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Philip Agee Papers

Call Number

TAM.517

Dates

1948-2007, inclusive
; 1965-2000, bulk

Creator

Agee, Philip.
Agee, Giselle Roberge (Role: Donor)

Extent

21.25 Linear Feet in 19 record cartons, 1 manuscript box, 1 photograph box, 1 oversize flat box, 1 folder, and 2 Microsoft Word files.

Language of Materials

Materials are in mostly in English, with some materials in Spanish, and a small amount of materials in German, and other (principally European) languages.

Abstract

Philip Burnett Franklin Agee (1935–2008) was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) case officer and writer, best known as the author of Inside the Company: CIA Diary (1975), which identifed about 250 CIA officers, front companies and foreign agents then or previously working for the United States. Agee joined the CIA in 1957, and over the following decade had postings in Washington, D.C., Ecuador, Uruguay, and Mexico. After resigning from the Agency in 1968, he became a leading opponent of CIA practices. Exiled from the U.S., and expelled from Great Britain, he died in Cuba in January 2008. The collection contains: biographical materials, correspondence, datebooks, documents obtained under the FOIA Act, notably CIA documents, as well as FBI and State Department documents; legal materials from various cases in which Agee was the plaintiff; lectures and university teaching files; subject files, many relating to Latin American and other countries and to CIA activity in them, and some relating to his expulsion from Great Britain; published and unpublished writings by Agee; reviews of his work; and other writings about Agee.

Historical/Biographical Note

Philip Burnett Franklin Agee (July 19, 1935–January 7, 2008) was a United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) case officer and writer. He is best known as the author of Inside the Company: CIA Diary (1975), first published in Britain because of legal problems in the U.S., which identifed about 250 officers, front companies and foreign agents working for or cooperating with the United States. Agee joined the CIA in 1957, and over the following decade had postings in Washington, D.C., Ecuador, Uruguay, and Mexico. After resigning from the Agency in 1968, he became a leading opponent of CIA practices. Agee also wrote Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe (1978), Dirty Work: The CIA in Africa (1979), and a biography, On the Run (1987). Agee's work inspired the founding of the Covert Action Information Bulletin, for which he also wrote. He was exiled from the U.S., for revealing classified information, via the revocation of his passport by the U.S. Department of State in 1979 while he was abroad (upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1989). He was also pressured to leave Great Britain in 1977. He lectured throughout Western and Eastern Europe. Agee was also eventually expelled from Holland, France, West Germany, and Italy, and died in Cuba in January, 2008.

Agee was involved in several legal cases. Agee sued the United States Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, Department of State, and Department of Justice, seeking to obtain government documents under the Freedom of Information Act, and obtained numerous documents as a result of these complex legal proceedings that related to his former CIA employment, and to his investigative and writing activities. Agee also sued Barbara Bush,alleging that, in her Barbara Bush: Memoir (Scribner, 1994) she had falsely held him responsible for the death of Athens CIA Station Chief Richard Welch, assassinated in 1975. Agee also sued George Crile, Gust Avrakotos, Grove/Atlantic, the Atlantic Monthly Press, and Publishers Group West, claiming that Crile's book Charlie Wilson's War (Grove/Atlantic, 2003) falsely held him responsible for the death of Richard Welch.

Arrangement

Organized into eleven series:

Series I, Biographical and Memorabilia
Series II, Datebooks
Series III, Correspondence
Subseries: A. Alphabetical
Subseries B. Chronological
Subseries C. Foreign Languages
Series IV, Government Documents
Series V, Legal Cases and Documents
Subseries: A. Agee v. Barbara Bush
Subseries B. Agee v. Ceorge Crile, et. al.
Subseries C. Agee v. United States
Subseries D. Agee v. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, et. al.
Subseries E. Agee v. U.S. Dept. of State
Subseries F. Other Cases (Legal Documents from Cases of Interest to Agee)
Series VI, Subject Files
Subseries A. Countries: Latin America
Subseries B. Countries: Other
Subseries C. Expulsions
Subseries D. Individuals, Organizations, Topics
Series VII, University Lectures, Teaching and Research Files
Series VIII, Writings
Subseries: A. Published Writings
Subseries B. Unpublished Writings
Subseries C. Interviews
Subseries D. Speeches
Subseries E. Reviews of Agee's Writings
Subseries F. Writings about Agee
Subseries G. Writings by Others
Series IX, Oversized Clippings About Philip Agee
Series X, Audiocassettes
Series XI: Photographs

Arranged alphabetically, unless otherwise specified.

Scope and Contents

The collection contains: biographical materials, photographs, correspondence, detailed datebooks; (U.S.) government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) -- principally CIA documents, as well as FBI and State Department documents; legal materials from various cases in which Agee was the plaintiff; lectures and university teaching files in both paper and electronic format; subject files, many relating to Latin American and other countries and to the CIA's activities in relation to them, and some relating to his expulsion from Great Britain; writings by and about Agee; with clippings and clippings files throughout. The leading correspondent is Agee's attorney, Meliv L. Wulf; there is also correspondence with several publishers, with Noam Chomsky, Maurice Bishop, (revolutionary Prime Minister of Grenada from 1979-1983), Ilona Maria Lorenz (Fidel Castro's onetime lover, later hired by CIA to assassinate Castro), and publisher Lyle Stuart. The collection, in addition to documenting Agee's life, his career as a CIA agent and his subsequent activities to expose and oppose U.S. foreign intelligence activities and foreign policy goals, and legal cases in which he was involved, will also be of interest to the study of U.S. foreign intelligence activities and foreign policy, notably in relation to Latin America but also in Western Europe and elsewhere.

Conditions Governing Access

Materials are open without restrictions.

Conditions Governing Use

Any rights (including copyright and related rights to publicity and privacy) held by Phillip Agee were transferred to New York University in 2009 by Giselle Roberge-Agee. Permission to publish or reproduce materials in this collection must be secured from the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive. Please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu.

Preferred Citation

Identification of item, date; Phillip Agee Papers; TAM 517; box number; folder number; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Donated by Giselle Roberge Agee in 2009. The accession numbers associated with this collection are 2009.081 and 2011.064.

Audiovisual Access Policies and Procedures

Audiovisual materials have not been preserved and may not be available to researchers. Materials not yet digitized will need to have access copies made before they can be used. To request an access copy, or if you are unsure if an item has been digitized, please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

In subseries VI-C, researchers must use the folder containing the copies of the fragile original clippings.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

Advance notice is required for the use of computer records. Original physical digital media is restricted. Born-digital materials have not been transferred and may not be available to researchers. Researchers may request access copies. To request that material be transferred, or if you are unsure if material has been transferred, please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.

Collection processed by

Aniko Szucs and Peter Filardo

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-20 16:34:52 -0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: Description is written in: English, Latin script.

Processing Information

The order of the series, and their contents was for the most part imposed on the loosely or apparently unorganized original materials.

Photographs were separated from this collection during initial processing and were established as a separate collection, the Phillip Agee Photographs (PHOTOS 284). In 2014, the photograph collection was reincorporated into the Phillip Agee Papers.

Floppy disks were forensically imaged and analyzed. Microsoft Word documents from these images were migrated to .pdf format for access, and Apache OpenOffice .odt files were created for preservation.

Repository

Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10012