Yuri Nosenko

[Tim Gratz]

Any investigation of the Kennedy assassination must consider the case of Yuri Nosenko, including the important issue whether he was a "bona fide" or a "dispatched" defector.

[Tim Gratz]

a.j. weberman's Nodule 3 contains an important discussion of the Nosenko case. It deserves a careful reading.

YURI NOSENKO, OSWALD AND THE U-2

In 1964 Yuri Nosenko was asked: "Wouldn't you have connected OSWALD'S coming from Finland with Anatoliy Golitsyn?"

A. No, no. It is not unusual.

Q. Why didn't the KGB fully debrief OSWALD on the U.S. Marine Corps, and particularly such things as American radar installations in Japan?

A. I think they didn't even know that he had been in Japan.

Q. Why didn't they find out? Ask him?

A. Nobody will go to speak to a person who is not normal. The KGB is frightened.

Q. What do you mean, frightened? That is the job of the KGB.

A. I don't mean frightened that way. The KGB is frightened because to talk to somebody like this, to get involved with him, will result in a big headache

Q. Didn't anybody ever sit down with this man and get his full biographic data? Ask him to write his life history, every place he ever lived, worked, everything he has done. If he was in the military service, when, what, where, everything?

A. Never. Nobody did.

Q. I can't believe it...This man could have spent five years of his life working for American intelligence. Maybe all the time he was in the Marines he was working with intelligence. And the KGB wouldn't know about it?

A. It wasn't done. He was never spoken to by any KGB officer in Moscow or Minsk.

The HSCA asked Yuri Nosenko: "Would the Soviet Union be interested in someone who was in the military and worked with radar equipment?"

A. It depends. If he was a corporal, private, no big interest. If he was an officer maybe they be interested.

Q. The fact that he worked with the equipment wouldn't be enough; they would want to know what his rank was?

A. No sir, it is not enough because they had sources.

Q. And in 1959 would the Soviet Union have been interested in someone who served as a radar operator on an air base where the U-2's took off and landed?

A. Yes, sir, it would be very interested.

Q. Is it your testimony that LEE HARVEY OSWALD, who had been a radar operator, and had worked on base from where the U-2 took off and landed, that he wasn't even interesting enough for the KGB to speak to him, to find out if he knew any of this information?

A. Mr. Klein, I understand your position, but we didn't know he had any connection with the U-2 flights. That is one thing.

The HSCA questioned Soviet Russia Division Chief, David Murphy, about Yuri Nosenko: "I did not believe that it would be possible for the Soviet Intelligence Services to have remained indifferent to the arrival in 1959 in Moscow of a former Marine radar operator who had served at what was an active U-2 operational base. I found that to be strange." Defector Peter Deryabin opined: "It is evident in the supplementary materials that even in his early meetings with U.S. Embassy personnel, OSWALD was ready to give any information on the Marines, etc. (including some 'special' type of information) to the Soviets; then why does the [CIA's] chronology apparently try to whitewash OSWALD by saying: 'When asked about his statement on October 1959 to the effect that he would willingly make available to the USSR that he had acquired as a radar operator for the Marine Corps, OSWALD replied that he had never been questioned and doubted he would have given such information if asked...It is the opinion of the undersigned that this whole paper was written in OSWALD'S defense."

THE NOSENKO INCUBUS

One of the most puzzling mysteries surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy revolved around the question of Yuri Nosenko's defection and bona fides. A CIA Staff member commented: "Once Nosenko is exposed as a KGB plant there will arise the danger that his information will be mirror read." Edward Petty: "The only time OSWALD became of really serious interest to CI/SIG was after the assassination. Nosenko came over claiming that he had seen the KGB's OSWALD file. He came over at precisely the right time, he defected within about 60 days of the Kennedy assassination. And so here you have a really fascinating coincidence; a KGBnik coming in with precisely the information needed about OSWALD at that particular time." Yuri Nosenko claimed OSWALD had no connection or contact with the KGB. Had Nosenko been dispatched by Moscow to cover up OSWALD'S contact with the KGB during the U-2 dump? Or was he bona fide and telling what he knew about OSWALD? Was he bona fide and lying about OSWALD? Or, as Edward Petty suggested, was he exposed to limited information on OSWALD then spooked into defecting?

GENEVA

Yuri Nosenko was born in the USSR in 1927, to Bolshevik parents. His father would become Nikita Khrushchev's Minister of Shipbuilding. Yuri Nosenko was a dedicated Communist. At age 18 he entered the International Relations Institute in Moscow. Upon graduation in 1951, he claimed he joined Soviet Naval Intelligence. By 1953 he was a KGB agent.

On June 5, 1962, while serving as a KGB Security Officer in Geneva, Yuri Nosenko approached the CIA for money and agreed to act as an agent-in-place. The CIA: "A current review of [Nosenko's] statements and remarks during his five contacts in 1962 indicate that his many errors, exaggerations, and actual lies were quite likely typical of a braggadocio element in the personality of Nosenko...Nosenko, during his five contacts in Geneva, made many statements which, in retrospect, were impossible and the investigation of which could only have raised certain questions concerning Nosenko:

(A) Nosenko claimed he personally was with Oleg M. Gribanov, Chief of SCD, during the recruitment pitch to (deleted). This was a lie and an interview with (deleted) with display of photograph would have disclosed that Nosenko did not participate.

( Nosenko was involved in the recruitment approach to Russell Langelle. This was a lie and Langelle was available for interview.

© Nosenko said he recruited (deleted) in Bulgaria. Actually Nosenko never met (deleted)."

