THE CIA DANGEROUS WRECKING OPERATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000300480022-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 26, 2006
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: January 26, 1976
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

STAT
Approved For Release 2006/0T11 g;: CIA-RDP88-01314R000
26 JANUARY 1976
Dangerous 'sec ig Oiler a ion
About the surest way to get your
name in the foreign press these days, or
so it seems, is to join the CIA,
In the past 15 mouths, several hun-
dred agents in Stockholm, Athens, Lis-
bon, Madrid, Mexico City, London and
Paris have had their covers blown, most-
ly by leftist papers. Last week the leftist
French daily Liberation, founded by
Philosopher Jean-.Paul Sartre, disclosed
on two successive days the names of 44
CIA people in the Paris embassy, includ-
ing the home addresses and telephone
numbers of the top officers. In London,
a trendy weekly social and entertain-
ment guide called Time Out named three
versa. But officials say that CIA con-
tacts with businessmen, journalists and
government officials have been clam-
aged by the embarrassment of exposure-
Worse, says one White I-louse official,
the unmasking snakes "agents particu-
larly vulnerable to terrorist acts." Many
point to the murder of Station Chief
Richard Welch by assassins in Athens
in December just a month after his name
appeared in the Athens News, an Eng-
lish-language daily. As a result, the U.S.
has placed round-the-clock bodyguards
on high-level officials in Greece. In Par-
is, CIA staff have reportedly taken to tot-
ing guns and traveling in unmarked,
THE NAT14P
Another spur behind the stories ha
apparently been the Washington mag
azine Counter-Spy, published quarterl0
by the Organizing Committee fora Piftl
Estate, a group ofantiwar activists, som,
of whom are eg-agents. Since its incep
tion in 1973, Counter-Spy has names
more than 300 CIA agents. One of its co
editors, Tim Butz, 28, a bearded Vie
Nam veteran who was a student at Kcn'i.
State during the antiwar killings jr
1970, helped the Liberation reporter with their expose. His reason: to "de?
mystify" the CIA and nail down "Per-
sonal culpability for war crimes."
Butz. says he would give out the
names of KGB operatives but "we lack
the vehicles for exposing the KGB." Li-
beration adds another rationale. The
daily is not printing the names of KGB
operatives, said one of its editors, "be-
cause with the Soviet embassy, we as-
sume everybody is a secret agent."
STAT
new CIA employees in the U.S. embassy rented cars. 134 in mo other capitals,
(in 1975 Time Out printed the names of the exposure created little excitement,
62 CIA people with a chart of their em- and special security measures were soon
bassy office-9). At week's end a new Ital- dropped. Nonetheless, said Senator
ran daily, !a Republica. front-paged the Frank Church, "I don't think former of
names of seven CIA agents in Rome. Just ficials of the CIA ought to release'the
two weeks' ago, the newsweekly Cram- names of current agents of the CIA. I
bio 16, one of Spain's leading magazines, think that is contemptible." Suggests
`firfgered seven CIA agents in the Amer- Columnist Anthony Lewis, the "whole-
ican embassy in Madrid. Washington sale publication of agents' names
fears that CIA operatives in West Ger- [seems] hard to justify-and likely to be
many will be uncovered next. It has a wrecking operation."
reached the point, a U.S. diplomat at Theagencylists began appearingaf-
the Paris- Embassy sarcastically sug- to Philip Agee, 40, an ex CIA Spy who
gests, where. the CIA and the U.S. In- now lives in Cambridge, England, pub-
formation Service swap offices, since lished Inside the Company: CIA Diary
"it's the CIA that seems to be generat- last year. The book identified nearly 250
ing all the publicity nowadays." CIA men and women round the world.
Embarrassing Exposure. Ameri- Says Agee, who apparently aided the
can intelligence officials profess not to printing of at least several of the lists:
be concerned that the disclosures will "The point of all this is to change the
help the Russians since, they suspec , olicy cl u r e v
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