Frank Snepp

Frank Snepp is a Peabody Award-winning investigative journalist, best-selling author, and a prominent whistleblower in American intelligence history. Snepp served as the chief analyst of North Vietnamese strategy for the Central Intelligence Agency in Saigon during the Vietnam War. For five of his eight years as a CIA officer, he worked as an interrogator, agent debriefer, and chief strategy analyst in the United States Embassy in Saigon, and was awarded the Intelligence Medal of Merit for his work. Turning down the traditional two-year assignment rotation, Snepp remained in-country, becoming one of the Saigon station's top experts in North Vietnamese strategy and psychology. Unusually for the agency, he was both a desk analyst and a field operative, running a key network of informants.

Snepp was present for the Fall of Saigon and was one of the last Americans to leave the U.S. Embassy before the city fell to the North Vietnamese. As the lead strategy analyst at the CIA station in Saigon, he interrogated top prisoners and intelligence sources, personally delivered the President of South Vietnam to his evacuation flight, and was among the last 17 CIA officers to be lifted off the roof of the U.S. Embassy. Angered by the mismanagement he witnessed, Snepp left the agency and wrote "Decent Interval," a book documenting the evacuation and his time in Saigon. "Decent Interval," his first best-selling memoir, is widely considered a definitive insider account of the fall of Vietnam.

The publication of "Decent Interval" set off a landmark legal battle. It was published without prior approval from the CIA Publications Review Board, and CIA Director Stansfield Turner pushed for Snepp to be sued. Since publication of the book could not be stopped under constitutional law forbidding prior restraint of the press, the CIA sued Snepp for breach of contract. The CIA won a court verdict against Snepp, with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that his book had caused "irreparable harm" to national security; the royalties from "Decent Interval"—amounting to $300,000—were surrendered to the CIA, and Snepp was required to clear all future publications with the agency. The case, U.S. v. Snepp, reshaped First Amendment doctrine, whistleblower protections, and press–government relations, and stands for the enforceability of government pre-publication review rules even when no national security secrets are at stake. Snepp later chronicled this ordeal in his second memoir, "Irreparable Harm," about his court battle with the CIA.

Following the Supreme Court decision, Snepp became an investigative journalist, contributing to publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Village Voice, and others. He held staff positions at ABC's "World News Tonight" and "20/20," where he helped break major headline stories. Snepp later reported and produced investigative reports for CBS and NBC outlets in Los Angeles, where his work earned multiple Emmys, Edward R. Murrow Awards, and a Peabody Award for an exposé about a lethal methane threat to 12,000 Los Angeles residents. He also served as consultant to the Manuel Noriega legal defense team and has appeared in more than 50 documentaries on national security, the CIA, and the Vietnam War.

As a visible commentator, Snepp has appeared in numerous documentaries about national security, the First Amendment, and the Vietnam War, including the early Stanley Karnow series for PBS, Michael McLear's "Ten Thousand Day War" with Peter Arnett, Rory Kennedy's "The Last Days of Vietnam," and Ken Burns' Vietnam series for PBS. In addition to his media work, Snepp has taught investigative journalism, media law, and political science at the University of Southern California and California State University. He has been honored by the Society of Professional Journalists with its First Amendment Award and by the CIA with the Medal of Merit. Snepp's career—spanning the spy wars of Vietnam, a landmark Supreme Court battle, and decades of investigative journalism—positions him as a leading voice on national security, government accountability, and the ongoing tension between secrecy and free speech.