-Caveat Lector-

from:
http://jya.com/cia-v-snepp.htm
<A HREF="http://jya.com/cia-v-snepp.htm">CIA vs. Snepp: Irreparable Harm</A>
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18 July 1999
Source: Hardcopy The New York Times Book Review, July 18, 1999. p. 12.



------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spy vs. Spies


The C.I.A. was unforgiving in its treatment of Frank Snepp, who dared to
write a book.
__________________________________

IRREPARABLE HARM
A Firsthand Account of How One Agent
Took On the CIA in an Epic Battle
Over Secrecy and Free Speech.
By Frank Snepp.
391 pp. New York:
Random House. $26.95.

__________________________________
By James Bamford

James Bamford, the author of "The Puzzle Palace," about the National
Security Agency, is completing a second book about the N.S.A.

IN the fall of 1977 two former officials of the Central Intelligence
Agency stood accused of violating their oaths, one for saying too little
and the other for saying too much. Like opposite poles of a magnet, they
came to symbolize the battle between the right and the left for control
of America's espionage empire. Richard Helms, a former Director of
Central Intelligence, was charged by the Justice Department with
deceiving Congress about the agency's role in the 1973 coup in Chile. To
the far left, he became the C.I.A.'s Darth Vader, personally responsible
for every evil deed since the agency's founding.

Frank Snepp, on the other hand, was sued by the Justice Department, on
behalf of the C.I.A., for writing a book about the fall of Saigon,
"Decent Interval," without the agency's permission. Although he included
no classified or sensitive information, the far right accused him of
exposing untold secrets and selling out the agency for money. The myths
surrounding Helms and Snepp continue down to today. But after more than
two decades of silence, both men are at last attempting to give their
own versions of events. Helms is currently working on his memoirs;
"Irreparable Harm" is Snepp's well-written, candid, modern version of
Kafka's "Trial."

As he explains in this memoir, Snepp believed that as long as he left
the C.I.A. and told the story of Saigon's final days based entirely on
unclassified materials, he would have no legal problems. After all,
other former operatives had done the same without facing any adverse
reaction. Joseph Burkholder Smith had recently completed "Portrait of a
Cold Warrior," and Miles Copeland had written "Without Cloak or Dagger"
without getting clearance. The former agent William F. Buckley Jr. (that
 William F. Buckley Jr.) has written for years without submitting his
writings to the C.I.A. But the timing was all wrong, and Snepp
compounded his problem by poking his thumb in the C.I.A.'s eye.

At the time, the agency was reeling from multiple blows. Congressional
investigations had hung out some of the C.I.A.'s dirtiest laundry for
everyone to see. Philip Agee, a former agent turned author turned
Marxist, exposed the names of scores of fellow agents in a book. Another
former agent, Victor Marchetti, unburdened himself of scores of secrets
in his own book.

Standing near such leaking gas pipes, Snepp lighted his match. "Decent
Interval" didn't just appear, it exploded onto the scene. The New York
Times gave the book page 1 coverage, and Snepp says that his appearance
on "60 Minutes" was the longest interview it had ever broadcast. The
indelible impression left in the public's mind was that Snepp had
torpedoed the agency with its own secrets. In fact, as the C.I.A. would
later admit in court, the book contained no secrets at all.

Unable to go after Snepp for unauthorized release of classified
information, the C.I.A. and the Justice Department instead sued him for
violating a clause in his original agency contract demanding
prepublication review. The goal, Snepp says, was to reduce him to penury
and seal his lips and fingers with legal superglue. In court, the
Government argued that Snepp should be stripped of all earnings from the
book -- virtually every penny he had made in the nearly two years it
took to write it -- as well as all future profits. At the same time, the
C.I.A. asked the court to impose a lifetime gag order on him, demanding
that he submit all writings -- articles, scripts, novels, speeches,
everything, true or fictional -- for prior censorship. The only
exceptions were cookbooks and treatises on gardening. The case went all
the way to the Supreme Court, but Snepp ultimately lost, sending him
into a financial and emotional tailspin from which he is only now
recovering. (Even this memoir had to be vetted before he could give it
to his editor.)

SADLY, while the C.I.A.'s attention was diverted to punishing a former
agent for an unclassified history of an old war, it was allowing real
secrets to disappear under its very nose. In other parts of the agency,
Larry Wu-Tai Chin was busy selling documents to China and William P.
Kampiles was handing over the operations manual for the agency's most
secret spy satellite to the Soviets: all this and more, while the
Government was sparing no expense to crush Snepp.

The C.I.A. may have won in court, but the public certainly lost. With
valuable resources wasted on authors instead of spies, security was
weakened rather than strengthened. And in "Decent Interval," Snepp
performed an enormous public service. By exposing the failed exit from
Saigon, which left so many loyal Vietnamese to be tortured, executed or
imprisoned, he offered a cautious warning to all Government officials.
Think twice about a cover-up: a budding author may be standing under the
cloak next to you.



------------------------------------------------------------------------



-----
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Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
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Kris

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