Frank Snepp

Frank Warren Snepp, III (born May 3, 1943) Snepp studied Elizabethan literature at Columbia University, graduating in 1965. Here Snepp worked as an analyst and counter-intelligence officer, coordinating agent networks and interrogation of captured enemy forces as well as preparing strategic estimates regarding the enemy.

Snepp was on hand for the Fall of Saigon and was one of the last Americans to leave the US Embassy, Saigon before the city fell to the North Vietnamese on April 30, 1975. Ironically, President Jimmy Carter permitted the lawsuit against Snepp at the same time he had proposed the creation of a special unit to provide protection for civil service whistle blowers. In a press conference, Carter said that Snepp did not qualify as a whistleblower as he did not "reveal anything that would lead to an improvement in our security apparatus or the protection of Americans' civil rights." Carter also claimed that Snepp had "revealed our nation's utmost secrets", a charge which was not part of the government's suit. Snepp described the court decision as a "ticking time-bomb" which exploded when the cigarette manufacturer Brown & Williamson used the precedent to force CBS not to air an interview with whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand.

Journalism (1980–present) In 1980, following the Supreme Court decision against him, Snepp became an investigative journalist, contributing to publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Village Voice and others.

Snepp sued KNBC-TV for age discrimination after he was dismissed from his job in 2012. A jury deadlocked in 2015, and the case was settled in March 2016.

Quotes "Disinformation is most effective in a very narrow context."

Christian Science Monitor, February 26, 1985

"We always leave the last war thinking we have all the answers, but we end up having more questions."

University of California, Irvine, May 12, 2005

Books Decent Interval: An Insider's Account of Saigon's Indecent End Told by the CIA's Chief Strategy Analyst in Vietnam by Frank Snepp (1977) Irreparable Harm: A Firsthand Account of How One Agent Took on the CIA in an Epic Battle Over Free Speech by Frank Snepp, with foreword by Anthony Lewis (1999)

Awards Intelligence Medal of Merit (16 December 1975) Emmy Award (1997) Peabody Award (2006)