HOW MANY REPORTERS RELY ON PHILIP AGEE?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000100120010-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: September 26, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/12/23: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100120010-3
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26 September 1981
How Many Reporters
Rely on Philip Agee?
The Wall Street Journal in its August 21 issue
acknowledged that two viciously anti-American
publications were important sources for its huge
assault on the State Department's "White Paper"
on El Salvador (see September 5 HUMAN EVENTS).
Those two publications were John Kelly's
CounterSpy and Philip Agee's Covert Action
Information Bulletin.
Kelly's CounterSpy, aside from "exposing"
CIA agents abroad, has said this about the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan: "Although questions re-
main regarding how Afghan President Amin was
overthrown and replaced by Babrak'Karmal on
Dec. 27, 1979, one fact appears to be certain: The
main thrust of the U.S. government version of
events-that Soviet troops invaded' Afghanistan
and put Karmal in as their puppet-is pure propa-
ganda."
Agee's Covert Action Information Bulletin,
which was actually launched in 1978 in Havana,
had this to say in its first issue (July 1978): "We are.
confident that there will be sufficient subscribers to
make this publication a permanent weapon in the
fight against the CIA, the FBI, military intelligence
and all the other instruments of U.S. imperialist
oppression throughout the world."
In criticizing the Journal for appearing to rely on
such tainted, sources, we remarked: "And our 'l
hunch is that a lot of other major publications rely
on these same kinds of sources."
That hunch now seems to have been confirmed
by three co-editors of Agee's Covert Action Infor-
motion Bulletin,. Ellen- Ray, William H. Schaap .
and Louis Wolf. In a recent letter to the Washing-
ton Post, they- lashed out at a Post editorial for
condemning their activities of "exposing" CIA.
agents abroad a& "contemptible" and for suggest-
ing they were not honorable journalists._
But we are honorable journalists, they argued,
for. the Post's reporters-and, indeed, reporters
around the world-rely on them for stories and
scoops. .
"Your diatribe," they remarked, "only high-
lightsithe gaps between the editorial offices and the
reporters, for your people are among the large
number of working journalists from virtually all
the major printed and electronic media in the coun-
try who call upon us daily for help, research, and,
of all things, names of intelligence operatives in
connection with articles they are writing."
They are not "terrorists," as the Post contends,
for, "You may disagree with our-contention that
the United States-and especially. the CIA-is
responsible for more terrorism, more death and
destruction, over the past several decades than any
other single institution in the world, but you could
not read our publication without knowing that we
are opposed to violence and terrorism-and as
American citizens fighting hard against that for
which the CIA is responsible.
"Not one single person has been physically
harmed on account of what we do, while the CIA
has been responsible for literally millions of
deaths, in Chile, in Indonesia, in Laos, in South
Korea, in Guatemala, in Jamaica, to cite just a few
examples."
Yet it is this publication-with these remarkable.
views-which has become a major source for the.;
"large number of working journalists. Is it any
wonder that the anti-American and pro-Com-
munist viewpoint is so frequently presented in the
media?
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/12/23: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100120010-3