Our Spies and Theirs: The Real Donald Gregg

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Some of my favorite new heroes have emerged from within American intelligence agencies. I am thinking of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning—courageous people who were doing bad things to the world but who woke up, had the courage to admit their misdeeds, and told the rest of us what crimes the United States government was (and is) committing. Snowden and Manning have paid a very high price for their heroism.

In my own time as a young man, I was inspired by the example of Philip Agee, a CIA agent involved in more than a dozen countries who came clean and wrote a book naming names and exposing secret operations such as the overthrow of the government of Guyana. For his truth-telling, Agee was stripped of his American citizenship and forced to move to Sweden.

In 1972, I had been selected by antiwar activists in San Diego to represent the San Diego Convention Coalition to go to Paris for the World Assembly for the Peace and Independence of the Indochinese Peoples. Representatives from 82 countries participated in several days of meetings at the palace of Versailles outside Paris. The moment after I had arrived and checked into my hotel in Paris, a knock on my door revealed a young man slightly older then myself. He welcomed me to Paris and claimed to be part of the peace movement. I spoke with him without letting him into my room. As he left, he whispered to me that he could help me find interesting things to do in Paris.

Years later as I read Philip Agee's book, Inside the Company, I learned that Agee had been given a bugged typewriter that secretly transmitted to the CIA every word he wrote. (That was long before today’s more sophisticated wiretapping techniques in which government agencies know what you type on your computer or phone—even when it is encrypted, since they steal it as you type and before it is encoded). The typewriter given to Agee appears on the front cover of his book, and the CIA agent who gave it to him was Sal Farrar—the same person who had knocked on my door that day in Paris. Later, I requested and received portions of the CIA file on me. The heavily redacted pages revealed that the agency had been spying on me intensively. Although much of their “intelligence” was false, they accurately noted that I had averted a split in the American delegation at the antiwar conference in Versailles.

In Gwangju almost exactly one month ago, 31-year CIA man Donald Greg became the subject of scrutiny and debate. Some believe that he is a trustworthy source, and they invited him to speak at a U.N. conference about 518 in the belief that his reputation can be used to help prove that there were no North Koreans involved in the 1980 uprising. As a former high-ranking US government official, Gregg is thought to be a trustworthy informant. This past month, I have taken closer look at Gregg’s record, and it is much worse than I thought.

Few Gwangju citizens can forget that he was the sole representative of the American National Security Council in the infamous May 22 meeting at the White House that gave Chun Doo-hwan instructions to "restore order" in Gwangju—which led to the bloodletting on May 27, 1980. Besides the Korean blood on his hands, Donald Gregg was involved in the assassination of tens of thousands of civilians in Vietnam and Central America. Moreover, Gregg is a well-known and proven liar. An FBI polygraph test found that he lied to the US Congress at least six times. Thus, his reliability as a source of information is laughable.

Unlike Agee, Snowden, Manning or even Farrar, Gregg is the lowest of the low. His supervisory position in Operation Phoenix in Vietnam means he is responsible for the assassination of more than 26,000 civilian leaders who were killed by CIA operatives. The basic idea behind Operation Phoenix was to eliminate the middle strata of activists—those between the top leadership thought to be in Hanoi and the grass-roots guerrilla fighters who were defeating United States forces on the ground. Gregg supervised Felix Rodriguez, fresh from having had a hand in the assassination of Che Guevara. The last photo taken of Che when he was alive has Rodriguez standing next to him. We will never know if Rodriguez was the one who pulled the trigger to murder his wounded prisoner, but we do know that Rodriguez was there.

Felix Rodriguez poses with prisoner Che Guevara just before Che was murdered.

As Donald Gregg moved up the hierarchy of the American intelligence community, no doubt a reward for his murderous activities, he became a central player in the Iran Contra scandal. Along with his old friend Felix Rodriguez, Gregg specifically disobeyed US laws forbidding the government from sending arms to Nicaraguan counterrevolutionary death squads (known as the Contras) who had been involved in the murder of three Catholic nuns. In a memo written to National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane, Gregg admitted his plan was based upon his “anti-Vietcong operations in Vietnam from 1970-1972.” The resulting scandal severely damaged the Ronald Reagan presidency. Only when Reagan testified he could not remember the details of meetings in the White House was he let off the hook by Congress. Gregg, who had written the White House memo that started the whole Contra arms program, was summoned before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, after which an FBI polygraph test determined he lied at least six times to congressional investigators.

Few citizens in Gwangju know the history of the CIA's decades of murderous foreign operations. Elected presidents were assassinated, democratic governments overthrown, and thousands of civilians cold bloodily murdered. If you take the time to have a look at any of the books that detail these crimes of state terrorism, you will understand Donald Gregg’s place among history’s war criminals. Of course, all kinds of people have worked for the agency. Some who work there now may someday become courageous souls who tell all. But others, like Donald Gregg, not only perpetuate criminal atrocities, they then lie about their deeds—even to Congress.

For any organization associated with May 18 to grant Donald Gregg any legitimacy is to make a mockery of the reputation of the Gwangju Uprising—a shining example of democracy and peace. To preserve the purity and dignity of 518, Donald Gregg should be kept as far as possible from any association with the sacrifices and dignity of Gwangju citizens.