NOSENKO VERSUS GOLITSYN

The CIA went on to list four other examples of Nosenko's lies, then stated: "In 1962 to 1963 a number of similarities were noted between information furnished by Nosenko and information which had been furnished by Anatoliy Golitsyn prior to June 1962. These similarities were quite striking and gave rise to certain suspicions of Nosenko because he provided information which the KGB already considered compromised as a result of the defection of Anatoliy Golitsyn. Certain of the similarities at the time could only be explained in terms of Nosenko being a dispatched agent. (A) Both furnished information in regard to (deleted)." The CIA supplied four more examples of KGB operations compromised by Anatoliy Golitsyn and mentioned by Nosenko. One of these dealt with the audio operations against the American Embassy. Anatoliy Golitsyn had previously supplied the CIA with this information.

Certain information supplied by Yuri Nosenko conflicted with information supplied by Anatoliy Golitsyn. For example, Anatoliy Golitsyn mentioned the attempted recruitment of an American Embassy, Moscow, code clerk during a train ride to Helsinki: "Yuri Nosenko, as Deputy Chief of the First Section specifically charged with work against code clerks, should have been aware of the November 1960 trip of Kosolapov to and from Helsinki. His lack of knowledge may or may not be explainable in terms of his other activities such as his trip to Cuba in November to December 1960."

Yuri Nosenko returned to the USSR, but being in the Second Chief Directorate, he said he knew the degree of coverage there was in Moscow and refused to have contact with the CIA there. He was sent back to Geneva in January 1964 for another disarmament conference. There, he told the CIA he wanted to defect to the West because he had received a recall telegram from Moscow. He later retracted this, and said that he invented it, because he was afraid the CIA would not let him defect. [Nosenko interview with Posner] Edward Petty: "I think Bagley got him to admit that he never got such a telegram."

YURI NOSENKO'S 1964 OSWALD STORY

Yuri Nosenko told the CIA he had helped manage the 1959 OSWALD defection case, when he was Deputy Chief of the Tourist Department and that OSWALD'S visa application in Helsinki was handled by Pereletov who had been in "the KGB's 2nd Department in Leningrad, and there he was dealing with tourists." Yuri Nosenko then stated: "KGB had no interest in OSWALD...OSWALD was regarded as mentally unstable." This was based on a report furnished to him and his associate Krupnov (Kim Georgiyevich) by Rimma Sherakova "who was an agent or operational contact of his." Yuri Nosenko mentioned Chelnokov, Gribanov, Bobkov, Sergey Mikhaylovich and Konstantin Nikitovich in connection with the OSWALD case. Yuri Nosenko: "There was no personal interview of OSWALD by KGB and no further attempt to establish his bona fides...No consideration was given to his possible KGB operational potential...There was, of course, the consideration that OSWALD might be an American Intelligence Agent, but no unusual measures were taken to investigate this possibility...without referral to higher authority, I decreed OSWALD should not be allowed to stay in Soviet Union." Yuri Nosenko implied that the request was not referred to the "CPSU or to any other Soviet Government agency." Yuri Nosenko stated that OSWALD had been advised at 9:00 a.m. on the morning of his suicide attempt that he would have to leave Russia: "Then he slashes his wrist at 10:00 a.m. The people at the hotel broke down the door to OSWALD'S hotel room and found him bleeding to death. And it is decided this kind of man would not be used by American intelligence. The KGB washed its hands of him...The KGB didn't want him in the Soviet Union and considered OSWALD as being not completely normal and not really very intelligent...After the suicide attempt, there was no attempt to debrief OSWALD because he was not an interesting person and was not normal...he was such a low level person that it was not thought that he would have information of value.

"Then the Soviet authorities decided to allow him to stay. The KGB had no choice. They must look on him. We didn't ask the 1st Department or the FCD because he is not an interesting person and is not normal. There were no microphones in any of OSWALD'S hotel rooms. It was not felt that he was of sufficient importance to justify the use of such techniques against him...We were getting no information. There were no such reports in the file...there was no record in the file that OSWALD had ever offered to give information on the U.S. Marine Corps or any matters to the Soviets...There was no physical or technical surveillance of OSWALD while he lived in Minsk. The OSWALD'S mail was monitored, but revealed nothing of interest." After the assassination, Yuri Nosenko, still in Moscow, was read a summary of OSWALD'S KGB file that concluded with the statement that in Minsk the KGB had attempted "to influence OSWALD in the right direction." Yuri Nosenko had also been present when OSWALD'S September 1963 request for a visa to the Soviet Union was denied, along with Turalin, Alekseyev, Chelnokov and Kovalenko. After the assassination, all KGB files from Minsk about OSWALD were flown to Moscow where it was discovered by Yuri Nosenko that the Minsk KGB had not taken any action with respect to OSWALD contrary to instructions from headquarters. Yuri Nosenko claimed repeatedly that the KGB had no contact with OSWALD whatsoever. OSWALD was never questioned about his past nor asked to write an autobiography.

THE CASE FOR YURI NOSENKO BEING DISPATCHED

TENNENT BAGLEY

In the U.S., Yuri Nosenko was handled by Tennent Harrington Bagley who discovered lies in Yuri Nosenko's story. Tennent Bagley was born in Annapolis, Maryland, on November 11, 1925, and came from a prominent Navy family. He served in World War II for three years in the U.S. Marine Corps then attended the University of Geneva, Switzerland, where he received a doctorate in political science. He served in the CIA from 1950 on, where he specialized in Soviet operations. After serving as a Case Officer in Austria, he was assigned to Switzerland in 1960. He'd known ANGLETON since 1961. From 1960 to 1962 Tennent Bagley was Deputy Chief, Soviet Russia, Clandestine Activities Section. Tennent Bagley, 37, held this position at the time of Yuri Nosenko's first Agency-contact in Geneva in 1962. In 1962 he became head of a section responsible for counter-intelligence against the Soviet intelligence services. In 1965 or 1966, he became Deputy Chief, Soviet Russia Division. He went to Europe as Brussels Chief of Station in 1967, and retired there in 1972. The HSCA called him as a witness. Tennent Bagley was convinced Yuri Nosenko was bogus for the following reasons:

(1) The CIA was unbelievably lucky to have found him. Tennent Bagley added, "the key word in that last sentence is 'unbelievably.'"

