On Philip Agee and the History CovertAction Magazine: In-depth Interviews with Louis Wolf and Chris Agee

CovertAction Bulletin

Today we turn to Philip Agee, ex-CIA Case Officer from 1957 to 1969. After a series of short extraordinary excerpts from interviews with Philip Agee, featured in the classic documentary history of the CIA entitled “On Company Business," David Giglio goes in-depth with Louis Wolf and Chris Agee discussing Phil and the history of CovertAction Magazine.

Philip Agee was stationed in various parts of Latin America including Ecuador, Uruguay and Mexico throughout the 1960s. As one of the first ex-CIA whistleblowers to go public in 1975, Agee not only exposed the covert activities of the U.S. government but provided the critical analysis including political economy to contextualize the mechanics of U.S. imperialism.

In addition to writing his tell-all book in 1975 entitled CIA Diary: Inside the Company, where he named all the actual names and operations, Agee started CovertAction Magazine (originally named CovertAction Information Bulletin) in 1978 with Louis Wolf, William Schaap, Ellen Ray, James and Elsie Wilcott, William Kunstler, and Michael Ratner.

The Magazine was created in order to carry on the work of the preceding publication called CounterSpy, which had been shut down as a result of CIA harassment. Over the years, contributors to the Magazine have included critics of U.S. foreign policy such as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Philip Wheaton, Sean Gervasi and Christopher Hitchens.

By the printing of the second issue, eleven bookstores promoted the stapled newsletter. And by issue #3, the official library of the CIA had actually sent in its subscription request which was then posted on the cover. You can read these and all the back issues in the archives of CovertActionMagazine.com.

The publication became of interest to Congress in 1982 with the passage of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which made the practice of revealing the names of undercover officers illegal under U.S. law—even if derived from public unclassified sources.

Over the years, the magazine worked with and supported whistleblowers like John Stockwell, Ralph McGehee, David MacMichael, Jennifer Harbrury, Ambassador/Colonel Ann Wright, Christopher Simpson, and Wayne Madsen, publishing hundreds of articles on CIA covert operations and intelligence-related disclosures including undercover NSA and FBI operations in the U.S. and around the world.

When you think of the more recent whistleblowers including Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, John Kiriakou, Jeffrey Sterling, and Daniel Hale, we are talking about a long history of whistleblowers going back to Philip Agee, Daniel Ellsberg, Anthony Russo and more…

As covered in earlier episodes, CAM played a important role in the making of Oliver Stone’s JFK in the early 1990s. Ellen Ray and Bill Schaap encouraged, edited and published Jim Garrison’s book entitled “On the Trail of the Assassins.” They then handed it to Oliver Stone in an elevator at the Havana Film Festival in the late 80s and he was quickly convinced to make the film.

In 1992, with issue #43, the magazine was renamed as CovertAction Quarterly and won awards from organizations including Project Censored for stories like "Phi Beta Capitalism", about corporate influence on universities.

CovertAction Quarterly ceased publication of its print magazine in 2005 with issue #78, and later relaunched online as CovertAction Magazine in 2018.

Numerous articles from CovertAction Quarterly were collected in two anthologies, CovertAction: The Roots of Terrorism and Bioterror: Manufacturing Wars The American Way, both by Ellen Ray and Bill Schaap and published by Ocean Press in 2003.

Agee and Louis Wol

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