EX-CIA OFFICER'S NEW BOOK BARES NO SECRETS, EDITOR SAYS

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP81M00980R000400040007-7
Release Decision: 
RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
December 15, 2016
Document Release Date: 
June 8, 2004
Sequence Number: 
7
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
September 25, 1978
Content Type: 
NSPR
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PDF icon CIA-RDP81M00980R000400040007-7.pdf170.28 KB
Body: 
Ap,Prgved For RgJea a 2004107/08: CIA-RDP81 M00980R00040004000,,7-7 ?lonclay, September 25, 197 8 THE WASHINGTON POST are~I\'o Sec.reres! ts, Editor: Says By Charles R. Babcock The department's legal basis for at, Wolf said he checked the names wathinctonPo,tStaff Writer tacking the book could be severely 'in State Department biographic re- The forthcoming book, by former undermined if the names in it are gisters and diplomatic lists before in. Central Intelligence Agency officer publicly available and collected by eluding them in. the book, and deleted Philip Agee is actually a compilation Wolf rather than Agee. :Wolf says more than 100 navies he wasn't sure of previously published articles and he has never been a CIA officer and of For the past few years researchers a list of alleged CIA operatives thus is under no obligation to clear gleaned from public documents,' ac? a work with the agency, as Agee have used clues in. a diplomatic bI cording to co-editor Louis Wolf. would be. graphies to expose the cover of CIA ""There's nothing re classified in it," Officials at CIA and Justice appar? reference b o stooks oks have not beeot beefs. The bn avail'. Wolf, a free-lance journalist. 'said ently have not seen a copy of the able to th public since this practice in a recent interview. "The. CIA is book. But copies of page proofs made began. trying to claim the identity of its available to The Washington Post CIA spokesman bale Peterson said personnel is classified. But they've seem to back up Wolf's contention. he wasn't sure how the new informa- been publishing, their names for 30. The first,'' 318-page section is an tion about the book would affect the ears." anthology of articles, including two legal positions being considered to The Justice` Department has been' from The Post, describing CIA tech- stop it. "Until we. see that list we investigating the possibility of seek- piques or operations: can't say much about it," he said ing a civil. injunction or bringing; - Wolf said that "from 70 to 90 per- "We don't know, the basis of their espionage charges in an effort to cent"' of the more than 700 names information or how accurate it is." Work: The CIA in Western Europe." to, the book have been identified The book is about to be mailed to previously as intelligence officers distributors, according to publisher 'based in U.S. embassies in Western Lyle Stuart. Europe they have not . decided whether they can take any action against the book. After much deliberation, the depart- ment announced last year. that, it would not move against Agee. for, Welch had' declined agency suggestions an earlier book, "Inside the Company:,,,," that he not move into the station chief's CIA Diary," which disclosed names of,. home in Athens because it was so well-. agents. . According to Agee, in an articl re- printed in the latest book, and Wolf; Publisher Stuart said in a recent in- in the interview, they want to expose about the book last year by Wolf and names of American intelligence agents later met Agee in Jamaica to discuss so people overseas will be alerted to the the project. , operatives' diplomatic "masquerade.` In "I was interested in their motiva! that case, they said, the agency might tion," he said. "I didn't want to do a be forced to recall the officers, to Wash- book by KGB [Soviet '.intelligence] ington.. agents." Despite what appear to be implied' Stuart said he first heard from the threats of violence against CIA agents CIA on May 31, when general counsel in Agee's article, Wolf insisted that Anthony A. Lapham wrote him asking harming agents is not their goaL He about the' book. A few days earlier, and the book take pains to defend Stuart ' said, he had passed around a against what he calls the agency's "ma-' blurb at a publishers' convention, men- nipulation"'of the media in the 1975 tioning'that Agee was involved. - 11 assassination of the CIA's ,'Athens station chief, Richard S. Welch. Welch had been identified as, a CIA STAT If that sells as expected, he WIT'. soon put out a' $10 paperback version he added.. r . Wolf said the editors' $3,000 ad- vance and any future royalties will go to C.I. Publications Inc., a nonprofit group in Washington that pats out a Covert Action Information Bulletin with the goal of continually.,' exposing CIA officers. Stuart. said he had distributed 13 .copies of the book's page proofs here and abroad-"just in case" the Justice Department tries to stop publication. Chad Leader Visits China Agence Prance?PresSe PEKING-Visiting Chad President Felix Malloum has left 'by train for a tour of the Chinese provinces after speaking out'against "hegemonism" in Africa,. a veiled attack, on Soviet policy, there: The original printing of 3,000 copies of the 700-page, $24.95 book is now being bound and should be in distrib- agent in CounterSpy, an anti-CIA miga?';.;. utors" hands in a few weeks, Stuart tine. But it was later reported 'that said. Approved For Release 2004/07/08 : CIA-RDP81 M00980R000400040007-7