(2) There were contradictions in Yuri Nosenko's testimony that could not be explained by Yuri Nosenko's personality flaws or memory. According to Tennent Bagley, when he reviewed OSWALD'S KGB file, "Nosenko was already a willing secret collaborator of the CIA. Therefore he must have been alert when dealing with this matter of such obvious importance to the United States and to his own country...Nosenko told us some of these events only 10 weeks after they happened, so there wasn't time for them to become dim in his memory."

(3) "Ten years removed from this case I can still remember at least 20 clear cases of Nosenko's lying about KGB activity and about the career which gave him authority to tell of it..."

(4) The cases Nosenko revealed for the first time were useless.

(5) Tennent Bagley believed that the KGB had interviewed OSWALD: "Here was a young American, LEE HARVEY OSWALD, just out of the Marine Corps, already inside the USSR and going to great lengths to stay there and become a citizen. The KGB never bothered to talk to him, not even once, not even to get an idea whether he might be a CIA plant. Can this be true? Could we all be wrong in what we've heard about rigid Soviet security precautions and about their strict procedures and disciplines...? Of course not."

(6) Yuri Nosenko gave the CIA the location of several microphones in the American Embassy, Moscow. Tennent Bagley stated Anatoliy Golitsyn had given CIA the same information six months previous. Yuri Nosenko produced a list of microphones in the American Embassy, Moscow, from 1960 to 1961. He said, at great risk, he kept this document in a KGB safe he shared with two subordinates. Yuri Nosenko never plausibly explained the circumstances which prompted his retention of this list until 1964, when he produced it for the CIA in Geneva.

Anatoliy Golitsyn had provided, in the first months after his defection, information that led to: "the final uncovering of Kim Philby; to the first detection of several important penetrations of European governments; and pointers to serious penetrations of the United States Government." Tennent Bagley stated that Yuri Nosenko's information had all been previously compromised, citing the case of William John Vassall, an exposed KGB agent in the British Admiralty. Yuri Nosenko: "The KGB has now (1962) an agent in a high government position in London who provides most valuable information, some from NATO intelligence service conferences. The agent was recruited in Moscow in 1956 or 1957 on the basis of a homosexual compromise. After leaving Moscow he became an assistant to the Minister, or something like that, in the Admiralty. Yuri Nosenko learned of the agent's existence, not his identity. Anatoliy Golitsyn had earlier provided a lead to a KGB agent who was the source of Admiralty documents which Anatoliy Golitsyn had reviewed in KGB Headquarters. On the basis of that lead, British security authorities on June 11, 1962, passed to CIA a list of 20 suspects, including William John Vassall."

The Chief of Soviet Research, Counter-Intelligence, commented: "Yuri Nosenko is a KGB plant and may be publicly exposed as such sometime. The Agency's greatest contribution to the resolution of the questions at hand would be to break Yuri Nosenko and get the full story of how and why he was told to tell the story he did about OSWALD." [CIA FOIA 02911 7.28.64]

Tennent Bagley described himself as the principal opponent of Yuri Nosenko. The CIA produced "some penciled jotting...left carelessly in a highly secret file folder" in Tennent Bagley's handwriting which suggested "liquidation, drugging, or confinement in mental institutions" as means of breaking Yuri Nosenko. Tennent Bagley: "The fact that 'liquidation' was included revealed that they [the notes] were theoretical."

In a lengthy, top secret report released in 1994, [CIA TS No. 197124] Tennent Bagley stated: "Yuri Nosenko did not serve in the Naval RU in any of the capacities or at the places and times he claimed. Yuri Nosenko did not enter the KGB in the manner or at the time he claimed. Yuri Nosenko did not serve in the American Embassy Section throughout the 1953 to 1955 period as he claimed. During the period 1955 to 1960 he was neither a senior case officer in, nor Deputy Chief of, the Seventh Department, American/British Commonwealth Section. Yuri Nosenko was neither Deputy Chief of the American Embassy Section, nor a senior officer or supervisor in the Section during the period 1961 to 1962. The contradictions in Yuri Nosenko's accounts of his life and KGB service are so extensive as to make his claims as a whole unacceptable. Given the conclusion that Nosenko is not a bona fide defector, it is necessary to attempt to determine his true motives for contacting American Intelligence and for providing the information he has given..." Reasonable explanations advanced for Nosenko's misrepresentations ranged from "swindler posing as former KGB agent" to "mental case" to "dispatched KGB agent." Tennent Bagley: "Nosenko is a KGB officer who served in at least some of the components for some or all of the time periods that he claims, but who greatly exaggerated his positions, rank and access to information, to achieve greater status with American Intelligence. Because none of the above explanations is consistent with the data developed in interrogations and investigations, we are left with the hypothesis that Nosenko was dispatched by the KGB. While this explanation does not reconcile all these anomalies, none of them renders it untenable."

ANGLETON

ANGLETON believed Nosenko was dispatched. He knew Nosenko was lying about OSWALD'S KGB connection, because he had used OSWALD in the U-2 dump, and he knew the KGB officer with whom OSWALD had contact. ANGLETON stated: "This agency has no information that would corroborate or disprove Nosenko's statements regarding OSWALD." [CIA Memo: ANGLETON to Hoover 4.28.64]

Other CIA staffers, who were unaware of OSWALD'S connection to ANGLETON, concluded, for different reasons, that if Yuri Nosenko was dispatched, it must have been to accomplish or further a KGB purpose or mission, "the nature of which has been, and continues to be, unknown...The theory has also been considered that Nosenko could have been dispatched to confuse and divert American Intelligence and thus protect an important KGB penetration or penetrations of the United States Government, particularly the CIA. This is a theory which has been given full consideration, but it is not possible to factually substantiate or refute this theory in the absence of specific information that high-level KGB penetrations do, or do not, exist."

