COUNTER-SPY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000100360055-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 15, 2004
• Sequence Number: 55
• Publication Date: January 5, 1976
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

EWSWI EK
Approved For Release 200#j 28iA-RDP88-01314R
Counter-Spy
In the post-Watergate rush to candor
at all costs, exposing the identities
of American intelligence operatives
around the world has become almost
commonplace. But not until CIA station
chief Richard Welch was gunned down
in Athens last week (page 24)-a month
after he had been named as a top U. S. spy
in The Athens News-had any officer
fallen victim to murder after having his
cover published. Bitter U.S. intelligence
officials blamed Welch's death on the
publicity generated in spy-ferreting
books by former CIA agents Victor Mar-
chetti and Philip Agee, by the Congres-
sional probes of CIA operations, and
most doggedly, by a quarterly called
Counter-Spy.
Based in Washington, Counter-Spy
makes an arcane specialty of publishing
lists of high-level CIA functionaries op-
erating under U.S. Embassy cover. In
two years, it has named 225 such clan-
destine operatives, including Welch-
who was identified in two issues of the
magazine this year. The editors, seven
youthful antiwar movement veterans
who angrily denied any responsibility
for Welch's murder, claim they got the
nacres from "a source," then checked
them out against the State Department's
Biographic Register, which lists current
assignments andbackgrounds of Foreign
Service officers (such oblique credits as
"Foreign Service Reserve" or "Army
Dept. analyst" are often tip-offs).
Moonlight: Counter-Spy's masthead
says it is published by Fifth Estate
Security Education, a nonprofit corpora-
tion. It lists an advisory board that has
included Agee and Marchetti along with
author Kirkpatrick Sale, and such battle-
scarred antiwar-horses as David Del-
linger and Marcus Raskin. The unsal-
aried staff puts the magazine together in
their homes, and most moonlight at such
jobs as bar-tending. "We're not really in
the magazine business," explained 25-
year-old co-editor Doug Porter.
Indeed, with a circulation of 3,000 and
an editorially biased price schedule ($6 a
year for individuals, $10 a year for librar-
ies, $75 a year for government agencies),
Counter-Spy is barely in business at all.
It is sustained by contributions from
activists like novelist Norman Mailer,
who helped start the periodical. In Feb-
ruary 1973, Mailer corralled 500 invited
guests-at $50 a couple-into New
York's Four Seasons restaurant to cele-
bate his 50th birthday. They also heard
him proclaim the formation of The Fifth
Estate, a "democratic secret police" ded-
icated to rending the veil from covert
CIA and FBI operations. Most guests
greeted the announcement with be-
mused derision. But Mailer _ussled j
funds to finance the Fif Q
tributecl a one page anti-CIA critique to to bear out the warnings they had been
eir ntellc Y
the magazine's spring number this year.
In other issues, Counter-Spy has re-
hashed familiar "exposes" of CIA under-
cover agitation in Latin America, Viet-
nam and Portugal, brightening a drab
format with such punning headlines as
TIIE AFL; CIA GOES ON SAFARI to attack
alleged collusion with labor in Africa.
But its main impact is the regular publi-
cation of agents' names. Last January, it
printed a detailed list of 150 chiefs of
station and has launched a running "CIA
around the World" feature. To CIA.
charges of reckless endangerment of its
operatives, co-editor Tim Butz replied
last week that all those identified were
known in the spy trade as "light cover
Name droppers: Counter-Spy and
counter-culture editor Tim Butz
people." (Welch's cover as "special as-
sistant to the ambassador" was so light
that he lived in a CIA-owned house
outside Athens.) The magazine, lie add-
ed, "has never gone after a professional
case officer operating under deep cover.
They are extremely hard to identify and
they are not the key indicators of U.S.
intervention." Instead, Butz looks for
migrations of"specialists" such as "labor
advisers" suddenly assigned to political-
ly volatile Spain or Portugal.
Quarry: How Counter-Spy actually
compiled its roster is no less mysterious
than the quarry it pursues. Some of the
names (including Welch's) jibe with the
slap-dash list in a little red book, titled
"Who's Who in CIA," that first appeared
in Europe in 1967 and is attributed to the
Soviet KGB. But Butz insisted that
Counter-Spy cultivates its own sources.
sounding for months on the possible trag-
ic consequences of the spy-hunting
trend, and last week they were furiously
on the attack. David Phillips, who heads
.the Association of etiP~ re=ntelligence
Officers, issued a statement denouncing
"those who, while claiming to be respon-
sible critics, carry on the irresponsible
practice of fingering for violence their
own countrymen." And former station
chief Peer de Silva who lost the sight of
one eye to a er? rori t bomb in Saigon, said
Counter-Spy makes agents targets for
"the foreign Squeaky Frommes who
think they're doing the world a favor by
getting rid of guys like us."
Even Counter-Spy advisory board
member Marche~t' eemed troubled by
the publication of the CIA lists. "I do get
uncomfortable about it," he said, "even
STATI
Iva Ily Me:,aniee--\ew, "k
though they are picking out people un-
der very light diplomatic cover, and any
other intelligence agency with half a
brain could pick them out." Marchetti
called the Athens murder "a tragedy,"
but also described Welch's residence in
a known CIA-owned house "one of the
idiocies of the system. They've owned
homes in some of these countries for
twenty years, and you could even tell
who was being promoted when you saw- -
them move from one house to another."
The magazine's editors themselves
seemed shaken but undeterred by the
furor. "It's not our fault," maintained
Butz, while author Sale argued: "The
CIA is in the business of killing. Our job
is to expose every clandestine age tit until
the CIA abandons its covert actions." In
action as good-or meretricious-as its
word, Counter-Spy plans a new list for its
he es f
#11 tf b'1'i 1Oa
ndnSwed on.CIA DAVID GELMAN with EVERT CLARK and ANTHONY
MARRO in Washington