Links
NYU library acquires the papers of Philip Agee, renegade spy
The private papers of Philip Agee, the disaffected CIA operative whose unauthorized publication of agency secrets 35 years ago was arguably more damaging than anything WikiLeaks has produced, have been obtained by New York University, which plans to make them public next spring.
Agee, who worked undercover in Latin America from 1960 to 1968 and died in Cuba nearly three years ago, once said he resigned because the values of his Catholic upbringing clashed with his CIA assignments to destroy movements that aimed to overthrow U.S.-backed military regimes. CIA defenders said he was on the verge of being fired.
Agee's first book, "Inside the Company: CIA Diary," published in 1975, included a 22-page appendix with the real names of about 250 undercover agency operatives and accused a handful of Latin American heads of state of being CIA assets. The CIA's classified in-house journal, Studies in Intelligence, called it "a severe body blow" to the agency.
Two subsequent books by Agee and Louis Wolf revealed the names of about 2,000 more alleged CIA operatives in Western Europe and Africa.
After the release of "Inside the Company," Congress passed legislation making it a crime to intentionally publish the names of undercover CIA personnel.