Philip Agee

Philip Agee, former CIA officer

Inside the Company: CIA Diary, and On the Run, books by Agee. 

In June 1956 Philip Agee graduated from the University of Notre Dame. He wrote, ``No more bed check or lights out at midnight. No more compulsory mass attendance and evening curfew. No more Religious Bulletin to make you feel guilty if you didn't attend a novena, benediction or rosary service...What will it be like to live without the religion and discipline of the university? It may have been hard but they were teaching us how to live the virtuous life of a good Catholic. Even so, I still have this constant fear that after all I might die by accident with a mortal sin on my soul. Eternity in hell is a worry I can't seem to shake off...After having to take all those courses on religion the only person to blame, if I really don't make it, will be me. It is the discipline and religion that makes Notre-Dame men different... 

``Admiral Arleigh Burke, Chief of Naval Operations, discussed this in his speech at the graduation ceremony. He really impressed me: `Notre-Dame symbolizes many virtues. It blends the virtues of religion and patriotism--service to God, service to country. Notre-Dame stands for faith--faith in self and faith in country....Self discipline and determination and fighting spirit are an integral part of the curriculum...We are living in a great country where there is equality of opportunity, where justice is a reality....We are a generous nation....We will never wage a war of aggression.' '' Shortly before graduation a CIA recruiter urged him to consider a career with `The Agency', but he had already been accepted to law school. A year
later, threatened by the draft, he reconsidered and began his CIA career. 

In 1969, after twelve years, ten of them as a covert operations officer in Ecuador, Uruguay, Mexico and Washington, he resigned. He wrote, ``When I joined the CIA I believed in the need for its existence. After twelve years with the agency I finally understood how much suffering it was causing, that millions of people all over the world had been killed or had had their lives destroyed by the CIA and the institutions it supports. I couldn't sit by and do nothing and so began work on this book [Inside the Company]. Even after recent revelations about the CIA it is still difficult for people to understand what a huge and sinister organization the CIA is...16,500 employees and an annual budget of $750,000,000 [when written in 1975]. That does not include its mercenary armies or its commercial subsidiaries. Add them all together, the agency employs or
subsidizes hundreds of thousands of people and spends billions every year. Its official budget is secret; it's concealed in those of other Federal agencies. Nobody tells the Congress what the CIA spends. By law, the CIA is not accountable to Congress. 

``In the past 25 years, the CIA has been involved in plots to overthrow governments in Iran, the Sudan, Syria, Guatemala, Ecuador, Guyana, Zaire and Ghana. In Greece, the CIA participated in bringing in the repressive regime of the colonels. In Chile, The Company spent millions to ``destabilize'' the Allende government and set up the military junta, which has since massacred tens of thousands of workers, students, liberals and leftists. In Indonesia in 1965, The Company was behind an even bloodier coup, the one that got rid of Sukarno and led to the slaughter of at least 500,000 and possibly 1,000,000 people. In the Dominican Republic the CIA arranged the assassination of the dictator Rafael Trujillo and later participated in the invasion that prevented the return to power of the liberal ex-president Juan Bosch. 

``In Cuba, The Company paid for and directed the invasion that failed at the Bay of Pigs. Some time later the CIA was involved in attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro.'' I heard Agee speak in Fall '88 and again in Spring '89, both times at Harvard. He is extremely bright, with an enormous amount of factual information at his fingertips, and he `tells it straight'. No wonder Inside the Company became a best seller when it appeared, and was published in twenty languages. I was fascinated by it, though his use of so many acronyms made for slow going at times. 

Agee's On the Run is a dramatic, very personal account of his struggle against the CIA--from early 1971 into the '80's--to live, write, and get heard and published. Of course it covers much of the same ground as Inside the Company, but the writing is more fluid, and because it highlights his personal danger, it is more exciting to read.