From 1978 to 2005 one of the leading progressive print (Remember that word?) magazines in the world, dealing primarily with US foreign policy, the CIA/NSA/FBI, repression at home and abroad, and corporate crime. The magazine, initially called CovertAction Information Bulletin, regularly published the names and career histories around the globe of undercover CIA officers derived from careful research of open, public sources. This so infuriated the powers-that-be that Congress passed the Intelligence Identities Protection Act in 1982, which made the practice of revealing the name of an undercover officer illegal under US law. The law was a virtual bill of attainder — it is unconstitutional for Congress to enact legislation directed at a specific individual or organization. At the time, members of the House Intelligence Committee were telling journalists and lawyers that the legislation was aimed only at CovertAction Information Bulletin and its editors, but this was always said off the record and no one would confirm it on the record; although during the House debate Congressman William Young (R.-FL) declared: "What we're after today are the Philip Agees of the world." 12 Ironically, the law became the basis for the prosecution of George W. Bush special counsel Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, who outed CIA employee Valerie Plame.
Amongst the magazine's numerous contributors were Philip Agee, John Stockwell, Ralph McGehee, Ellen Ray, William Schaap, Louis Wolf, Michael Parenti, Noam Chomsky, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Diana Johnstone, Sean Gervasi, Philip Wheaton, Immanuel Wallerstein, Kathy Kelly, Tony Benn, Ramsey Clark, David MacMichael, Edward Herman, William Blum (Whatever happened to him?), Michel Chossudovsky, Marjorie Cohn, James Petras, Gregory Elich, and many other prominent progressive writers.
A recent Washington Post story states: "The private papers of Philip Agee, the disaffected CIA operative whose unauthorized publication of agency secrets 35 years ago was arguably far more damaging than anything WikiLeaks has produced, have been obtained by New York University, which plans to make them public next spring." 13
A partial Table of Contents for each of the issues can be found here.
Individual copies or the entire set of 78 issues (mostly original copies and about a dozen in quality photocopy format) are available for purchase: $3.00 per issue, 25 copies for $65.00, 50 for $115, or all 78 for $165, including postage in the United States. To place an order, write:
Louis Wolf
1500 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Room 732
Washington, DC 20005
... or e-mail louw7@live.com
