Itskov met Agee in Cuba and gave him a list of CIA officers in Africa for Dirty Work II: The CIA in Africa; and that they agreed with the head of the Cuban DGI, Pedro Pupo Pérez, that it should appear during the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Havana in September 1979. They wrote that "There is no evidence in Mitrokhin's notes that any member of the RUPOR group, apart from Agee, was conscious of the role of the DGI or KGB."[^10] ### The 1978 damage assessment and briefing The September 1978 fact sheet states that Agee's first book "exposed 170 Agency personnel and numerous agents and operations in Latin America," that the exposures "resulted in the retirement of more than 100 active foreign agents," and that as of June 1977 their monetary cost was estimated at more than $2,000,000. It states that "There are numerous cases of current and prospective clandestine agents refusing to cooperate with CIA," and that officials of American corporations had cited Agee in explaining their reluctance to cooperate.[^4] On August 16, 1978 the CIA briefed the [House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence](/organizations/house-permanent-select-committee-on-intelligence/) on Agee at the request of Representative Bob Wilson, Republican of California. The briefers were John N. McMahon, Deputy Director for Operations, and Anthony Lapham, the General Counsel; no transcript was to be taken. The committee's questions included "What might CIA have done or what would CIA have liked to have done had the circumstances or law permitted?"[^33] Wilson had sat in 1973 on the Special Subcommittee on Intelligence of the House Armed Services Committee chaired by Lucien Nedzi.[^34] On November 21, 1978 Reuters reported from Bonn that Hamburg authorities had given Agee permission to stay in [West Germany](/places/west-germany/) until at least May 1979, and that the previous year the West German authorities had refused to let him stay.[^35] ### Iran and the revocation of the passport, 1979 According to government affidavits summarized in Haig v. Agee, after the seizure of the American embassy in [Iran](/places/iran/) on November 4, 1979 Agee "made contact with the captors, urged them to demand certain CIA documents, and offered to travel to Iran to analyze the documents"; one affidavit mentioned, "but does not vouch for the accuracy of," a report that he had been invited to sit on a "Revolutionary Tribunal" to judge the hostages.[^1] The New York Post reported on December 17, 1979 that an Iranian diplomat in the United States had said that "Philip Agee is at the top of our list of candidates" for an anti-imperialist American seat on such a tribunal; Phillips told the paper: "If I were a hostage, he'd be the last guy I'd want to see."[^25] On December 19, 1979 Turner wrote to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance; the letter is withheld as exempt, and the New York Post clipping is filed with it.[^25] On December 23, 1979 the American Consul General in Hamburg delivered to Agee a letter revoking his passport under 22 CFR 51.70(b)(4), which permits revocation when the Secretary determines that a national's activities abroad "are causing or are likely to cause serious damage to the national security or the foreign policy of the United States." The notice cited his activities in Mexico, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Jamaica, Cuba and Germany. Both lower courts suggested that the immediate impetus was the Iran crisis.[^1] ### Haig v. Agee Agee did not use the administrative procedure and sued in the District Court for the District of Columbia. For his summary judgment motion he conceded the Secretary's factual averments; his counsel said "I would concede any charge [the Government] want[s] to make against him." The district court (Agee v. Vance, 483 F. Supp. 729) held that the regulation exceeded the Secretary's authority under the Passport Act of 1926, and the Court of Appeals (Agee v. Muskie, 629 F.2d 80), which stressed that Agee had not been indicted, affirmed.