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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/David Atlee Phillips.md

@@ -52,6 +52,8 @@ On October 18 the station asked for "three .45 calibre machine guns (grease guns
 
 As head of the task force Phillips cabled the station on September 21, 1970, that "the first and fundamental task is to induce Frei to take action which will produce desired results," and on October 7 instructed the station chief, Henry Hecksher, who had argued against a coup, that his cables "should not contain analysis and argumentation but simply report on action taken." After Schneider was shot he and Broe cabled that if the agency's part were exposed "absolute denial will be the order of the day even with Ambassador and other embassy colleagues." He returned to Chilean operations as chief of the Western Hemisphere Division in June 1973. On September 11, as the coup was under way, he sent Kissinger a memorandum reporting that an officer of the group planning it had asked "if the U.S. government would come to the aid of the Chilean military if the situation became difficult." On October 3 he cabled Santiago that "Agency operational activities in Chile are now prime target for Congressional investigations" and that the agency "cannot assist Junta." He also described the financing of a "small network" of media outlets "instrumental in mounting a propaganda campaign to popularize the Junta's programs."[^6]
 
+Phillips gave his own account in 1977. "Early on the morning of October 22 a cable flashed into Langley from Santiago. General Rene Schneider, Allende's military chief and a strict constitutionalist, had been killed. I immediately assumed that CIA was involved somehow with the assassination, because the Santiago station had passed three machine guns the night before to a cabal of military officers who considered Schneider the principal stumbling block." When later reports said the killers had carried handguns and belonged to a group the agency had contacted and then dropped, he wrote: "Thank God, I said to myself, for at least that small favor." He went with Karamessines to tell Helms "that it was all over." He added: "when CIA backed a foreign group plotting against an incumbent regime, as in the case of the Dominican Republic when Trujillo was killed, or in Chile when General Schneider died, it was not always possible to put limits or on and off buttons on the cabal being dealt with."[^7]
+
 ### The Maurice Bishop Controversy
 
 Antonio Veciana founded Alpha 66, an aggressive anti-Castro exile organization, in 1962 at the direction of a CIA case officer he knew only as "Maurice Bishop." Veciana met with Bishop more than 100 times over approximately 13 years, from mid-1960 through mid-1973, at the conclusion of which Bishop paid Veciana $253,000 in cash. Bishop had directed Alpha 66's provocative attacks on Soviet ships in Cuban ports in 1963 - attacks Veciana understood were designed to prevent any diplomatic accommodation between Kennedy and the [[Soviet Union]].
@@ -73,9 +75,9 @@ HSCA chief counsel Robert Blakey stated the committee was "less than satisfied w
 Phillips retired from the CIA in 1975 as head of the Western Hemisphere Division at GS-18 rank, the highest CIA position not requiring executive appointment. That year he founded the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO), which became a platform for publicly defending the CIA against the reform pressures generated by the [[Church Committee]] investigations.
 
 ### The Libel Suits
-The writers [[Donald Freed]] and [[Fred Landis]], authors of *Death in Washington*, on the murder of [[Orlando Letelier]], held a press conference in Washington in 1980 with the journalist [[John Cummings]]. They alleged that Phillips and the [[Association of Former Intelligence Officers]] had been involved in the killing, and that Phillips had been Lee Harvey Oswald's case officer under the name Maurice Bishop. Phillips sued them, the publisher [[Lawrence Hill]], and [[William Pepper]] in the federal court in Washington (Civil Actions 81-1407 and 81-2578), asking more than 90 million dollars. The litigation was paid for in part by [[Challenge, Inc.]], "An Intelligence Officers' Legal Action Fund," which also supported the libel suit brought by three former embassy officials in Santiago against the makers of the film [[Missing (film)|Missing]], on the death of [[Charles Horman]].[^7]
+The writers [[Donald Freed]] and [[Fred Landis]], authors of *Death in Washington*, on the murder of [[Orlando Letelier]], held a press conference in Washington in 1980 with the journalist [[John Cummings]]. They alleged that Phillips and the [[Association of Former Intelligence Officers]] had been involved in the killing, and that Phillips had been Lee Harvey Oswald's case officer under the name Maurice Bishop. Phillips sued them, the publisher [[Lawrence Hill]], and [[William Pepper]] in the federal court in Washington (Civil Actions 81-1407 and 81-2578), asking more than 90 million dollars. The litigation was paid for in part by [[Challenge, Inc.]], "An Intelligence Officers' Legal Action Fund," which also supported the libel suit brought by three former embassy officials in Santiago against the makers of the film [[Missing (film)|Missing]], on the death of [[Charles Horman]].[^8]
 
