Nation: Loosening Reins on the CIA

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A prime example of what concerns Moynihan and the Government is Philip Agee, who since quitting as a CIA officer in 1969 has made a career out of attacking the agency. Agee, who now lives in Hamburg, West Germany, has helped others publish lists of purported CIA agents. Only a month after a Greek newspaper in 1975 picked up the name of Richard Welch, CIA station chief in Greece, from one of these lists, he was assassinated.

Last week Government lawyers went to court to stop publication of Dirty Work 2,* concerning CIA activities in Africa, to which Agee contributed two essays. One argued that the CIA has been impeding African independence; the other attacked covert activities. The book lists names and addresses of some 700 alleged CIA undercover employees supposedly stationed in Africa. Angry Government officials maintain that many of those listed are diplomats who have nothing to do with the CIA, but whose lives may now be in jeopardy because they have now become targets for terrorists. To their astonishment, the Government lawyers learned at the hearing that the book was already published. Since mid-January, about 3,000 copies have been on sale across the country.