10.26.06
The Spy In Seattle
On Monday, Oct. 23, 2006, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (a sad pale shadow of its former self) ran a front-page, above-the-fold article with large color photo of none other than 1970s CIA figure Edwin P. Wilson.
“Former CIA spy branded a traitor wants to clear his name” by Tracy Johnson is a portrait of Wilson today, released in 2004 from the maximum security prison at Marion, IL, the asshole of the solitary confinement prison system. A Federal judge decreed that the government had knowingly withheld vital evidence damaging to their case and, worse, presented false testimony. Reporter Johnson traces Wilson’s impossible-but-true history, while following him around his Seattle office and his home somewhere around Edmonds.
Surrounded by great stacks of boxed documents, Edwin Wilson seeks to clear his name through lawsuits against individuals in the CIA that he says know the truth about Wilson’s relationship with the Agency. This is an important point, of course, because Wilson was sentenced to national security prison for trading arms with the Libyans, which was indeed a very serious crime at the time. However, Wilson has maintained he was making the deals with the approval and even encouragement of the CIA, in an effort to gain more intelligence inside the network. The US government has always steadfastly disavowed any such sanction. Evidently, the judge in 2004 saw it a little differently.
As I say, Wilson’s story is a complicated one. In addition to the arms trading and espionage, he has also been convicted of paying to hire a hit man to kill a prosecuter and others involved in his case. The key payment to the hit man was actually handed over by one of Wilson’s sons. He, too, was convicted and sentenced to prison, though he was later released. According to Johnson’s account, the two have not been in touch since the trial.
And even that is only the tip of the ice berg.