[^1] On June 29, 1981 the Supreme Court reversed in an opinion by Chief Justice Warren Burger. Its footnotes record that in a separate suit to enforce his secrecy agreement the district court had found that "Agee has shown a flagrant disregard for the requirements of the Secrecy Agreement" (Agee v. Central Intelligence Agency, 500 F. Supp. 506); that in July 1980, two days after a press conference in Jamaica at which "Agee's principal collaborator" identified Richard Kinsman as CIA chief of station, Kinsman's house was strafed with automatic gunfire; and that in January 1981 two American officials of the AIFLD, an organization Agee had identified as a CIA front, were assassinated in [El Salvador](/places/el-salvador/). The Court noted that "The Secretary does not assert that Agee has specifically incited anyone to commit murder." The Secretary told the Court that Agee had been given identification papers permitting him to return to the United States. Justice Harry Blackmun concurred; Justice William Brennan, joined by Justice Thurgood Marshall, dissented, writing that "bad facts make bad law."[^1] ### The Intelligence Identities Protection Act, 1980 to 1982 At a 1980 hearing of the [Senate Judiciary Committee](/organizations/senate-judiciary-committee/) on S. 2216, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, Deputy [Director of Central Intelligence](/organizations/director-of-central-intelligence/) [Frank Carlucci](/people/frank-carlucci/) testified that the problem "had its inception with faithless Government employees who went public with the names of CIA personnel, the most prominent of whom, of course, is Phillip Agee," and that when he was ambassador to Portugal Agee had published the names of embassy staff, "some accurate, some not," with telephone numbers, license plates, car makes and addresses.[^36] In a statement of May 8, 1981 to the Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism, Director [William J. Casey](/people/william-j-casey/) cited Welch's murder, the July 1980 attack in Jamaica, and the expulsion of six Americans from Mozambique following visits by members of the Cuban intelligence service and editors of the bulletin.[^37] Andrew and Mitrokhin wrote that all thirteen members of the House intelligence committee sponsored the bill, "popularly known as the 'Anti-Agee Bill,'" which became law in June 1982, and that Agee afterwards traveled on passports issued by [Maurice Bishop](/people/david-atlee-phillips/)'s government in Grenada and by the Sandinista government in [Nicaragua](/places/nicaragua/).[^10] ### Nicaragua, October 1981 A cable of October 13, 1981 from the American embassy in [Managua](/places/managua/), signed by Roger R. Gamble and sent with immediate precedence, reported that Agee's visit coincided with a demonstration organized by the [FSLN](/organizations/sandinistas/) and the government to close an "anti-imperialist" campaign, and that his remarks at a press conference on October 12 were "thinly veiled calls for attacks on Embassy and Embassy personnel." The embassy reported that dependents had been told to pack, that the Southern Command had been alerted to a possible evacuation, that classified traffic had been destroyed and the embassy would close at 2:30 p.m., that Foreign Minister Miguel d'Escoto was "too busy" to meet, and that junta members and comandantes [Daniel Ortega](/people/daniel-ortega/), Bayardo Arce and Jaime Wheelock were all "unavailable."[^38] ### Cuban and Soviet intelligence allegations Andrew and Mitrokhin wrote that in 1973 Agee approached the KGB residency in Mexico City, which turned him away as a suspected CIA plant, and quoted Oleg Kalugin: "Agee then went to the Cubans, who welcomed him with open arms... The Cubans shared Agee's information with us." They wrote that a KGB file claimed Inside the Company was "prepared by Service A, together with the Cubans," which they described as "doubtless with some exaggeration"; that "Mitrokhin's notes do not indicate exactly what the KGB and its Cuban ally, the DGI, contributed to Agee's text"; that at Service A's insistence he removed all references to CIA penetration of Latin American Communist parties; that the KGB kept contact with him in London through the Novosti correspondent Edgar Cheporov; and that the files describe him as an agent of the DGI but "do not formally list him as a KGB, as well as DGI, agent." They wrote that in May 1976 the KGB learned from Agee, codenamed PONT, that a Soviet source codenamed MAREK was an American dangle run jointly by the CIA and the [Defense Intelligence Agency](/organizations/defense-intelligence-agency/).