EX-AGENT FACES COURT ORDER IN LIBEL SUIT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403640008-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: January 18, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403640008-0
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C`.1? 22'
Ex-Agent Faces Court
Order in Libel Suit -
A federal judge has issued an order in
the $120 million libel suit brought by a
former CIA agent against publisher
Lawrence Hill that could discourage
similar suits against those who write
and publish books critical of the intelli-
gence establishment.
The book in question is Death in
Washington. Former agent David Atlee
Phillips brought two libel suits, since
consolidated, in 1981 against the West-
port, Conn., publisher and the authors,'
Donald Freed and Fred Landis.
Death in Washington charges that
Phillips orchestrated a coverup of the
fact that Chilean diplomat Orlando Le-
telier, who was killed by a bomb explo-
sion in his car in Washington, D.C., in
1976, was assassinated by agents of the
ruling junta in Chile that the CIA had
helped to install and that Phillips
worked to obstruct the FBI and police
investigations of the assassination.
During the interrogatory period of
the four-year-old suit, according to
Melvin_W.ulf of -the New York firm-o--..
Beldock Levine & Hoflman,:l2 er.?or=
the authors,--160 critical questions"
designed to establish relevant facts
about the case were submitted to Phil-
lips. Because Phillips had signed an
agreement on joining the CIA not to re-
veal classified information, he refused
to reply to the interrogatories, claiming
the privilege against self-incrimination
since violating his secrecy oath would
be a crime. ,
In addition, Wulf said, attorneys for
the U. S. government were present dur-
ing the taking of depositions and they
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