Open Letter by Ex-CIA Agent Philip Agee

Ex-Agent Names Names, Tells How It's Done: CIA in Portugal

by Philip Agee.

(Editors' note: Ex-CIA agent Philip Agee wrote the following open letter to warn the Portuguese people of CIA involvement in the recent upsurge of rightwing violence in Portugal. It has been shortened by LNS.

The author of INSIDE THE COMPANY: A CIA DIARY, Agee worked for the CIA in Latin America from the mid-fifties until 1969, when he resigned.)

Since the fall of fascism in Portugal, I have tried to follow developments and have twice visited your country. While my study of the visible signs of CIA intervention is still incomplete, there is good reason to alert you to what I have seen. These activities are similar to what I did in the CIA for more than 10 years during the 1950's and 60's.

The size of the overall U.S. government mission in Portugal is shocking, especially its heavy dominance by military personnel. The mission totals 280 persons of whom about 160 are Americans, with the rest being Portuguese employees. Of the Americans, 105 are military personnel assigned mainly to the Military Assistance Advisory Group, the office of the Defense Attache, and the COMIVERLANT (Iberian Peninsula-Atlantic) command of NATO.

Of the approximately 50 American civilians in the mission, about 10 are employees of the CIA. No less than 10 additional CIA functionaries are probably working in Lisbon and other cities, having been assigned ostensibly for temporary duties so that their presence is not included on embassy personnel lists, nor reported to the Portuguese foreign ministry.

One must also assume that additional CIA operations officers have been placed under cover in American military units in Portugal, where their experience in political operations — far superior to that of their military colleagues — will be most effective.

Without doubt, the CIA officers in other U.S. embassies, most likely in Madrid, Paris and London, have personnel assigned to Portuguese operations that are undertaken in those countries rather than in Portugal proper. The most sensitive operations of the CIA probably are occurring in other European cities rather than in Lisbon.

Who specifically are responsible for operations against Portugal? The CIA is only one of the various U.S. agencies working against the revolution, under the guidance of Ambassador Carlucci. Although he is not a CIA agent, Carlucci must carefully direct and coordinate all U.S. counterrevolutionary operations, including those of the military services.

Carlucci's top-level team includes: Herbert Okun, his minister/counselor and deputy chief of mission; John Morgan, the chief of the CIA; Adm. Frank Corley, chief of the Military Assistance Advisory Group; Col. Peter Blackley, chief of the Defense Attache Office; Charles Thomas, counselor for political affairs; and Navy Capt. James Lacey, senior U.S. military representative on the COMIVERLANT NATO command. Each of the U.S. Military units, along with CIA and State Department personnel, are responsible for one or more of the specific counterrevolutionary programs.

CIA Disinformation

What specifically is the CIA doing in Portugal? The first priority is to penetrate the Armed Forces Movement in order to collect information on its plans, its weaknesses and its internal struggles; to identify the so-called moderates and others who would be favorable to Western strategic interests. The CIA would use information collected from within the AFM for propaganda inside and outside Portugal designed to divide and weaken the AFM.

Other CIA tasks include: false documents and rumor campaigns, fomenting of strife, encouraging conflict and jealousy. Moderates are being assisted where possible in their efforts to restrain the pace of revolutionary development toward socialism. The final goal is for the so-called moderates to take control of the AFM and all Portuguese military institutions.

The U.S. military schools have trained over 3000 Portuguese military personnel since 1950. Detailed files have been accumulated on every one of them — their personalities, politics, likes and dislikes, strengths, weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Many of these will have already been selected as contacts to be developed within the Portuguese military establishment, with emphasis on developing close relations with as many AFM members as possible.

Significant efforts have already been made — and these, too, have failed to date — to strengthen Social Democratic and Christian Democratic political parties. The CIA's normal procedure is to maintain friendly relations (and often to give financial support) with leaders of "moderate" opposition political parties who are forced to live in exile. The purpose is to reap large benefits when such politicians return home. Often paid agents are infiltrated into these exile groups in order to obtain additional information.