PRIMARY FACTORS INDICATING NOSKENO DISPATCHED

Yuri Nosenko was a xxxx. Yuri Nosenko admitted lying about needing money and about the recall cable. Yuri Nosenko claimed he was a KGB Lieutenant Colonel. The CIA could not verify this. In 1992 Yuri Nosenko told Gerald Posner that "his appointment was still in the process of being approved, yet his travel document did say he was a lieutenant colonel." [Case Closed, p39]

Oleg Nechiporenko named different people than Yuri Nosenko in relation to OSWALD in 1959: Aleksandr Perepelitsyn, V. Vysotin. He also said different people handled OSWALD'S September 1963, visa request: Dryakhlov, Vlasov, Bannikov. Yuri Nosenko said OSWALD had no KGB contact, Oleg Nechiporenko said he did. Nonetheless, Oleg Nechiporenko stated that Yuri Nosenko was genuine, and the KGB had sentenced him to death.

Yuri Nosenko had the time of OSWALD'S suicide wrong. Yuri Nosenko said OSWALD'S hotel room was not bugged. Not only was it bugged, there was a camera in it. Yuri Nosenko said there was no technical surveillance on OSWALD in Minsk. There was, as reported by his neighbor. In fact, a 1992 Izvestia article entitled, KGB File No. 31451, stated that OSWALD was under constant surveillance. The article went on to say that OSWALD was suspected of seeking out people with access to secret information, and so was put in touch with people who pretended to have this access. He was lured into anti-Soviet conversations. When he went hunting, KGB agents followed him. OSWALD was drugged and watched by 20 agents. Yet Gerald Posner wrote that this article "both supplements and confirms the information from Yuri Nosenko."

ADDITIONAL CONTRADICTIONS

Yuri Nosenko stated that although the KGB recognized that OSWALD may have been an American agent, no unusual measures were taken to check on this possibility, since it already had been decided not to let him stay in the USSR. Was the KGB only interested in spies who stayed in the USSR for more than a week? Yuri Nosenko said the KGB did not consider recruiting Marina Oswald to report on OSWALD "because she was his wife and it was considered dangerous to recruit a wife to report on her husband." The KGB would recruit children to spy on their parents.

Yuri Nosenko repeatedly referred to the KGB's recognition that OSWALD was not normal as the reason for the KGB's failure to take various steps which it could normally be expected to take against a foreigner like OSWALD. In other words, a lack of normality, and the KGB's recognition of it, provided the peg for the whole story of the KGB's handling of OSWALD. Yuri Nosenko stated Marina Oswald had no difficulty leaving the country, because she was married to an American. This reasoning seems to overlook the fact that OSWALD had already declared his intention (through mail to the U.S. Embassy) to leave the USSR before he married her. If this fact were known to the KGB, as presumably it was, Marina Oswald's marriage request would have been closely scrutinized. [CIA Memo Wigren to C/SR 7.8.64]

SAM JAFFE

Reporter Sam Jaffe was one of the American citizens wrongly exposed by Yuri Nosenko.

Samuel Adason Jaffe was born in San Francisco. He served in the Merchant Marine in World War II and then the Navy Reserves. He was a Marine combat correspondent in Korea during the war there. He attended the University of California at Berkeley, Columbia University, and the New School For Social Research. He worked for the old International News Service in San Francisco. He worked briefly for the U.N. in the early 1950's and then joined Life Magazine, where he was a reporter from 1952 to 1955. In 1955, as a freelancer, he covered a conference of Third World countries at Bandung, Indonesia, and interviewed the late Chou En-lai of China. As a correspondent for CBS from 1955 to 1961 he covered the United Nations and Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev's visit to this country in 1959. Victor Marchetti wrote: "In 1955 Sam Jaffe applied for a job with CBS news. While he was waiting for his application to be processed, a CIA official who Jaffe identifies himself as Jerry Rubins visited his house in California and told him, 'If you are willing to work for us, you are going to Moscow' with CBS. Jaffe was flabbergasted, since he did not even know at that point if CBS would hire him, and he assumes that someone at CBS was in on the arrangement or otherwise the Agency would never had known he had applied for work. Moreover, it would have been highly unusual to send a new young reporter to such an important overseas post. Rubins told Jaffe that the Agency was willing to release 'certain top secret information to you in order that you try and obtain certain information for us.' Jaffe refused and was later hired by CBS for a domestic assignment." [Cult, page 335] In 1960 Jaffe went to Moscow for CBS to cover the trial of Francis Gary Powers. In 1961 Jaffe joined ABC and went to Moscow to open its first bureau there. He was among the first to report the ouster of Khrushchev from politics on the night of October 14, 1964. In 1965 he was expelled from the Soviet Union because of a report ABC carried from Washington saying that another shake up in the Soviet leadership was imminent. By then Jaffe had already been assigned to take over ABC's Hong Kong Bureau. As the war in Vietnam deepened he was sent there and for his coverage he won a prize from the overseas press club. In 1968 he was reassigned to the United States and moved to Washington. The following year he resigned from ABC.