[^10] On October 8, 2000 Julia Preston and Tim Weiner reported in the [New York Times](/organizations/new-york-times/) on a document carried by Pedro Riera Escalante, a major of the Cuban intelligence directorate and consul in Mexico City from 1986 to 1991, who was deported from Mexico to Havana that week. Riera described an operation, "Moncada," in which he said he used Agee to try to recruit the secretary of the deputy chief of the CIA station in Mexico City; United States intelligence officials said it was a total failure and that Agee was quickly identified and rebuffed. Riera said his work with Agee began in 1973, when he was liaison between Agee and the Cuban Politburo while Agee was writing the book, that he conveyed the government's suggestions about what Agee should disclose, and that telephone numbers of CIA officials at the Mexico City embassy supplied by Agee later helped him identify station personnel. Agee did not reply to an e-mail sent to his office in Cuba.[^39] The Mexico City newspaper Reforma, which said it had seen Riera's service file, reported in a translation published by Cryptome that during "long months between 1974 and 1975, Escalante was the official in charge of correcting Agee's texts."[^40] The Associated Press reported in 2008 that Agee had been accused of receiving up to $1 million from the Cuban intelligence service, an accusation first made in a 1992 report by a high-ranking Cuban intelligence defector, and that Agee denied it.[^3] ### Later years and death Agee lived for years in Hamburg and later in Havana. In 2000 he opened Cubalinda, an online travel agency for Americans traveling to Cuba, with European investors and a state travel agent as partners. In 2003 he distinguished his disclosures from the exposure of Valerie Plame, calling the latter "purely dirty politics," and said he had named his former colleagues to "weaken the instrument for carrying out the policy of supporting military dictatorships" in Greece, [Chile](/places/chile/), [Argentina](/places/argentina/), Uruguay and [Brazil](/places/brazil/). After the arrest of 75 Cuban dissidents in 2003 he wrote in Granma International that the dissidents "were funded and controlled by a hostile foreign power." He died in Havana after operations for perforated ulcers; Granma called him "a loyal friend of Cuba and fervent defender of the peoples' fight for a better world."[^3] [^1]: Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280 (1981), decided June 29, 1981: opinion of Chief Justice Burger, Part I and notes 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 15 and 16; concurrence of Justice Blackmun; dissent of Justice Brennan, joined by Justice Marshall (delivery of the revocation letter by the Consul General in Hamburg on December 23, 1979). https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/453/280 [^2]: Philip Agee to Melvin L. Wulf, June 10, 1977 (authorization letter, with consular acknowledgment, Amsterdam, June 1977); Melvin L. Wulf to the Director of Central Intelligence and other agency heads, November 9, 1977; John F. Blake, Assistant for Information, DDA, to the Acting Director of Central Intelligence, "FOIA Request on Behalf of Mr. Philip Agee," DDA 78-1204, March 22, 1978. CIA-RDP81-00142R000700040006-8. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp81-00142r000700040006-8 [^3]: "Former CIA agent Agee dies in Cuba at age 72," Associated Press, NBC News, January 9, 2008. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna22571961 [^4]: CIA Office of Legislative Counsel, memorandum for the record OLC 78-2991/2, "Request by Senator Lloyd Bentsen (D., Texas) for Unclassified Information on Philip Agee," September 7, 1978 (typed September 12, 1978), with attached unclassified fact sheet delivered September 7, 1978. CIA-RDP81M00980R000600300055-3. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp81m00980r000600300055-3 [^5]: "Intelligence in Recent Public Literature," review of Philip Agee, *Inside the Company: CIA Diary* (Penguin Books, 1975), *Studies in Intelligence*, Central Intelligence Agency, CIA Historical Review Program release in full July 2, 1996, posted May 8, 2007. https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/Review-Inside-the-Company.pdf [^6]: Philip Agee, *Inside the Company: CIA Diary* (New York: Stonehill Publishing Company, distributed by George Braziller, 1975), pp. 206 to 207 (Quito entry on the founding of the AIFLD). https://archive.org/details/inside-the-company-cia-diary-philip-agee [^7]: Agee, *Inside the Company*, pp. 250 to 253 (Quito entries of July 11, 13 and 31, 1963). https://archive.org/details/inside-the-company-cia-diary-philip-agee [^8]: Agee, *Inside the Company*, pp. 424 to 428 (Washington entry on assignment to Mexico City). https://archive.org/details/inside-the-company-cia-diary-philip-agee [^9]: Anthony Holden, "Why they want to deport me," The Sunday Times (London), January 9, 1977. CIA-RDP88-01315R000300560018-2. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000300560018-2 [^10]: Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, *The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB* (New York: Basic Books, Perseus Books Group, 1999; paperback edition with an introduction dated 2001), p. 206 (chapter 13, "The Main Adversary, Part 4") and pp. 230 to 234 (chapter 14, "Political Warfare"), with the chapter notes. Read in the full-text scan of the paperback edition at https://archive.org/details/the-sword-and-the-shield-the-mitrokhin-archive-and-the-secret-history-of-the-kgb_202605 [^11]: Agee, *Inside the Company*, Introduction, pp. 1 to 2, and front matter (Stonehill Publishing Company, distributed by George Braziller). https://archive.org/details/inside-the-company-cia-diary-philip-agee [^12]: Agee, *Inside the Company*, pp. 485 to 486 (Mexico City, January 1971). https://archive.org/details/inside-the-company-cia-diary-philip-agee [^13]: Agee, *Inside the Company*, pp. 488 to 489 (Mexico City, March 1971). https://archive.org/details/inside-the-company-cia-diary-philip-agee [^14]: Agee, *Inside the Company*, pp. 489 to 491 (Paris, August 1971; Havana, October 1971). https://archive.org/details/inside-the-company-cia-diary-philip-agee [^15]: Agee, *Inside the Company*, pp. 495 to 497 (Paris, August 1972). https://archive.org/details/inside-the-company-cia-diary-philip-agee [^16]: Agee, *Inside the Company*, Acknowledgements, p. 563. https://archive.org/details/inside-the-company-cia-diary-philip-agee [^17]: Agee, *Inside the Company*, pp. 493 to 495 (Paris entries of late 1971 and January 1972). https://archive.org/details/inside-the-company-cia-diary-philip-agee [^18]: Agee, *Inside the Company*, pp. 497 to 498 (Paris, October 6, 1972). https://archive.org/details/inside-the-company-cia-diary-philip-agee [^19]: Agee, *Inside the Company*, pp. 498 to 501 (Paris, October 14, 1972; London, October 24, 1972). https://archive.org/details/inside-the-company-cia-diary-philip-agee [^20]: Director of Security (Charles W. Kane) to Deputy Director for Administration, "Philip Burnett Franklin Agee," with attached draft memorandum to the Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, referencing CIA memorandum of August 23, 1974; reading room date October 1, 1974. CIA-RDP84-00780R006100130022-9. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp84-00780r006100130022-9 [^21]: "Report on Richard Welch," transcript, All Things Considered, WETA Radio and NPR network, December 29, 1975, with Susan Stamberg and Jeff Stein. CIA-RDP88-01314R000100370007-8. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01314r000100370007-8 [^22]: Dana Adams Schmidt, "U.S. Weighs Prosecution of Editors in Welch Case," Christian Science Monitor, January 5, 1976. CIA-RDP88-01314R000100360054-7. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01314r000100360054-7 [^23]: David Atlee Phillips, letter, "The Death of Richard Welch," Washington Star, January 28, 1976. CIA-RDP88-01314R000100360023-1. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01314r000100360023-1 [^24]: Philip Agee, "I never 'fingered' Richard Welch," letter to the editor, March 1, 1976, signed Cambridge, England (publication not identified on the clipping). CIA-RDP99-00498R000100040087-5. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-00498r000100040087-5 [^25]: Stansfield Turner to Cyrus R. Vance, December 19, 1979 (text withheld as exempt), filed with "Philip Agee: Iranians want him as a judge," New York Post, December 17, 1979. CIA-RDP81B00401R000600050023-9. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp81b00401r000600050023-9 [^26]: Associated Press, "U.S. Closes Probe of CIA Critic Agee," Washington Post, March 22, 1977, p. A7. CIA-RDP99-00498R000100080006-0. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-00498r000100080006-0 [^27]: Hansard, House of Commons, "Mr. Hosenball and Mr. Agee (Deportation)," November 18, 1976, vol. 919, cols. 1567 to 1572 (statement of the Home Secretary; questions of Mrs. Hart and Mr. Churchill). https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1976/nov/18/mr-hosenball-and-mr-agee-deportation [^28]: Lindsay Mackie, "Polish agent deaths 'behind Agee order'," newspaper article of January 10, 1977 (publication not identified on the clipping; reading room date January 10, 1977). CIA-RDP88-01315R000300560016-4. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000300560016-4 [^29]: Hansard, House of Commons, "Mr. Agee and Mr. Hosenball," February 16, 1977, vol. 926, cols. 495 to 496 and following. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1977/feb/16/mr-agee-and-mr-hosenball [^30]: Anne Weaver, "Agee names Greek CIA men," June 13, 1977 (attributed to The Guardian in the reading room title "[The Manchester Guardian, 13 June 1977]"), CIA-RDP88-01314R000300490003-7, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01314r000300490003-7; "Agee on CIA in Greece," Newsday, June 14, 1977, CIA-RDP88-01314R000300490001-9, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01314r000300490001-9 [^31]: "Lives of CIA Agents Deliberately Imperiled," newspaper column, August 19, 1978 (publication and author not identified on the clipping). CIA-RDP88-01314R000100390039-1. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01314r000100390039-1 [^32]: Isaiah J. Poole, "CIA goes after anti-U.S. agent magazine," New York News World, August 11, 1979. CIA-RDP88-01314R000100390017-5. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01314r000100390017-5 [^33]: Assistant Legislative Counsel to Frederick P. Hitz, Legislative Counsel, "16 August 1978 Briefing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Phillip Agee," OLC 78-2991, August 15, 1978. CIA-RDP81M00980R002100030023-1. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp81m00980r002100030023-1 [^34]: House Committee on Armed Services, Special Subcommittee on Intelligence, *Inquiry into the Alleged Involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Watergate and Ellsberg Matters*, 93rd Cong., 1st sess., October 23, 1973, membership page. CIA-RDP75B00380R000100090080-8. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp75b00380r000100090080-8 [^35]: Reuters dispatch from Bonn, November 21, 1978, CIA Operations Center news service. CIA-RDP81M00980R000400040002-2. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp81m00980r000400040002-2 [^36]: *Intelligence Identities Protection Act (S. 2216)*, hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 96th Cong., 2d sess., 1980, testimony of Frank C. Carlucci, pp. 43 to 45. CIA-RDP85-00003R000200080003-5. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp85-00003r000200080003-5 [^37]: William J. Casey, Director of Central Intelligence, Statement for the Record before the Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism, Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, May 8, 1981, on S. 391. CIA-RDP85-00003R000200040003-9. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp85-00003r000200040003-9 [^38]: American Embassy Managua to Secretary of State, Managua 4517, "Agee Visit Security Precautions," Confidential, EXDIS, NIACT Immediate, October 13, 1981 (drafted by Roger R. Gamble). CIA-RDP84B00049R001503700007-4. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp84b00049r001503700007-4 [^39]: Julia Preston and Tim Weiner, "A Document by Cuban Spy Talks of Acts Against C.I.A.," New York Times, October 8, 2000, as reproduced at https://cryptome.org/cuban-op-cia.htm [^40]: Grupo Reforma, untitled article on Pedro Riera Escalante, Reforma (Mexico City), October 2000, in the English translation by Cryptome reproduced with the New York Times article at https://cryptome.org/cuban-op-cia.htm