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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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 Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:09 pm Post subject: CIA whistle-blower Philip Agee dies |
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(Reuters) - Philip Agee, a former CIA agent who exposed its undercover operations in Latin America in a 1975 book, died in Havana, the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma said on Wednesday.
Agee, 72, died on Monday night, the newspaper said, calling him a "loyal friend of Cuba and staunch defender of the peoples' struggle for a better world."
His widow, German ballet dancer Giselle Roberge, told friends he had been in hospital since December 15 and did not survive surgery for perforated ulcers.
Agee worked for the CIA for 12 years in Washington, Ecuador, Uruguay and Mexico. He resigned in 1968 in disagreement with U.S. support for military dictatorships in Latin America and became one of the first to blow the whistle on the CIA's activities around the world.
His expose "Inside the Company: CIA Diary" revealed the names of dozens of agents working undercover in Latin America and elsewhere in the world. It was published in 27 languages.
The CIA declined to comment on his death.
Florida-born Agee said working as a case officer in South America opened his eyes to the CIA's Cold War goal in the region: to prop up traditional elites against perceived leftist threats through political repression and torture.
"It was a time in the 70s when the worst imaginable horrors were going on in Latin America -- Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Guatemala, El Salvador -- they were military dictatorships with death squads, all with the backing of the CIA and the U.S. government," he told the British newspaper The Guardian in an interview published last year.
"That was what motivated me to name all the names and work with journalists who were interested in knowing just who the CIA were in their countries," he said.
U.S. CALLED HIM TRAITOR
The U.S. government called Agee a traitor and said some of the agents he exposed were murdered, an allegation he rejected.
Agee went to live in London but was deported by Britain in 1976 at the request of then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The U.S. government revoked his passport three years later, saying he was a threat to national security.
Barbara Bush, the wife of former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, who was CIA director in 1976, blamed Agee in her memoirs for the murder of the Athens station chief, Richard Welsh, in 1975. Agee denied any connection and sued her for $4 million, forcing her to revise the book to settle the libel case.
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:14 pm Post subject: |
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Good riddance; he was a traitor.
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| Barbara Bush, the wife of former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, who was CIA director in 1976, blamed Agee in her memoirs for the murder of the Athens station chief, Richard Welsh, in 1975. Agee denied any connection and sued her for $4 million, forcing her to revise the book to settle the libel case. |
Settlement or not, so does everyone else at the Agency at the time blame Agee. William Blum joined him in publicly "outing" undercover personnel and calling for their deaths abroad. See esp. David Atlee Phillips's memoirs.
They published Welsh's address in Counterspy. They can spin and deny it like the cowards they are all they like. They still published Welsh's identity and called for his "neutralization." |
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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:22 pm Post subject: |
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| A traitor who did the right thing when the US was doing the wrong thing in Latin America. |
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wannago
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:27 pm Post subject: |
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I want to try my hand at this conspiracy theory stuff:
Did he die naturally or was he killed??? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:27 pm Post subject: |
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Nonsense, Catman.
He was pro-Communist, pro-Cuban, and antiAmerican. He also broke his word regards the confidentiality agreements he signed when seeking and then accepting CIA employment. Then he moved against his former colleagues and peers, calling for their deaths. Be certain you get that right before making him your champion. |
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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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| wannago wrote: |
I want to try my hand at this conspiracy theory stuff:
Did he die naturally or was he killed??? |
Tell me where he is wrong in this statement:
"It was a time in the 70s when the worst imaginable horrors were going on in Latin America -- Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Guatemala, El Salvador -- they were military dictatorships with death squads, all with the backing of the CIA and the U.S. government," |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Do I really need to restate my objection to such nonsense, Catman? |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:37 pm Post subject: |
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| wannago wrote: |
I want to try my hand at this conspiracy theory stuff:
Did he die naturally or was he killed??? |
Oh, no. Why?? Why did you have to QUESTION THE TRUTH?
They will kill you for exposing their lies! THEY! THEY! |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:45 pm Post subject: |
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| catman wrote: |
| Tell me where he is wrong in this statement... |
Very well, then. I will assume you do not know.
The people who produce this information suffer the worst kind of antiAmericanism and U.S.-centrism in their thinking. They are not at all unlike Orwell's character, "James Flory," in Burmese Days. "Bitterly anti-English," according to Orwell (who was clearly talking about himself).
| George Orwell wrote: |
The Indian Empire is a despotism...And as to the English of the East...Flory had come so to hate them...that he was quite incapable of being fair to them.
...The time comes when you burn with hatred of your own countrymen, when you long for a native rising to drown their Empire in blood. |
George Orwell, Burmese Days, 68-69.
