CONGRESS MOVES TO PROTECT CIA AGENTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000100160062-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 20, 2011
• Sequence Number: 62
• Publication Date: August 9, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/04/20: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100160062-2
At I ICLE AP?EAi !J HUMAN EVENTS
FAGa l-r~ 9 August 1980
Will Liberal -Senators Derail E f. forts."
While the Democrats have been wal-
lowing in "Billygate" and the Con-
gress has been generally in turmoil,
something positive, nevertheless, has
recently emerged from the House and
Senate intelligence committees., They
have approved. legislation -that would-
begin to extend a cloak of protection to
our'front=line soldiers overseas, the
much-maligned American intelligence
Though there are.some minor differ-
ences. in- the versions brought out by
each of ' the panels, the legislation
would subject to fines and imprison- -
ment anyone who knowingly identifies
to unauthorized persons.U.S. "covert
airing
irn
ose
of
for
th
ur
t
-
p
:
_
.
e p
p
agen
s
America's intelligence operations.
"Why is suchiegislation needed?.
Because revolutionary U.S.. activ-
ists-in cooperation with Commu-
. nist Cuba-have :been exposing _,
America's intelligence agents -to
violence and threats of violence.'
Richard Welch may have been the
first victim of these .``activists." He
was the CIA chief of station in Athens;.
Greece, who was gunned down by ter-
rorists outside his home. there on
Dec. 23, 1975. He had been murdered
after an editor of a local paper had
`.'.exposed". him as an.agent and then
printed his home address. The editor.
later acknowledged he had received a
tip about Welch through an American
publication called CounterSpy, which
relished revealing the identities of CIA
personnel...:.
counterspy closed 'for awhile,- but
the method of endangering the lives of
CIA agents by making them vulnerable
to' murderous leftist. gangs was 'glee'-
-fully.. revived by some of the players
once associated with- the publication,
most- notably CIA defector-turned-
.pro-Communist' Philip Agee. (Agee,
.for instance, has said, "I approve KGB
munist Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/04/20: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100160062-2
. During the World Youth Festival
held in Havana two years ago, William
Schaap, a National Lawyers Guild at-
torney in Washington, D.C., an-
nounced from the Havana Libre Hotel
the formation of a group that woula
cooperate in publishing CovertAction
Information Bulletin, whose primary
purpose is to blow'the cover of 'U.S. in-
telligence agents abroad in precisely the
same manner as Welch's cover was
blown.
In its premier July 1978 issue, Agee,
in a joint statement with his colleagues,
explicitly - embraced the CounterSpy
strategy as a means of crippling U.S.
intelligence. As Agee stated, there is
"an important and vital role to be
played by the sort of exposes for which
Counterspy'. had become - world-
famous.- We decided that the
dissemination of. such information,
must resume.-That CounterSpy and itsl
uncovering of CIA personnel and oper-
ations around the world were so vi-
olently hated by the Agency was our
best endorsement." '
Ina separate article in the premier i
issue authored solely by Agee, the as-
piring piring Communist told how to ferret
out U.S. intelligence agents, and'called.,
for "public demonstrations". against
those discovered-"both at the Ameri-
can Embassy and at their homes-and,'
where possible, bring pressure on the'
new government to throw them out."-- 1
"We can all aid this struggle, to-
gether with the struggle for socialism in
the United States itself."
That set the "tone" for'the maga-
zine, and CovertAction and its people
have been blowing CIA covers ever
since-and imperiling the lives of our
intelligence agents. Most recently, as
many people are now aware, Covert-
Action editor Louis Wolf-who shared
Youth Festival (see picture above)-
decided to ."expose" our intelligence
agents inJamaica.
in a press conference` held July 2
in Kingston, Jamaica's,capital, _ Wolf
listed 15 members of the U.S. Embassy
whom he described as CIA personnel
During the news conference, he sup
plied. biographical information about
those he named; including license plates
and unlisted telephone ..numbers.
Within a few hours, this 'news"-was'
highlighted in the governn1ent-controlled.;
media and mounted on posters by pro-- I
Communist activists who are`'involved
in Prime Minister Michael Manley's re..
election effort. _ -i
(Manley, --whose"' chances for:'`re-
election in a free ballot-would be dim,'l
has been strongly cozying up to the Cu-
bans, and last year at: the: non-aligned
.,the use of violence;lsaying that if peace-
ful protests don't do the. job, "those
whom the CIA has most oppressed will
find other ways of fighting back.",,
"
"Together, . concluded'Agee;-
"people : of many nationalities- and
varying political belief can -cooperate
to weaken the CIA and its surrogate in-.
telligence'services, striking a blow at
political-. repression and economic
i
i
::
njust
ce
'
..
activities-" and `I aspire to be a Com