In the 1950's and 1960's Jaffe had a brilliant run as a newspaper and broadcast journalist, however, in 1969 allegations circulated regarding Jaffe's connection with the KGB based on information supplied by Nosenko. The FBI reported: "During the period 1958 to 1960 while in New York, Jaffe was an FBI confidential informant on his Soviet contacts. In addition, he had several meetings with the Domestic Contacts Division New York office. While in Moscow with ABC, Jaffe felt he was the Subject of a KGB recruitment attempt in 1962. He recounted his story to the Regional Security Officer at the American Embassy, Moscow, copies of which went to both the CIA and FBI. Jaffe covered the trial of Gary Powers for the ABC Television Network, and flew on the same plane from New York to Moscow with Barbara Powers' party. Prior to that trip, he was briefed by a CIA psychologist on ways to observe Power's behavior and demeanor. During the latter part of his time in Moscow, Jaffe was in contact with a KGB Officer, Kuvkov, and this relationship is a matter of record with the FBI. Jaffe has given his version of his dealings with the KGB in a lengthy interview with the FBI in 1969. Yuri Nosenko provided information on Jaffe's relationship with the KGB in 1964. However, as time went on, further debriefings of Yuri Nosenko indicated Yuri Nosenko was not as sure about Jaffe's relationship as he had been originally. By 1968 Yuri Nosenko was positive only that Kuvkov had been in touch with Jaffe, but Yuri Nosenko was not certain that Jaffe was a paid witting KGB agent. (Paragraph deleted.) The CIA is positive that Jaffe's recall from Hong Kong in 1968, and subsequent dismissal by ABC, are not related to any action taken by the CIA."

Sam Jaffe said that the CIA attempted to get him to act as an agent and obtain information from Chinese Communist contacts. Mr. Jaffe said that while he was stationed in Hong Kong he was prepared to make contact with a Chinese official for the CIA, but he said that ABC recalled him from his assignment before the contact could be made. [NYT 2.9.76]

Sam Jaffe confronted the CIA about these charges and was given a letter stating he was not KGB agent by the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Colby. This was not enough for Sam Jaffe; instead, Sam Jaffe wanted to locate Yuri Nosenko and confront him. He contacted John Gittinger and Chief, CI/R&A, Leonard McCoy. Sam Jaffe was told the KGB wanted to kill Yuri Nosenko and a meeting was impossible. [CIA Dempsey Memo on Jaffe 12.8.75] Jaffe had regular conversations with ANGLETON. Covert Action reported: "Apparently, ANGLETON, had come to befriend Jaffe because of his conviction that he was the target of a KGB defamation attempt. A Soviet defector, Yuri Nosenko, interrogated ruthlessly by ANGLETON, hinted that Jaffe was a KGB agent. Since ANGELTON was convinced that Nosenko was a KGB double agent sent to sow disinformation and confusion, Jaffe had to be okay." [CA No. 29 (Winter 1988)]

YURI NOSENKO'S OTHER INFORMATION DID NOT CHECK OUT

Yuri Nosenko claimed with certainty that the KGB recruited no American Embassy personnel between 1953 and his defection in 1964 with two exceptions: "The first was that of (Deleted) who served in Moscow from April 1951 to July 1953. (Deleted) agreed to work for the KGB abroad, but not in the U.S., however, when (Deleted) returned home, he was approached by the KGB. (Deleted) worked for the KGB in the U.S. until September 1962. After denying involvement with the KGB in interviews with the FBI in 1964 and 1965, (Deleted) admitted that he had been approached by the KGB in Moscow in late 1953, that he had been offered a large sum of cash and gems in exchange for classified information concerning Embassy (deleted). The KGB officer who compromised Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, Reino Hayhanen, who defected in Paris in May 1957, also provided information leading to the arrest of (Deleted)."

The second exception concerned a counter-intelligence officer at the American Embassy who had been sleeping with his KGB Agent Russian housemaid. Yuri Nosenko said the KGB subsequently sent him pornographic photo montages. The KGB concluded that the American would not succumb to ordinary blackmail and consequently the maid was instructed to confess to him that she had been recruited by the KGB against her will and would be arrested if she did not fulfill her KGB tasks. The American agreed to help her. This man met with Gribanov on one occasion, then went to Ambassador Bohlen. Anatoliy Golitsyn had already provided the CIA with a similar story.

Yuri Nosenko consistently asserted that, had there been other recruitments, he would have learned some of the details. He discounted the fact that he was not always in the First Department, which was responsible for Embassy recruitment.

THE CASE FOR YURI NOSENKO BEING BONA FIDE

In 1976 John L. Hart was brought out of retirement to conduct a study of the Yuri Nosenko case. Hart testified before the HSCA in 1978. That year, Leonard McCoy, AC/CI, released this statement: "Yuri Nosenko was probably the most valuable source of counter-intelligence information that the U.S. Government has ever had....He identified some 2,000 KGB officers and 300 Soviets who were acting as KGB agents. He provided information on 238 Americans in whom the KGB had displayed some interest, including many who had been recruited. For example, one of his identifications led to the trial, and a sentence of 25 years, for U.S. Army Sergeant Robert Lee Johnson. Nosenko also provided information on some 200 foreign nationals in 36 countries in whom the KGB had taken an active interest...the British were able, on the basis of Nosenko's information, to identify William John Vassall, a high official of the British Admiralty, as a KGB agent, and sentence him to 18 years." Gerald Posner was granted an interview with Yuri Nosenko. Yuri Nosenko explained that his appearance in Geneva in January 1964 was arbitrary: "Disarmament negotiations were postponed twice in 1963. 'If there had been a meeting as scheduled in the Spring of 1963, I would have defected then...'"

Many other defectors said Yuri Nosenko was bona fide including, Fedora, who worked in the Soviet Union's Mission to the United Nations. Gerald Posner listed nine other similar defectors who believed Yuri Nosenko was authentic, but failed to state how they knew this, and where they made their statements. Additionally, questions have been raised regarding some of these men:

(1) Yuri Loginov (1961). Yuri Loginov was a KGBnik who went to the American Embassy, Helsinki, in 1961 and offered to act as an agent-in-place. He did so for six years, undetected by the Soviets. In 1967 he was arrested by the South Africans for spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. ANGLETON betrayed him because his case officer, Richard Kovitch, was suspected of being a mole, due to ambiguous information supplied by Anatoliy Golitsyn. Yuri Loginov was sent back to the Soviet Union in a spy trade. His fate there remains unclear.

