Dirty Work

A 734-page book hit stores across the country last week, and the CIA hit the ceiling. The book reprints some 300 pages of anti-CIA articles that have been published elsewhere, including tips on how to identify undercover agents through public documents. But the book's appendix, 415 yellow pages, is a dossier on more than 700 CIA operatives, most of them in Western Europe, listing their vital statistics, including names, work experience and home addresses. Aptly named Dirty Work, the tome is the latest broadside in ex-CIA officer Philip Agee's campaign to "contribute to the growing opposition to what the CIA is and what it does."

Former colleagues remember Agee, now 43, as a zealous anti-Communist when he joined the CIA after graduating from Notre Dame in 1956. He spent twelve years as an undercover operative in several Central and South American countries, became disillusioned by the CIA's methods and quit in 1969.

Six years later, in his first book, Inside the Company: CIA Diary, Agee blew the covers of several hundred agents. As a result of this publicity, the agency had to reshuffle its intelligence operations in Latin America. Then in December 1975, when CIA Station Chief Richard Welch was assassinated in Athens, the agency blamed his death on Counterspy, a magazine that Agee edited. It had named Welch as a CIA official, though the Athens News had printed his address.

Still sensitive to charges that he is endangering CIA agents, Agee defends himself with the highly dubious thesis that "We are revealing the names of people engaged in criminal activities. We hope that the CIA will shift these people to the safe posts at Langley."

The CIA can do little to fight back against Agee's efforts to damage its reputation and hamper its operations. Civil charges against Agee for breaking his CIA secrecy contract--which were used successfully by the agency against ex-CIA Officer Frank Snepp, whose Decent Interval accused the U.S. of bungling the evacuation of Saigon--are ineffective because Agee is living abroad. Since 1977 he has been deported by Britain and France, and he is now in hiding, reportedly in Rome.

The agency believes that about 90% of the agents listed in Dirty Work have been publicly named before or are known to U.S. adversaries. But the other 10% were secret. "They'll be in danger," says one CIA official, who believes that the book may damage the agency's ability to function effectively overseas: "The friendly liaison services are nervous, the agents are falling off, and we're powerless to stop Agee." Dirty work, all around.

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