The CIA may have intervened in the recent electoral campaign to assure that the results would "prove" that the majority of Portuguese favor a more "moderate" pace for the revolution. James Lawler, the CIA deputy chief of station in Lisbon, engaged in just such operations in Brazil in 1962 and in Chile in 1964 where many millions of dollars were spent by the CIA to promote the election of U.S. approved "moderates."

In trade unions, the CIA has also been unsuccessful so far, but obvious efforts continue. As in Italy and France after World War II, the CIA is trying to split the trade union movement by establishing an affiliate of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and by promoting ties between Portuguese industrial unions and the International Trade Secretariats.

The CIA is also using the Roman Catholic Church for its ends. Recently a reliable source in Washington told me that large amounts of money are going from the U.S. to the Catholic church for combating the revolution in Portugal. The church's opposition to the workers' control of Radio Renascena should alert us to the identity of interests between the church and American economic concerns.

Propaganda campaigns are central for all important CIA political operations. These campaigns prepare public opinion by creating fear, uncertainty, resentment, hostility, division and weakness. Newspapers, radio, television, wall painting, postering, fly sheets and falsified documents of all kinds — the CIA uses many different techniques. In Portugal these have had little success so far, mainly because workers have taken control of the public information media. But the CIA must continue to aid, in every possible way, the efforts of "moderate" political forces to establish and maintain media outlets that the CIA can use for placing its materials.

Outside Portugal the campaign to discredit the revolution is having success. In Europe and America we see the themes clearly: "The AFM has failed to follow the will of most Portuguese as reflected in the April elections . . . the Portuguese people have sadly 'lost' their freedom with the diminishing importance of the elected assembly . . . the press has 'lost' its freedom . . . Portugal needs 'stability' to solve its social and economic problems . . . the revolutionary leadership is inept and unable to stop the economic downturn. . . ."

These propaganda themes are preparing the U.S. and Western public opinion for acceptance of intervention and a strong rightwing military government. These themes present the usual false dilemma: Portugal will have either capitalist democracy or cruel, heartless communist dictatorship, with attendant dull, austere living conditions. There has, of course, been little comparison of Portugal today with the cruelty and hardships of capitalist economics under the former fascist political system.

Economic Warfare

As in the campaign against Chile, economic warfare is the key for cutting away public support from the revolutionary leadership. By withholding credits and other assistance from bilateral and multilateral commercial lending institutions, great hardships will befall the middle and working classes.

Private investment credits can be frozen, trading contracts delayed and cancelled and unemployment increased, while imperialist propaganda will place the blame on workers' demands and the government's weakness rather than on lending institutions and their deliberate policies of credit retention. The effects of these programs in Chile during the Allende administration are known to all.

In coming months we will probably see intensification of the CIA's operations to create fear, uncertainty, economic disruption, political division and the appearances of chaos. Political assassinations must be expected, along with bombings that can be "attributed" to the revolutionary left. Morgan, the head of CIA in Lisbon, learned these kinds of operations when he served in Brazil (1966-1969) and in Uruguay (1970-1973). The "death squads" that were established in those countries during the last decade must be anticipated and stopped before they flourish in Portugal.

Greater militancy by reactionary elements in the Catholic church must also be expected in their effort to undermine the revolution. As "moderate" electoral solutions become more and more remote, the CIA and its sister services will increasingly promote Chile-style "stability" as the only remaining way to "save" Portugal.

What can be done to defeat this intervention? Clearly the revolutionary process itself and the people's support and participation through organs of popular power is the strongest defense. Nevertheless, careful control must be maintained of all entries and exits of Portugal by U.S. citizens, both through the issuance of visas for diplomatic and official passports by Portuguese embassies and consulates and through immigration control.

Moreover, all "private" U.S. citizens must be monitored for possible CIA connections: businesspeople, tourists, professors, students and retired people. Once these people have been exposed, the Portuguese people themselves must be prepared to take the action needed to force the CIA people out of Portugal. The slogan "CIA Out," frequently heard at anti-U.S. demonstrations in Portugal, must become a reality.

Newsweek, August 25,1975. Haven't we been here before? American news media, recalling the McCarthy era, blame the "Red Menace" for the unrest in Portugal — faithfully reflecting propaganda themes generated by some of the same CIA operatives who helped destroy the Allende government in Chile, and are now fomenting political and economic chaos in Portugal.