(2) Igor Kochnov (1966).

(3) Obscure Soviet trade delegate Oleg Lyalin, 34, who defected to Britain early September 1971. He was 27 years old when he had knowledge of Yuri Nosenko. As a result of his defection, 90 Soviet delegates were PNGed from London. Oleg Lyalin revealed the Soviet's intent to sabotage military installations. He was a double-agent for six months before he defected. Oleg Lyalin was a bona fide defector - he blew too many other agents cover not to be so.

(4) Rudolph Albert Herrmann studied in East Germany then went to the United States in 1968. He was rolled over in 1977.

(5) Ilya Grigorevich Dzhirkvelov was a KGB officer with a history of alcoholism. He worked in the Soviet media from 1958 to 1965. He defected after a car accident in 1980.

(6) Vladimir Andreyevich Kuzichkin joined the KGB in 1975. He was a senior KGB officer in Tehran, who defected to the British, in June 1982. Vladimir Kuzichkin produced a list of Soviet agents in Iran. Many of them were executed.

(7) Viktor Gundarev (1985).

(8) Vitaliy Yurchenko (1985). Vitaliy Yurchenko was a senior intelligence official who defected to the West in 1985, and redefected in November 1985. Before he returned to the United States he said he had been kidnaped, drugged and tortured by the CIA. Yurchenko provided information to the CIA on Edward Lee Howard, a CIA officer who worked for the KGB. Howard fled the United States after he was exposed by Yurchenko. This indicates that Yurchenko was a bona fide defector. Yurchenko passed the CIA's lie detector tests. Yurchenko probably re-defected after his lover refused to defect with him. [NYT 11.8.85] Just who this lover was is unclear. The New York Times reported: "The woman in Toronto, Svetlana Dedkov, 48 years old, fell to her death from the 27th floor of a 35-story apartment building in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke. Her husband, Boris Dedkov, worked for Stan-Canada, a Soviet machine tool trading company in Toronto." The Canadian police stated that they found a suicide note. Her suicide took place the morning after the defector said he was going home. The New York Times reported: "The sources here linked Mr. Yurchenko to a Soviet diplomat's wife in Ottawa, who they would not identify. One official said that he heard that the Soviet Embassy might have flown her back to Moscow on Thursday to get her out of the way...After defecting, officials said, Yurchenko visited a woman in Canada with whom he had been involved with while stationed at the Soviet Embassy here from 1975 to 1980. But she sent him away, the Americans, said." [NYT 11.6.85] The Canadian government would not confirm or deny that Yurchenko visited Canada. What is Vitaliy Yurchenko doing in Russia today? Where did Yurchenko release the information that Nosenko was bona fide.

(9) Oleg Gordievskiy, 46, a Soviet Consul in London, was U.K. KGB Chief. He defected in September, 1985. Twenty-five Soviet nationals were expelled as a result of his collaboration with the British. Oleg Gordievskiy joined the KGB in 1962, where he worked in Department S of First Directorate, which concerned itself with illegals in the West. Oleg Gordievskiy claimed that the Soviet Union believed the United States was going to attack in early 1981. Former CIA/DD George Carver labeled this disinformation. Twenty five Soviet nationals are a lot of people to burn in any operation. Gordievskiy was bona fide. Again it was not stated where Gordievskiy said Nosenko was bona fide.

Many respected authors like David Wise and Tom Mangold were convinced Yuri Nosenko was genuine. Edward Petty: "The Bureau, as far as I know, considered him to have been a really good source. He was real, as far as being a Second Chief Directorate officer."

The CIA: "If Yuri Nosenko was dispatched, it is felt that he, during his 1962 contacts, would have been very carefully briefed and that his remarks or statements would have not been of a nature that would have caused any suspicion in regard to the bona fides of Yuri Nosenko." The CIA explained why Anatoliy Golitsyn and Yuri Nosenko furnished the same information: they were both in the same section of the KGB. The CIA explained Yuri Nosenko's lack of knowledge concerning the trip that Kosolapov made to Helsinki in November 1960: "It cannot be interpreted as evidence Yuri Nosenko was dispatched by the KGB since, if he had been, he would have been briefed on the trip, as this was an event the KGB knew Golitsyn was aware of."

THE MIDDLE GROUND

Did Yuri Nosenko lie because he had been exposed to false or limited information, then allowed to, or was spooked into, defecting? Edward Petty: "The facts and timing with respect to Yuri Nosenko's defection and his provision to the CIA of information about OSWALD in the Soviet Union make it virtually certain that the KGB knew that he was going to defect, and expected him to provide the CIA with the extent of his knowledge concerning OSWALD. Various information, including much of Yuri Nosenko's own conduct, has subsequently provided the basis to accept that Yuri Nosenko is personally genuine. There is no other conclusion but that the KGB allowed him, or motivated him, to defect without his realizing that to have been the case. Just such a technique had been used successfully by the KGB in the Goleniewski case only four years earlier."

