CovertAction Quarterly


CovertAction Quarterly was an American journal in publication from 1978 to 2005, focused primarily on watching and reporting global covert operations. It is generally critical of the Central Intelligence Agency. CovertAction relaunched in May 2018 as CovertAction Magazine.

History and profile

The magazine was founded by former CIA officer turned agency critic Philip Agee, William Schaap, James and Elsie Wilcott, Ellen Ray, William Kunstler, Michael Ratner, and Lou Wolf in 1978. It was created in order to carry on the work of the preceding publication CounterSpy Magazine, which had been shut down as a result of CIA harassment. Contributors included well-known critics of US foreign policy such as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Michael Parenti.
By the printing of the second issue, it was carried in eleven bookstores.
The publication was targeted by Congress in 1982 with the passage of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which made the practice of revealing the name of an undercover officer illegal under U.S. law. The magazine was based in Washington DC.
In 1992, with the issue #43, the magazine was renamed as CovertAction Quarterly. In 1998, the magazine won an award from Project Censored for a story by Lawrence Soley in the titled , about corporate influence on universities.
Publication of CovertAction Quarterly ceased in 2005 with issue #78, only to be resurrected as CovertAction Magazine in 2018.
Several articles from CovertAction Quarterly were collected in two anthologies, CovertAction: The Roots of Terrorism and Bioterror: Manufacturing Wars The American Way, both published by Ocean Press in 2003.

Publications

Anthologies
Magazines