David Atlee Phillips

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David Atlee Phillips (October 31, 1922–July 7, 1988) was a Central Intelligence Agency officer for 25 years, one of a handful of people to receive the Career Intelligence Medal. In 1975 he founded the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO), an alumni association comprising intelligence officers from all services.

Phillips joined the CIA as a part-time agent in 1950 in Chile, where he owned and edited "The South Pacific Mail", an English-language newspaper that circulated throughout South America and several islands in the Pacific. He became a full-time operative in 1954 and rose through the ranks to intelligence officer, chief of station and eventually chief of all operations in the Western hemisphere, serving primarily in Latin America, including Cuba, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic.

Phillips established his ties to the intelligence community during World War II, when as a prisoner of war in Germany he became a member of an escape committee, serving until his own escape.

During the 1970s the intelligence community was rocked by a number of leaks and embarrassing revelations. Phillips took early retirement in order to respond in public. The former officer stated that he felt intelligence communities should be kept from committing excesses, but not undermined or destroyed. Although much attacked at a time when many people called for the dismantlement of the CIA, Phillips toured the world to speak out in favor of the need for a strong intelligence community. He was subsequently himself accused of being a participant in the John F. Kennedy and Orlando Letelier assassinations. Philips successfully sued some publications for libel, retractions were issued and monetary damages were awarded. Phillips donated these proceeds to AFIO for the purpose of creating a legal defense fund for American intelligence officers who felt they were the victims of libel.

The accusations against Phillips noted the fact that he was the officer in charge of the CIA's Mexico City station when Lee Harvey Oswald visited the city.

Some researchers claim Phillips used the alias "Maurice Bishop" (not to be confused with the former prime minister of Grenada, Maurice Bishop). He used the pseudonym whilst working with Alpha 66, an organization of anti-Castro Cubans. Alpha 66's founder, Antonio Veciana, claimed that during one of his meetings with "Bishop", Lee Harvey Oswald was also in attendance. HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi believed Phillips was Bishop. In the HSCA's report, it stated:

"The committee suspected that Veciana was lying when he denied that the retired CIA officer was Bishop. The committee recognized that Veciana had an interest in renewing his anti-Castro operations that might have led him to protect the officer from exposure as Bishop so they could work together again. For his part, the retired officer aroused the committee's suspicion when he told the committee he did not recognize Veciana as the founder of Alpha 66, especially since the officer had once been deeply involved in Agency anti-Castro operations. Further, a former CIA case officer who was assigned from September 1960 to November 1962 to the JM/WAVE station in Miami told the committee that the retired officer had in fact used the alias, Maurice Bishop. The committee also interviewed a former assistant of the retired officer but he could not recall his former superior ever having used the name or having been referred to as Bishop." (HSCA Report, page 136, footnote 23)

The report went on to dismiss Veciana's testimony:

"In the absence of corroboration or independent substantiation, the committee could not, therefore, credit Veciana's story" (page 137)

Phillips wrote and lectured frequently on intelligence matters. He authored five books, including his CIA memoir "The Night Watch", "Careers in Secret Operations" and spy novel called "The Carlos Contract".

In a deathbed statement [1] released in 2007, Watergate figure and CIA officer Howard Hunt names Phillips as one of the participants in the JFK assassination.

[edit] See also

• Bay of Pigs invasion (1961)
• E. Howard Hunt (1918–2007)
• Operation 40
• Felix Rodriguez (b.1941–)
• Richard Bissell (1909–1994)
• Frank Sturgis (1924–1993)
• Guillermo Hernández-Cartaya (b.1932–)
• Porter Goss (b.1938–)
• Barry Seal (1939–1986)
• Zapata Corporation
• Watergate scandal (1972)

[edit] Bibliography

• Phillips, David Atlee (1977). The Night Watch: 25 Years of Peculiar Service. New York: Atheneum. ISBN 0689107544. OCLC 2424448. 
• Phillips, David Atlee (1978). The Carlos contract : a novel of international terrorism. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0025961101. OCLC 4135781. 
• Phillips, David Atlee (1979). The Great Texas Murder Trials: A Compelling Account of the Sensational T. Cullen Davis Case. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0025961500. OCLC 4907946. 
• Phillips, David Atlee (1984). Careers in Secret Operations: How to be a Federal Intelligence Officer. Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America. ISBN 0890936536. OCLC 11316169. 

[edit] External links

• Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives

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