Philip Agee, former CIA case officer and traitor to America died yesterday in Havana.

Agee outed dozens of CIA agents and covert operations in the 1970's, earning high praise from the left at the time and leading to the passage of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 - a controversial measure rabidly opposed by liberals in the United States.

In a flip flop, the left then embraced the act in order to prosecute Scooter Libby. We don't know where they will be tomorrow on the issue but that's OK - they don't either. 

Although it was never proven, it is believed that Agee was responsible for the death of the Athens station chief for the CIA. In fact, Agee fought most of the last year's of his life to have any mention of that incident stricken from the public record, going to his grave saying he had nothing to do with the operative's death. 

Many think otherwise.

Here's an excerpt from this somewhat misleading obit in the New York Times:

 

Despite its political viewpoint, “CIA Diary” is considered by some agency veterans to offer an accurate account of the work of a case officer. In a talk at Harvard last year, Michael Sulick, now head of the C.I.A.’s clandestine service, recommended Mr. Agee’s book as “an excellent reflection of the day-to-day life of an officer, until he starts going bad, and then of course it’s totally untrue.”

Oleg D. Kalugin, a former K.G.B. general who now lives outside Washington, said Mr. Agee approached Soviet intelligence in Mexico in the early 1970s but was rejected by an officer who thought he was a plant. He then approached Cuban intelligence, supplying details of C.I.A. operations in Latin America that were passed on to the K.G.B.

“He was a valuable source,” Mr. Kalugin said.