Renegade CIA Officer Phillip Agee Calls Outing of Valerie Plame "Dirty Politics"

The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 made it a felony to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert government agent.

Many believe the law was passed in direct response to former CIA officer Philip Agee blowing the whistle on CIA dirty tricks in his book "Inside the Company: CIA Diary." George H.W. Bush, who was vice-president when the law was passed, said some of the criticism of the Agency undermined secret U.S. clandestine operations in foreign countries.

So seriously did the Bushes take the crime of exposing CIA operatives that Barbara Bush, in her memoirs, accused Agee of blowing the cover of the CIA Station Chief in Greece, Richard Welch, who was assassinated outside his Athens residence in 1975. Agee sued the former first lady and Mrs. Bush withdrew the statement from additional printings of her book. Still, at a celebration marking the fiftieth anniversary of the CIA, the elder Bush again singled out Agee in his remarks, calling him "a traitor to our country."

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