-After almost five years four of the five defendants settled in February 1986 for an undisclosed sum. Pepper could not be found. The retraction filed with the court said the authors and publisher "had no intention of charging or suggesting that Mr. Phillips played any role in the assassination of Orlando Letelier, that he was an accessory before or after the fact of that murder, or that he had any connection with Lee Harvey Oswald." Phillips said: "I certainly am satisfied because I believe it is a vindication." Of his former employer he said: "I have a feeling that the reaction of the CIA to former agents who file lawsuits is that they consider them something, perhaps, a cut above a gun smuggler or a narcotics smuggler." At the same press conference he said he had examined photocopies of papers from Letelier's briefcase showing that Letelier "had been cooperating with the [[Dirección General de Inteligencia|Cuban DGI]] intelligence service." "They existed," he said, though the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] "has claimed none exist."[^7]
+After almost five years four of the five defendants settled in February 1986 for an undisclosed sum. Pepper could not be found. The retraction filed with the court said the authors and publisher "had no intention of charging or suggesting that Mr. Phillips played any role in the assassination of Orlando Letelier, that he was an accessory before or after the fact of that murder, or that he had any connection with Lee Harvey Oswald." Phillips said: "I certainly am satisfied because I believe it is a vindication." Of his former employer he said: "I have a feeling that the reaction of the CIA to former agents who file lawsuits is that they consider them something, perhaps, a cut above a gun smuggler or a narcotics smuggler." At the same press conference he said he had examined photocopies of papers from Letelier's briefcase showing that Letelier "had been cooperating with the [[Dirección General de Inteligencia|Cuban DGI]] intelligence service." "They existed," he said, though the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] "has claimed none exist."[^8]
 
 ### Later Statements and Death
 
@@ -95,4 +97,5 @@ In his 2017 memoir *Trained to Kill* (co-written with journalist Carlos Harrison
 [^4]: Central Intelligence Agency, cable to Santiago station, October 16, 1970, Secret, Eyes Only. National Security Archive document 23596. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/media/23596/ocr
 [^5]: Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders,* S. Rept. 94-465, 1975, and staff report, *Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973,* 1975.
 [^6]: Kornbluh, Peter. *The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability*. New Press, 2003, pp. 13, 31, 107, 112, 206-207, and note 14 at p. 510.
-[^7]: Challenge, Inc., press release, February 14, 1986, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP90-00806R000100200056-7; Bruske, Ed. "Libel Suit Settled," *The Washington Post,* February 17, 1986, CIA-RDP91-00587R000200890014-0; "CIA agent winner in Letelier case," *The Washington Times,* February 1986, CIA-RDP90-00552R000403680003-9.
+[^7]: Phillips, David Atlee. *The Night Watch: 25 Years of Peculiar Service*. Atheneum, 1977, pp. 223, 272.
+[^8]: Challenge, Inc., press release, February 14, 1986, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP90-00806R000100200056-7; Bruske, Ed. "Libel Suit Settled," *The Washington Post,* February 17, 1986, CIA-RDP91-00587R000200890014-0; "CIA agent winner in Letelier case," *The Washington Times,* February 1986, CIA-RDP90-00552R000403680003-9.