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7 ae kas) Ex-CIA agent details his activities in U.S. fi % Mew York Times Service NEW YORK — A forme: CIA agent has told the New York Times hew his work iy domestic spying grew from relatively minor liaison du- e . ties into complex intelli- gence gathering. By the time the agent, who insisted on the right to remain anonymous, left the CIA in 1972, he said his unit in New York was maintain- ing huge files on American radicals, antiwar professors and attorneys and others, he told the Times. He was involved in infil- tration of radical groups, attempts to convert radicals into CIA informers and col- lection of psychological pro- files on more than 40 top radicals, he sald. 4 ‘The former agent said Mew York City became a prime CIA domestic spyin target during the Nixon ad- ministration because it was considered a big training ground for radical activities in the United States. The agent, who spent more than four years in the late 1960s and early 1970s spying on radical groups in New York. said more than 25 CIA agents were as- signed to the city at the height of antiwar activity at Columbia University and elsewhere. The accnis were tightly controlled hy senior offi- cials in the New York office of the domestic operations Givisiun, a tittle-knowd domestic unit set up in 1964 ty the CiA in more than a qozen cities across the na- tion, the former intelligencé official said. 4 ’ The division's ostensible function then was legal: Te coordinate with the Ameri, van corporations supplyin “eover™ for CIA agents abroad and to aid in the in- terrogation of American iravelers after their return from foreign countries. The former agent’s de- scription of life as a domes- tic CIA spy was provided during a series of inter- yiews last week. The con- yact with the Times came after “publication last Sun day of the first account of he massive spying. The former agent said that his involvement began with the advent of the Black jPanther movement in 1967 and the increase of antiwatt dissent during the last - ymonths of the Johnson ad ministration. ‘‘And then it Started to snowball from there,” he said. The Times, working with details supplied by the for- mer agent, was able to veri- fy that he served as an un- dercover intelligence spy, although it was impossible to check all of his informa- don. t The former agent sail that if he was exposed he would be forced to publict deny any link to the agency. A high-ranking govern- ment intelligence official, informed of the story, said his description of day-to-day life as a domestic spy ffseemed a little bit faz qut.” But the official added that he was unable to deny any specific allegati pending a check of files. 3 The Times, quoting well- laced sources, reported ist Sunday that the CLA, had violated its charter by’ cunducting massive and idgal intelligence operations inside the United States. The former intelligence agent said the CIA had sup- plied him with “more than 40" psychological assess- ments of radical leaders during his spy career. High-ranking CIA offi- cials, including Richard Helms, the former director of the agency and now am- bassador to Iran, told Con- gress in the wake of the Watergate scandals that only two such assessments — done by psychiatrists working for the agency — have ever been prepared on Americans citizens. . “What we were trying Yo,” the former CIA agent said in an interview, “was o find out what the radicajs ere marketing and to learn if they had any new products. “They were a target com- pany and we were like an- other company in competi- tion. We were interested in heir executives and that’s thy we did the profiles, so we could learn what we'd J.ave to offer in order to buy them over to us.” ‘ The 197 legistation sct- ting up the CLA bars the agency from any internal security or police function inside the United States. ‘A number of well-it- farmed sources confirmed fat the bulk of the actual domestic spying throughout the United States was con- ducted by various offices of the domestic operations div- ision, initially assigned in the mid 1960s to such tasks as infiltrating agents inte various ethnic and emigrt: groups in Jarge cities. P| eg ft a . ) oe ee ee + ap: ~ teal ee we, wat