"SNIPER"

In March 1958 "Sniper" (Michael Goleniewski, a renegade Polish Intelligence officer) contacted the U.S. Embassy in Bern, Switzerland, by mail and offered information about communist espionage activities. Howard Roman studied the contents of the letters and determined that they were written by a German speaking Pole. The information was evaluated in Project BEVISION. "Sniper" led the CIA to KGBniks Gordon Lonsdale (Russian Colon Molody) and George Blake, who had compromised the Berlin Tunnel. He exposed an Israeli citizen named Israel Beers as a KGB mole. "Sniper" defected in December 1960. Evidence existed that the KGB had false information planted on him before his defection, then spooked him into defecting. Michael Goleniewski remembered having been told by a KGBnik that Stafan Bandera, an anti-Soviet Ukrainian nationalist living in Munich, had been murdered on the night of October 15, 1959, by the man with whom he was having supper, German intelligence service (BND) agent Heinz Danko Herre. The CIA later learned Heinz Danko Herre was innocent: "The Legal Attache in Bonn in June 1962, reviewed information furnished to the Germans by Bogdan Stashinsky, which indicated that he was recruited by the KGB in 1952...in 1958 he was told that because he had proved himself, he would be given an important mission against Ukrainian émigré groups in the West. This mission turned out to be the assassination of Dr. Lev Rebet and Stafan Bandera, émigré leaders in Munich. He murdered Lev Rebet in 1958 and Stafan Bandera in 1959...by spaying poison in his victim's face which made death appear to be from a heart attack." [FBI 62-109090-NR 1.24.64 Sullivan to Branigan] The Soviets had deliberately planted the Heinz Danko Herre story on Michael Goleniewski to make trouble between the CIA and BND. Michael Goleniewski was told that Henry Kissinger had been recruited by the Soviets in the aftermath of World War II. No evidence of this has surfaced to date. Edward Petty: "The Soviets had details of the Goleniewski case as it was going on. They therefore had a clear-cut penetration. A penetration of that level had also to know the Nosenko case. Ergo, if you accept that hypothesis, then they knew about Nosenko. The key is that Nosenko himself was quite genuine. Nosenko was in the Second Chief Directorate and handled OSWALD material in the normal course of events. So he was perfectly willing to tell what he knew. The material was true as far as the Second Chief Directorate was concerned. If you accept the evidence from Nosenko himself that he personally is genuine, that does not mean that he is genuine as far as an unwitting control is concerned. ANGLETON was doing exactly what they wanted to happen.

"The second part of the Nosenko affair dealt with KGB penetration of CIA and the Golitsyn case. Golitsyn had predicted Nosenko's appearance and that he would try to discredit his bona fides as a defector. ANGLETON was always saying the Nosenko was going to destroy Golitsyn's leads and therefore he would destroy Golitsyn. Nosenko was a pawn in whatever play was going on involving ANGLETON and Golitsyn.

"When they ultimately gave him polygraph tests that were not rigged, Nosenko came out perfectly all right. The Soviets let him out. He didn't know he was playing their role. What they did to make him run, I don't know. That's the reason they never broke him."

Edward Petty pointed out that Nosenko was never asked, "'Think about it fellow, are there any facts which would cause you to believe that the Soviets were putting pressure on you to leave?' Whether he would tell anybody such a thing at this point is something else. The CIA in that sense was inclined to look at things as either black or white. Either he was 'Okay' or he was a dispatched agent. They didn't understand that there could be a middle ground."

Cleveland Cram stated: "At that time ANGLETON foolishly did not believe Nosenko, not because of OSWALD and the assassination, but because of Golitsyn having denounced him. I believe Nosenko was bona fide." Cleveland Cram was asked if Yuri Nosenko could have unwittingly been given false information then spooked into defecting. He stated: "If you had a big conspiracy in the Soviet Union he might have been shown false stuff and reported that. It was looked into. With the evidence we have now from the Soviets, we know that is not true. Nosenko saw what the KGB had, and he reported what he saw. The problem was that JIM was so screwed up in his thinking because of Bagley and Golitsyn he did not want to accept Nosenko, who was the only person who really had first hand information on OSWALD in the West, available to us. ANGLETON didn't have the brains to run OSWALD as vestpocket operation. That's ridiculous. OSWALD was too unreliable. All you guys in this conspiracy xxxx should do something else. Like the JFK movie. It's just not true." Cram was asked if there could have been a middle ground: "His information was very accurate about all the important things. He had access to the OSWALD file after the assassination. I know the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. Nosenko was a genuine defector. It is firmly established now. Former Soviet Generals will tell you this. I'm not sure that Goleniewski had any false information planted on him before his defection. That's a theory cooked-up by nut cases like JIM ANGLETON, who never could prove it. ANGLETON was trying to prove some of his goofy theories, and that's how it got started. Goleniewski says it isn't true."

ANALYSIS OF MIDDLE GROUND THEORY

OSWALD did not supply the Soviets with strategic information until April 1960. His report could have been placed in a RESTRICTED file. Yuri Nosenko might have been exposed to the non-sensitive OSWALD file and was assigned to Geneva then provoked into defecting. Or he might have defected on his own. Either way he would have been genuinely convinced the KGB had no connection with OSWALD. As for the contradictions in his story about OSWALD and the KGB, Scott Malone believed: "He was a drunk and a lair. He lied - because he was a xxxx." Did he lie because he was trying to exaggerate his importance to the CIA?

The CIA explored something akin to "a middle ground" when it asked: "Is there evidence of a political or any other type objective which could justify a dispatch of Yuri Nosenko by the KGB with permission to speak freely to CIA concerning his knowledge of the KGB and without Yuri Nosenko being given a specific mission? The above possibility has been given consideration, even though the ultimate ramifications are practically incalculable. The conclusion is that as regards Nosenko, with the single exception detailed below, there is no evidence of a political type objective which could be considered of sufficient importance by the KGB to warrant the dispatch of a KGB officer with the knowledge of Nosenko to speak freely with the CIA without his being given a specific mission, or missions, by the KGB...The only area touched upon in any way by Nosenko which might meet the above requirements is the assassination of President Kennedy."

