[lbo-talk] Agee, he dead

[Jerry Monaco]

When I was in high school I was the kind of kid who read a lot of spy novels.  It made me curious about the real world of spies. I already considered myself a socialist at 16 but I was still a too much a patriot to be a full fledged anti-imperialist.  I picked up Agee's book "Inside the Company" because it was about spying, not for its anti-imperialist content. What I read gave a face to imperial skulduggery as it was practiced.  Agee's book certainly did its job  with me.  I saw that secret intelligence agencies were not compatible with the basic principles of a (bourgeois) republic.  

During the Valerie Plame affair Agee was much on my mind, since the underlying law that may or may not have been violated of exposing a CIA agent to public view could have been called "Lex Anti-Agee." For me the Plame Affair provided two opportunities: exposing the hypocrisy of the Bush-Chaney clique, but more importantly exposing the anti-democratic nature of a law that essentially protects a secret society of brutal murderers and their support bureaus of intellectual clerks.  As far as I am concerned the name of every CIA agent should be published and posted in the squares, markets, and forums of all the world.  

Phillip Agee deserves credit for bringing light to one small part of a dark world.

Jerry 

On 1/10/08, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
> I met Agee in the 1990s, when he took advantage of his ambiguous legal
> situation and returned to the US for the first time in years, in order
> to attend a reunion of his college class at Notre Dame.  He was a
> charming and modest fellow who was surprised and pleased at how warmly
> his college classmates -- who came of age as he did, in the midst of the
> Cold War -- welcomed him.  Requiescat in pace. --CGE
>
> Doug Henwood wrote:
> > Guardian (London) - January 9, 2008
> > <http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2237937,00.html>
> >
> > Outspoken CIA agent Philip Agee dies
> >
> > Philip Agee, a former CIA agent who became a bitter critic of
> > Washington's Cuba policy, has died aged 72, Cuban state media
> > reported today.
> >
> > Agee quit the CIA in 1969 after 12 years, mainly working in Latin
> > America. He was later denounced as a traitor by George Bush Sr and
> > was threatened with death by his former colleagues.
> >
> > His famous 1975 book, Inside the Company: CIA Diary, cited alleged
> > CIA misdeeds against leftwingers in the region and included a 22-page
> > list of people he claimed were agency operatives.
> >
> > His US passport was revoked in 1979 because he was said to have
> > threatened national security. He eventually moved to Havana to open
> > up a travel site encouraging people to visit the island.
> >
> > Agee was reported to have died following surgery on an ulcer.
> >
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