John A. Rizzo, who joined the CIA in 1976 and retired late last year as the agency's acting general counsel, has held preliminary discussions with William Morris, the large talent and literary agency. Historical topics Rizzo plans to write about will include Iran-Contra investigations in the 1980s, controversies in the 1990s over the CIA's use of "dirty assets" in Central America and elsewhere, and the George W. Bush administration's counterterrorism interrogation practices. A series of legal opinions, known as the "torture memos,"were explicitly couched as legal advice rendered from the Justice Department to a top CIA lawyer—John A. Rizzo.