THE TRENCHCOATS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100390023-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 18, 2011
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: March 1, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/18 :CIA-RDP90-008068000100390023-3
~RTIC:~ APY3~=~
a~ Pace 5~~
he morning after the Re-
publican ek~ction victory,
Louis? Wolf went to work as
usual in the National Press
Building, a few blocks from
the White House. $leary-eyed
from the long election night;
Wolf bought coffee at the take-
out counter in the lobby and,'
with an armload of newspa-
pers, slipped into the elevator
crowded with reporters for the
five-floor ride to his office.
By four o'clock that after-
noon; the-?sli~n 40-year-old
man began pasting strips of
copy on layout' sheets for his
publication. On the strips were
names-names of Central In-
telligenve Agenry undercover
officers in American embas-
sies around,the world.
L.ou Wolf has been exposing
the identitiesof CIA agents for
about five years now. He and
his associates-Washington;
D.C., attoFney- William
Schaap aqd filmmaker Elten r~
Ray-have; with the help of renegade for- .
mer CIA agent Philip Agee, ripped the
;cover off more than 2,OOA officers in the
"pages of their journal, Covert Action In-
formotton BuQttin; and in two books: Dir-
tyWork L tht CIA in Western Europe and
Dirty Work tL? the CIA in Africa.
The EIA;,and now the Congress, has
labeled these four people everything from
traitors to Russian agentg. But for the past
five years, legislation to put~them out of
business has been stymied by a wobbly
congressional concern for. the First'
Amendment: and by revelations during
-the ~'70s of CIA misdeeds-dossiers on
American citizens, assassination at-
tempts, the set-up of the coup in Chile_
But now; times have changed. On the
congressional docket is the Intelligence
Identities Protection Act,.which would
make it a crime punishable by three years
in jail and a 510,000 fine to publish the
names of CIA personnel, even if the infor-
mation has been gathered from public
sources. ,. _. .. .:..~.-
Prospects for the bill's passage were
MOTHER JONES
Feb./P4arch 1981
favorable even in last years Democrat-
controlled Congress. They have been ad-
vanced immeasurably by the November
defeat of half a dozen key liberals and by
the rantings of groups like the Heritage
Foundation, demanding that Congress act
on "domestic terrorists." The bill's prob-
able passage this year wilt set the stage for
a classic First Amendment showdown
with unp;edicfable results. In the months
ahead, the Intelligence Identities Protec-
tion Act and the constitutional issues
raised by it-just what can journalists re-
vealabout the CIA-may prove an impor-
timt indicator of the Reagan administra-
lion's real interest in restricting free
speech and progressive political debate..
Bill Schaap put it succinctly: "For more
than a year now, we've been saying to the
press that there's no such thing as a bill
against us and not against you: 'And as
Schaap has pointed out again and again,
there are cleazly unconstitutiona{ aspects
to the act. Under the legislation, it would
be illegal not only to publish the names of
CIA personnel gathered from public
"Yeah," responded Ted
Kennedy, his eyes fixed on the
text of the legislation. The bill
stalled after passing the com-
miiteeand will have to be rein-
troduced inthe current session
of Congress. -
When "getting Agee" or
"getting" Covert Action Infor-
mation Bulletin becomes the
task, when it is paramount to
pass legislation aimed not at
restricting government infor-
mation but at restricting publi-
cation of information about
uncomfortable realities, then
we are faced with a constitutional threat
on a new scale. ~ .-
T he CIA has been gritting its teeth ~
over Covert Action Information Bul-
letin (and its predecessor, Counterspy, a
publication which continues under differ- `
ent management) for years, trying unsuc-
cessfully through a series of propaganda
maneuvers to rustle up widespread sup-
port~for jailing its editors. The problems
for the joumat began with the murder of
Richard Welch. _ ~ .
In December 1975, official Washington,
and especially the intelligence commun-
ity, was in a tumult. Nixon had been top-
pled. The Church Committee, the Rock-
efeller Commission and the press were
dragging CIA sketelons out of the closet
one by one: Cuba; the Cgngo; Chile; Bra-
zil; Guatemala; and Operations Phoenix,
MK-ULTRA and CHAOS. Assassina-
tionattempts, drag testing, mail op4nings, ~
break-ins. CIA efforts to move covertly i
into Angola were thwarted by intelligence
a en critics.
g ry.-- .- ~. ._
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/18 :CIA-RDP90-008068000100390023-3