Philip Agee

Philip Burnett Franklin Agee ( born July 19, 1935 in Tacoma Park, Florida; † January 7, 2008 in Havana ) was an American secret agent, author and tour operators. Agee was known for his public rejection of the CIA and by the criticism of their practices.

Life

Agee in 1956 with a degree from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana from. In 1957 he entered the service of the CIA, according to his own account of idealistic motives. He was appointed as an agent to Latin America. His first assignment was to provoke a rupture of diplomatic relations between Ecuador and Cuba.

In 1968 he was stationed in Mexico. The news from the Vietnam War and especially the Tlatelolco massacre shook him. The following year, he decided to leave the CIA.

In 1975 he published his book Inside the Company: CIA Diary (CIA Intern Diary 1956-1974. ). In it he denounced the practices of the CIA and was award names of secret agents of the public. The CIA tried to prevent the publication of the book, but it appeared in the UK, became a bestseller and translated into 27 languages ​​.

Philip Agee received death threats and was publicly accused of working for the KGB and to have caused the death of agent colleagues by the disclosure of their identity. He fled to England. The American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was able to convince the British government that Philip Agee was to blame for the death of two British secret agents, and thus enforce Agee's deportation from the United Kingdom in 1978. France and the Netherlands refused to accept the refugees. In his book, On the Run Agee described the story of his escape. 1979 bürgerten him from the United States and deprived him of the American passport. 1980 granted him the Republic Grenada, which was led by a left-wing government, asylum. In 1983 it came to the violent overthrow in Grenada by a more radical government. Subsequently, the U.S. occupied the country militarily and Philip Agee had to flee again. He found a new asylum in Sandinista Nicaragua.

In 1990 he married the German ballet dancer Giselle Roberge. Thus it came into the possession of a German passport. His two food points where ever he spent about half his time, were Hamburg and Havana. In 2000 he founded in Havana, an online travel agency called Cubalinda ( Beautiful Cuba). It organized trips to Cuba for U.S. citizens to travel despite the embargo against Cuba and the United States, despite the related ban on U.S. citizens to Cuba, wanted to visit this island.

Publications (selection)

• Philip Agee: Inside the Company: CIA Diary, Penguin, 1975, ISBN 978-0140040074. German translation: CIA internal. Diary 1956-1974, Attica Verlag, Hamburg 1979, and European Publishing House, 1981, ISBN 978-3-434-25116-3.

• German translation: The CIA in Western Europe, German Academic Publishers, 1981, ISBN 3476005992nd

• German translation ( by Matthias Fienbork ): On the Run, European publishing house, Hamburg 1994, ISBN 978-3-434-50036-0.

Literature and press reports

• Jean -Michel Caroit: Philip Agee, Le Monde, 14 January 2008, p 19 ( in French)
• Died: Philip Agee. In: The mirror. No. 3, 2008, p 142 (14 January 2008, online).
• Philip Agee in: texts: the RAF, pp. 512 - S. 516 ( Press Conference with Winslow Peck, Gary Thomas and Barton Osborn in Frankfurt am Main on 23 June 1976), published by Bo Cavefors, Malmö, October 1977, ISBN 91 - 504-0688 -X ( ISBN formally wrong )