Turning Against the CIA: Whistleblowers During the ‘Time of Troubles’

Abstract

AbstractEdward Snowden is not the first – nor will he be the last – disgruntled US intelligence officer to spill the beans. Using newly declassified materials, private papers and interviews, this article explores how the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) dealt with whistleblowers and disillusioned staff in the 1970s, a period often described as the Agency's ‘Time of Troubles’. It will be argued that ugly revelations by former employees caused more distress to the CIA than disclosures that emerged in the press and on Capitol Hill. At Langley, there was genuine shock that supposedly trusted insiders would write tell‐it‐all books and betray the Agency's code of ‘never celebrate successes, never explain failures’. Focusing on the CIA's attempts to manage three intelligence apostates – Victor Marchetti, Phillip Agee and Frank Snepp – it will be shown that the Agency invariably made a rod for its own back. As well as ham‐fisted efforts to spy on them and steal manuscripts, the CIA constitutionally frogmarched certain whistleblowers off to court, provoking widespread criticism that it was an enemy of free speech. By looking at how the CIA responded to the challenge of leaks in the 1970s, this article places into long‐term perspective the contemporary struggle between intelligence agencies and rebellious insiders who use electronic media to promote transparency.