TAKING C.I.A. CRITICS TO COURT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100140068-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 24, 2011
• Sequence Number: 68
• Publication Date: October 17, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/05/25: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100140068-1
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE
t SPOOKS' LIB
Critics to Court
EVE PELL
THE NATION
17 October 1981
tung by critical portrayals of the Central Intelligence
Agency in books and in the press, a group of retired
agents has, resolved to fight back in the courts. Last
J year, members of the Association of Former Intel-..
ligence Officers received a fund-raising appeal from one of
the organization's directors, David Atlee Phillips. The letter
asked the members, estimated to number about 2,500, to-
contribute to Challenge, a legal-action fund that sponsors.
lawsuits against the authors of books and articles alleging
misdeeds by intelligence operatives.
. Phillips, a former superspy, rose through the ranks to
become the chief of the agency's Western Hemisphere Divi-
sion before retiring -in 1975. He recently filed a S90 million
libel and slander suit against Donald Freed, author of Death
in Washington, and several researchers who worked on the
book, which accuses the C.I.A. and Phillips of complicity in
the 1976 assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington,
D.C. Letelier, a minister in former Chilean President Salva-
dor Allende's government and an opponent of Augusto
Pinochet, was killed in the explosion of a bomb attached to
his car. Ronni Moffitt, a passenger in the car, also died in
the blast.
Phillips has also filed a S70 million action for libel and in~
vasion of privacy against Gaeton Fonzi and The Washingto
nian for an article by Fonzi discussing possible links between
Phillips and the assassination of John F. Kennedy as well as
C.I.A. plots on.Fidel Castro's life.
In his fund-raising letter, Phillips said that both non-
fiction and fiction would be fair game for Challenge:'
Ex-intelligence officers have been battered around in re-
cent years, and we've taken the beating...... I believe a test.
case should be mounted against writers who defame ex-
intelligence officers, dead and alive, by using their names in' egregious novels.
Phillips had a particular novel in mind-Spymaster, also by
Freed, a tale about a lusty operative who becomes Director
of Central Intelligence in which real and fictional characters
are intermingled.' -
The efforts to unite former agents behind lawsuits
against the C.I.A.'s critics recall the recent wave of "blue
lib" suits filed by police officers against civilians who have
lodged complaints against the officers [see Pell, "Libel
as a Political Weapon," The Nation, June 61. Certainly,
the tone taken by Phillips resembles the line taken by the
police: We are just ordinary citizens defending our rights.
Yet both groups have extraordinary powers, including,
"ordinary citizen"
That 'aside, and
writings or Fonzi's a
danger to anyone w
committed by the
Challenge may have
or the Federal gover
is associated with tl
general counsel for
board boasts such
Director of Central
Senator from- New
for Security Assist;
Reagan Administrat
In addition to its moves to limit the Freedom of Informa-
tion Act, the Reagan Administration has demonstrated. its
intention to'increase the freedom of the intelligence agencies
and curtail the freedom of their-critics. By upholding the
State Department's authority to deprive former agent Philip
Agee of his passport, the Supreme Court dealt another blow
to the C.I.A.'s critics [see Stephen Gillers,, "Reasoning Not
the Need," The Nation, July 25-August l]. In short,'the
time seems ripe for a return to the bad old days.when "na-
tional security" justified covering up murder, torture and -
covert actions against foreign governments.
But there is a- positive aspect to the libel suits filed by
Phillips: they provide a golden. opportunity for a thorough
probe of all facets of his twenty-five-year C.I.A. career,
which included service in eight countries. He will have to
answer detailed pretrial interrogatories prepared by Freed.
and his lawyers, Melvin Wulf and former U.S. Attorney
General Ramsey Clark. In order to establish the truth of
Freed's charges, the defense counsels will seek to establish
what role, if any, Phillips played in organizing the coup that
overthrew the Allende government, in recruiting anti-Castro
Cuban exiles for dirty tricks and in planning clandestine
operations throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Should Phillips refuse to answer because of the oath not
to discuss C.I.A. operations that all its employees must
take, he will be unable to proceed with his suit. Should he
respond to- the interrogatories, his answers will provide
students of intelligence operations with a mother lode of in-
formation. Conspiracy buffs like Freed will have their suspi-
cions confirmed or denied by a source with firsthand
knowledge of C.I.A. 'operations in Cuba, Chile, Guatemala
and many other places at home and abroad.
The tactics employed by the former superspy and his at-
torney, James Bierbower, are worthy of note. They did not
name the publisher of Death in Washington as a defendant,
as is customary in libel actions. Clark speculates that by us-
ing the precedent established by the Supreme Court in the
case of former C.I.A. agent Frank Snepp-that the earnings
of an author who violates his secrecy oath may be im-
pounded-Phillips hopes to make writers and researchers
bear the entire burden of defending themselves and to
under certain the right to kill. so their deprive them of any heln'from their publishers.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/05/25: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100140068-1