CounterSpy

Volume 1: issues 4&5

Volume 2: issue 1 /// issue 2 (partial) /// issue 2 (full) /// issue 3 /// issue 4

Volume 3: issue 1 /// issue 2 (Weisberg scan) /// NEW issue 2 (AltGov2 scan of a printed copy)

Volume 4: issue 1 /// issue 2 /// issue 3 /// issue 4

Volume 5: issue 1 /// issue 2 /// issue 3 /// issue 4

Volume 6: issue 1 /// issue 2 /// issue 3 /// issue 4

Volume 7: issue 1 /// issue 2 /// issue 3 /// issue 4

Volume 8: issue 1 /// issue 2 /// issue 3 /// issue 4

The legendary magazine CounterSpy deserves a much longer intro – and hopefully I’ll be able to post one soon – but for now the short version: From 1973 to 1984, CounterSpy published detailed, damning information about US covert activities (and, to a lesser extent, those of other countries, including Israel, Australia, and South Africa). It was most infamous for naming CIA station chiefs. The CIA loathed it and, it’s said, succeeded in undermining it. (In 1978 some of the people involved with CounterSpy created a similar magazine, CovertAction Information Bulletin, which then became CovertAction Quarterly and was published until 2005. It made a comeback as CovertAction Magazine in 2018.)

CIA has long collected copies of publications exposing its operations, and the CREST archive contains scanned photocopies of most issues of CounterSpy. (Printed copies are essentially impossible to find, even on the secondary/collectors’ market for rare books and magazines. Very few libraries have any copies.) Susan Maret dug through CREST and gathered every issue in there (21 out of the 32 that were published), then sent them along to AltGov2. I ran text recognition on them, so they’re now searchable. An additional six issues are from the Harold Weisberg Archive at Hood College, Frederick, MD, USA. UPDATE [March 5, 2019]: I’ve started scanning printed issues.