Flory is not only analogous to people like Agee and Blum, Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone, Michael Moore. He is also analogous to many in Academe who produce the knowledge you consume to reach such conclusion as this...
| Catman's Unattributed Source wrote: |
| It was a time in the 70s when the worst imaginable horrors were going on in Latin America -- Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Guatemala, El Salvador -- they were military dictatorships with death squads, all with the backing of the CIA and the U.S. government. |
Moreoever, their U.S.-centrism is based on chronic overstatement of American power and influence as well as inexcusable ignorance regards local conditions and actors -- the decisive conditions and actors in the state of affairs you reference above, Catman. For one thing, their notes and bibliographies reveal that they speak no foreign languages and have probed no local archives or other sources. They merely adopt the harshest of muckraking postures and launch one bitter diatribe after another to the thunderous applause of people like you who cheer them for "finally telling the truth."
Very fine. There is room for multiple perspectives in our universe. But if this is all that you take in regards your information on world affairs, I would call you willfully ignorant and hopelessly one-sided in your understanding of world affairs -- that is, an antiAmerican propagandist exactly like Agee. |
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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| It was a time in the 70s when the worst imaginable horrors were going on in Latin America -- Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Guatemala, El Salvador -- they were military dictatorships with death squads, all with the backing of the CIA and the U.S. government. |
Again, where is his statement wrong? What countries is he wrong about? Which dictatorships did the CIA not support? Simple. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:09 pm Post subject: |
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Indeed.
I am aware that my point requires people to engage complex and unpredictable chains-of-events in place of the usual simplistic, antiAmerican, U.S.-centric, allegation-driven nonsense. I am also aware that most on this board will violently resist doing so. Far easier to uncritically conform to the unofficial, antiEstablishment official line and continue congratulating yourself for original thinking.
That which occurred in Latin-American and Caribbean affairs by the 1970s involved the United States govt but hardly represents the United States govt's doings. How and why did such human-rights-abusing dictatorships emerge? That is an excellent question. I dare say, based on what you have posted here, that you have no idea.
C'est la vie. I have stated my objection and shown the horse where the water lies... |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:50 pm Post subject: |
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| wannago wrote: |
I want to try my hand at this conspiracy theory stuff:
Did he die naturally or was he killed??? |
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JAZZYJJJ
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 4:41 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
They published Welsh's address in Counterspy. They can spin and deny it like the cowards they are all they like. They still published Welsh's identity and called for his "neutralization." |
I followed that link and it states that:
1/ Welsh's identity was published by others prior to the Counterspy article;
and
2/ that he lived in the residence of previous station chiefs.
Was he a traitor??? Don't know/don't care. Was he a coward??? Again, don't know. On the face of it he had the courage to stand by his (however flawed) convictions. But to call for your former coworkers to be 'neutralized'??? That's just not cricket. Philby, et al, never took that route.
J. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 7:52 am Post subject: |
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| JAZZYJJJ wrote: |
| I followed that link and it states that... |
If you choose to take "the magazine's defenders'" perspective, that is your right. I merely point out what nearly all Welsh's friends at CIA believe caused or at least very much contributed to his assassination by the Greeks.
By the way, where do you stand on the Plame Affair? That was the W. Bush Administration's outing one case officer. Agee and Blum et al. outed hundreds and likely thousands of their agents through Counterspy -- and encouraged America's enemies to kill them, something that exceeds anything Bush or Cheney did to Plame by far. And I am pleased that you recognize this.
And no matter how Counterspy's apologists spin it, they published Welsh's name and location in Counterspy and called for his death. Do you know for certain where 17-November learned and/or confirmed this information? Even if this betrayal had only minor significance to Welsh's death -- and I think it had much more than that -- it remains contemptible. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:35 pm Post subject: |
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NPR secured an exclusive interview with Special Agent Bassem Youssef, a dissenter in the ranks. Compare and contrast Youssef's maturity and style of dissent with Agee's maturity and style of dissent (or "Flory's," for that matter, as described above)...
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All Things Considered, January 11, 2008 � In an exclusive interview with NPR, an official at the heart of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts discusses the dispute over whether the U.S. is violating civil liberties.
Bassem Youssef is an FBI special agent and chief of the unit responsible for two warrantless search programs.
He is already known as a whistleblower. In 2002, he said discriminatory practices within the bureau were hobbling efforts to fight terrorism.
The Justice Department found later that the FBI illegally retaliated against Youssef after he made those claims, and he has a lawsuit pending against the agency.
On Saturday, Youssef was planning to make a speech in Philadelphia to the American Library Association, but the FBI barred him from making that speech. The agency is, however, permitting him to answer questions about what he wanted to say in that speech.
He talks to Michele Norris... |
NPR Reports |
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