A Drop of Treason

Stevenson, Jonathan. A Drop of Treason: Phillip Agee and His Exposure of the CIA. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press: 2021. 328 Pages. $27.50

The U.S. Intelligence Community in the mid-1970s was rife with investigations by Congress, the press, and exposé’s biographies written by former intelligence operatives. Phillip Agee wrote Inside the Company: CIA Diary after he left the CIA. The book chronicled CIA operations in Latin America and soon become one of the top reads for students in intelligence studies programs worldwide. Jonathan Stevenson is an editor at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and was previously professor of strategic studies at the U.S. Naval War in his new book looks at Agee from his early years in a devout Catholic family, attending Notre Dame University, joining the CIA, and the decades after leaving the agency as a “stateless” man.

Phillip Agee and fellow CIA officer Victor Marchetti left the CIA within months of each other, both were disillusioned with CIA operations conducted overseas and U.S. foreign policy. Both wrote exposés that exposed operations and named names of CIA officers and foreign agents. However, Stevenson points out “Agee was certainly the only publicly disaffected American intelligence officer to confront the CIA on full-fledged ideological grounds and to oppose American Strategy and foreign policy on a wholesale basis.”

After authoring the book Inside the Company, Agee remained what Steven called Agee “a public pest” after having the U.S. State Department denied him a U.S. passport Agee spent his years in Europe and Latin America writing and supporting governments that were counter to the established U.S. foreign policy. The CIA often considered him to be under the control of either the Soviet Union’s KGB or Cuban Intelligence. His work became the foundation for the U.S. Congress to pass the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 or as it was known in the Intelligence Community as the “anti-Agee Act” which makes the disclosure of intelligence officers’ identities unlawful.

Stevenson’s work is professionally researched and documented he leads the reader through many of the tumultuous periods of U.S. foreign policy such as the Iran-Contra Affair as well as Agee personal issues with the U.S. and foreign governments. His writing is well balanced and makes for an enjoyable read for both the historian and the intelligence aficionado. I highly recommend A Drop of Treason to anyone interested in the U.S Intelligence Community.

This is the first biography of Philip Agee, a CIA operative in the 1950's and 60's who worked to support several authoritarian regimes as part of his job. Name a linchpin hotspot during those years, and he was probably there. However, Agee reached a point where he could no long square this work with his conscience and he resigned from intelligence work. He went public about what he had been doing for the U.S. government and, most significantly, revealed the identities of agents and others who had worked undercover for the CIA. There is still controversy over whether many of these people were later murdered as a result, but there is no doubt that careers were ruined.
This book is on the academic side and for readers who have been following the life cycles of the CIA, this book will definitely fill in some important gaps in what has been written about. Agee was a colorful character, and this book does his story justice.