Cuban Operations Chief David Atlee PHILLIPS

DAVID ATLEE PHILLIPS
He was born amidst nineteen twenty-two in the Texan city of Fort Worth and nearly two decades later attended multiple colleges. David joined the United States Army Air Forces in the course of nineteen forty-three and would depart the US to study in the Chilean city of Santiago. After learning Spanish with great proficiency Phillips created “The South Pacific Mail” newspaper in Chile and was using it for Agency purposes by nineteen fifty-two. He was assigned the code name FULMINATOR-1 and by this time Phillips was a key operator for the Agency in Chile. He supported CIA efforts amongst the nineteen fifty-four Agency backed overthrow of the democratic government of Guatemala during Operation PBSUCCESS. This foreign destabilization of a targeted regime included some other notable Agency employees related to later important historical events that include E. Howard Hunt, Anne Goodpasture, and Birch O'Neal.

Agency File Photo of DaVID Atlee Philiips

Phillips amid the later nineteen fifties was an operations officer within the Agency’s Cuba station in Havana. During nineteen sixty-one he was transferred to the Agency's Mexico City station and two years later Phillips was promoted to supervising the station's Cuban foreign intelligence efforts. He subsequently transfers to lead a station in the Dominican Republic during nineteen sixty-five and would eventually return to become Chief of Cuban Operations at CIA headquarters by nineteen sixty-nine. He became Chief of Western Hemisphere Division whilst the early nineteen seventies passed career and ended his Agency career leading the CIA’s Latin American Division in the course of nineteen seventy-five. Phillips following his retirement became a vocal advocate for the Agency and defended its varied illegal operations.