Philip Agee - The Laws of the Father Are Visited Upon the Son

[Cassandra]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-agee3oct03,1,6790747.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

" Fast-forward to today. The son of George and Barbara is now a sitting American president with a harsh, neo-imperialist agenda, including waging war to ensure U.S. control of Middle East oil.

In order to sell this war of choice as a war of necessity, the younger Bush concocts a pack of lies. But when former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV pokes a small hole in Bush's farrago of justifications, someone in the White House outs Wilson's wife as a CIA officer in retaliation, a clear attempt to ruin her career.

One has to wonder what Papa Bush thinks of this clear violation of his law in his own son's office. "

I didn't realize Agee was still alive. I'm sure he's glad he's lived to see this.

[paradisiac]

1. it's good to hear from Agee

kick :)

[Say_What]

2. He was on Democracy Now this week as well and I've seen articles

and interviews with him more lately than before. Interesting guy! I read in one of his interviews that he was not the first whistle blower, but he was probably the most damaging to the CIAs opts.

Here's the link to the Democracy Now interview, talks a bit about what his life is like today as well as the outing of Wilson's wife.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/02/159258

[eablair3]

5. he was on flashpoints the day before

was an excellent listen. it's available on-line:

http://www.flashpoints.net/

look for the Weds Oct 1 2003 show

[bemildred]

3. Thanks for posting this.

I was wondering about whether Poppy feels conflicted over this.
It's nice to hear from Mr. Agee again too.

[dkf]

4. Thanks for this.

I didn't know the story behind Agee, although I've heard his name alot lately.

Fascinating.

[Say_What]

6. Excerpts from Agee's book "CIA Diary Inside the Company"

Published in 1975... and he's written others since

<clips>

p37
... what the Agency does is ordered by the President and the NSC . The Agency neither makes decisions on policy nor acts on its own account. It is an instrument of the President.

... the question of Congressional monitoring of intelligence activities and of the Agency in particular. The problem resides in the National Security Act of 1947 and also in its amendment, the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949. These laws charged the DCI with protecting the 'sources and methods' of the US intelligence effort and also exempted the DCI and the Bureau of the Budget from reporting to Congress on the organization, function, personnel and expenditures of the CIA - whose budget is hidden in the budgets of other executive agencies. The DCI, in fact, can secretly spend whatever portion of the CIA budget he determines necessary, with no other accounting than his own signature. Such expenditures, free from review by Congress or the General Accounting Office or, in theory, by anyone outside the executive-branch, are called 'unvouchered funds'.

By passage of these laws Congress has sealed itself off from CIA activities, although four small sub-committees are informed periodically on important matters by the DCI. These are the Senate and House sub-committees of the Armed Services and Appropriations Committees, and the speeches of their principal spokesman, Senator Richard Russell, are required reading for the JOT'S.

There have been several times when ClA autonomy was threatened. The Hoover Commission Task Force on Intelligence Activities headed by General Mark Clark recommended in 1955 that a Congressional Watchdog Committee be established to oversee the CIA much as the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy watches over the AEC. The Clark Committee, in fact, did not believe the sub-committees of the Armed Services and Appropriations Committees were able to exercise effectively the Congressional monitoring function. However, the problem was corrected, according to the Agency position, when President Eisenhower, early in 1956, established his own appointative committee to oversee the Agency. This is the President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities, whose chairman is James R. Killian, President of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It can provide the kind of 'private citizen' monitoring of the Agency that Congress didn't want. Moreover ... the more Congress gets into the act the greater the danger of accidental revelation of secrets by indiscreet politicians. Established relationships with intelligence services of other countries, like Great Britain, might be complicated. The Congress was quite right at the beginning in giving up control - so much for them, their job is to appropriate the money.

p49
In addition to discovering ordinary state secrets, the CS is responsible for obtaining the most complete and accurate information possible on the global manifestations of Soviet imperialism, that is, on local communist parties and related political groups. The exceptions to the world-wide operating charter of the CS is the agreement among the US, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand whereby each has formally promised to abstain from secret operations of any kind within the territory of the others except with prior approval of the host government. The governments of all other nations, their internal political groups and their scientific, military and economic secrets are fair game.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA/CIA_Diary_Agee.html