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Home , David Atlee Phillips

G6 SATURDAY, JULY 9, 1988 - • • OBITUARIES

soon began to cultivate me,' Mr. Phillips recalled in a 1975 inter- IA Operative, Defender view. At the time, the CIA paid him a $50-a-month retainer. P Tall and lean, with a jutting chin. Mr. Phillips was said to have em- David Phillips, 65, Dies bodied all the elements of the pop- ular conception of a spy. He was in the CIA originated in a talk he had By Bart Barnes Guatemala in 1954 when the leftist W macturtaton PnA Sun Wrger with his 15-year-old daughter a few dictator Jacabo Arbenz was over-

• . months earlier. He told her, as he thrown, and he assisted in the plan- David Atlee Phillips, 65, the Cen- had told four older children, that he ning of the ill-fated Bay of Pigs in- tral Intelligence Agency's former was not a businessman or a State vasion of in 1961. thief of Latin American and Carib- Department official, but, in fact, an His last CIA assignment as direc- bean operations who in retirement undercover intelligence officer. tor of Latin American and Carib- ?iecatne one of the agency's most vo- "But that's dirty," was her re- bean operations covered a period cal and public defenders, died of can- sponse. when the agency was hotly criti- :eer July 7 at his home in Bethesda. Once he retired, Mr. Phillips cized for its covert activities in ; Mr. Phillips was in the CIA's went on the college lecture circuit that preceded the overthrow ;clandestine service for 25 years and wrote a book about his CIA and death of President Salvador before he retired in 1975. His ca- years, "The Nightv,ratch: 25 Years Allende. 'reer included assignments as the of Peculiar Service? He was highly Mr. Phillips said after his retire- agency's station chief in Venezuela, critical of what he called "the kiss- ment that he warned his agents in brazil and the , and-tell boys," former CIA agents Chile four months before the Sept_ ;operation of a radio station on an who wrote books exposing agency 11, 1973, coup that it was likely to ',island off the coast of Cuba during secrets after retiring. occur. He told them to break off the early months of 's A native of Fort Worth, Mr. Phil- contact with people and groups 'rule, and undercover duty in Gua- lips attended the College of William planning the coup. .temala. City and Beirut. and Mary. He was an actor in New Mr. Phillips had been a perma- lie was the founder and past York before World War II. nent resident of the Washington :president of the Association of For- During the war, he served in the area since 1954. ;mei- Intelligence Officers, a group Army Air Forces as a nose gunner His marriage to Helen Phillips he organized upon his retirement to in a B24 that was shot down over ended in divorce. promote the idea that the United in 1944. Ile was held in a Survivors include his wife, Vir- States needs an intelligence service German prisoner-of-war camp, but ginia Phillips of Bethesda; three and the belief that the people who escaped and made his way back to children by his first marriage, work in it are responsible men and Allied lines. He was awarded a Pur- Christopher Phillips of Washington, - women doing responsible jobs for ple Heart. Maria Phillips of Brazil and David A. their country. After the war, he went to Chile, Phillips Jr. of Santa Fe, N.M.; one This came at a time when the where he purchased a debt-ridden son by his second marriage, Todd CIA was under fire for a variety of English language newspaper. Soon Phillips of Bethesda; three stepchil- Abuses, including charges of domes- afterward, he was recruited by the dren, Deborah Ahern of Bethesda, tic spying, and morale in the agency CIA. Bryan Ahern of Virginia Beach and was low. "I was to be a 'dangle.' Word was Wynne Ahern of San Francisco, and In Mr. Phillips' case, the decision to be leaked out in Chile that I was three grandchildren. A daughter by `in retire early and undertake a pub- chief of American intelligence his first marriage. Atlee Phillips, lic relations campaign on behalf of there. Sure enough, a KGB agent died in 1968.