WASHINGTON -- Former CIA Director William Colby has agreed to pay the government $10,000 to settle a dispute over publication of a book about the CIA without its advance approval, Justice Department officials said Thursday.
As a result, the department has agreed not to file suit against Colby.
The issue arose from last year's 6-3 landmark Supreme Court decision in which the court held that former CIA agents must give the CIA 'prepublication review' of anything they write for public consumption.
In that case, former CIA agent Frank Snepp had to forfeit his royalties from his book about the agency.
Deputy Attorney General Edward Schmults said the Colby settlement, signed Dec. 28, includes a pledge by Colby to abide in the future by secrecy agreements he signed in 1950 and 1958. In return for that and the $10,000 payment, the government will not press the matter further.
The agreement -- signed by Colby, his attorney and a government lawyer -- settled a dispute arising from the 1977 publication of his book, 'Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA.'
Schmults, acting attorney general in the absence of William French Smith, said CIA approval was required because Colby, as a former CIA employee, continued to be bound by the secrecy agreements after leaving the agency.
Assistant Attorney General J. Paul McGrath, head of the civil rights unit, said Colby sent copies of the manuscript to his publisher, Simon and Schuster, and to the CIA at the same time.
But, he said, the publisher issued the book before the manuscript was approved even though it was received with the understanding that final approval for publication was subject to CIA review.
The settlement agreement said Simon and Schuster also sent the original manuscript to a French publisher even though the CIA had not approved it yet.
McGrath said the CIA viewed the publication of the book under those circumstances as 'a breach of Colby's obligation' and asked the Justice Department to consider taking legal action against him.
Snepp, who also signed an agreement on prepublication review, wrote about working for the CIA in Saigon during the Vietnam War.
He published it without first submitting it to the CIA for review, which would have let the agency censor parts it did not want disclosed.
The government brought suit to enforce the agreement, urging that he forfeit to the government all profits and be forced to submit future writings for review.
'When a former CIA agent relies on his own judgment about what information is detrimental (to national security), he may reveal information that the CIA ... could have identified as harmful,' the majority wrote in an unsigned opinion.
In dissent in Snepp's case, Justice John Paul Stevens argued the CIA was trying to enforce 'a harsh restriction on an employee's freedom.' He also noted Snepp had not used classified material in the book.
Stevens accused the majority of creating 'a drastic new remedy ... to enforce a species of prior restraint on a citizen's right to criticize his government.'