The CIA also asked: "Is there any evidence that the contacts of Nosenko in 1962 or in 1964 with the CIA were known to the KGB prior to his defection?" The CIA: "It is recognized that since positive factual confirmation such as the KGB file on Nosenko is not available, any conclusion concerning whether Nosenko was, or was not, dispatched by the KGB can only be based on a full review of available information from Nosenko...One of the particular areas considered was his apparent behavior during his contacts with the CIA in June 1962 and the conclusion was that it was incomprehensible that he could have been under KGB control at the time." The CIA reasoned that had Nosenko been under KGB control, he would not have expressed considerable concern over his personal security, but it had to admit: "It is recognized that the above indicated concern is not substantial evidence that Nosenko was not under KGB control." The CIA also dismissed the possibility that the Soviets discovered that the documents Yuri Nosenko had stolen were missing. It cited the fact Yuri Nosenko lied about his rank as further proof of his bone fides: no dispatched KGB agent would be that stupid. The possibility that Yuri Nosenko was discovered, then "spooked" into defecting, was not covered in this report.

YURI NOSENKO AND THE WARREN COMMISSION

Yuri Nosenko offered to testify before the Warren Commission. The CIA never allowed him to do this, nor was he mentioned in the Report or Twenty-Six Volumes. Interviews with Yuri Nosenko were included in the documents of the Warren Commission. Edward Petty commented, "While the CIA considered Nosenko to be a dispatched agent from the word go, actually from before he ever arrived, the CIA could not hold back word of what Nosenko had to say about OSWALD from the Warren Commission." The CIA told the HSCA: "CIA was unable to resolve satisfactorily the question of his bona fides until well after the Warren Commission had completed its work. The point is that CIA, per se, did not reach an agreed position on Mr. Nosenko until late 1968." Former President Gerry Ford was Yuri Nosenko's foremost opponent:

Ford: I have been led to believe, by people who I believe know, that there is a grave question about the reliability of Nosenko being a bona fide defector...I feel so strongly about this that I just think the Commission has got to make a decision on it.

Warren: I am allergic to defectors...So I think exactly as you do, Gerry.

Dulles: I concur in what you said. Over the weekend I had an opportunity to discuss the Nosenko matter in some detail with my former colleagues...

Ford: It is my best recollection that he was actually a defector some time in December, at a disarmament meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. And the original press releases were to the effect that he was a highly significant catch as far as we were concerned...There was a great mystery about his particular defection, because the Soviet Union made such a protest - they went to the Swiss Government and raised the devil about it. Now subsequent information has developed that he doesn't appear to be quite as big a catch, if any, as far as we were concerned. Having absolutely no faith in what the Soviet Union tries to do in these cases, he might have been dangled for one reason two or three months before the assassination, but pumped last th (illegible) the assassination, and a man that was as high as he allegedly is, with the mental capacity he is supposed to have, could very well be filled with all the information which he is now giving us in reference to the OSWALD case. As I say, I am a complete and total skeptic and cynic about these kinds of people, and there would be no better way for the Soviet Union to try and clean its own skirts than to have a high ranking defector come and discount OSWALD'S importance, OSWALD'S significance while in the Soviet Union." [WC Proceedings 6.23.64]

BRANIGAN'S DOUBTS ABOUT NOSENKO

William Branigan pointed this out to William Sullivan: "With respect to the points that are to be elaborated on, Nosenko stated that he next heard about OSWALD two hours after the assassination of President Kennedy when he was summoned to the KGB center in Moscow. The time element of two hours is highly unlikely. Elsewhere, Nosenko states that when OSWALD appeared at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, the First Chief Directorate of the KGB at Moscow was advised of his interest in returning to Russia and the First Directorate consulted the Second Directorate. This could only have occurred in late September or early in October 1963, but then Nosenko says following the assassination no file on OSWALD could be located at the KGB center in Moscow. This seems unlikley." [NARA FBI 124-10169-10063]

YURI NOSENKO'S IMPRISONMENT

The CIA kept Yuri Nosenko locked up for five years under prison-like circumstances. He was tortured and deprived of basic human necessities. Helms commented: "One of the first problems we had with him in the United States was he liked to drink and carouse. One of the reasons to hold him in confinement was to get him away from booze..." Yuri Nosenko undertook numerous polygraph tests. One of these tests, according to Helms, "was designed as sort of a psychological trick on Nosenko to indicate that he wasn't telling the truth." He was administered L.S.D.

The FBI was convinced Yuri Nosenko was real: "The FBI perceived Nosenko's statements about OSWALD, depending upon a subsequent, definitive resolution of Nosenko's bona fides, to be the most authoritative information available, indicative of a lack of Soviet Governmental involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy. The FBI found no substantial basis to conclude that Nosenko was not a bona fide defector..." On November 16, 1964, J. Edgar Hoover sent Deputy Director/Plans, Richard Helms, a highly deleted communication: "Reference is made to our letters in this case dated July 28, 1964, and August 14, 1964, dealing with possible association of LEE HARVEY OSWALD (several paragraphs deleted). Nosenko, the KGB defector, claims to have handled OSWALD case for KGB. He says KGB was not interested in the OSWALD case."

YURI NOSENKO'S REHABILITATION

In 1967 Bruce Solie, of the CIA's Office of Security, wrote a critique of a lengthy report Tennent Bagley had prepared on Yuri Nosenko. Bruce Solie determined that Yuri Nosenko had not been dispatched. During the tenure of the HSCA, Bruce Solie, Chief of the Security Analysis Group, supplied the Committee with many of its documents. In 1968 the FBI issued a Top-Secret Nosenko Report. A line not withheld read: "Other examples of inadequate interrogation and collateral investigation are set forth in the attached paper." Yuri Nosenko was freed in April 1969. He was put on the CIA payroll as an independent contractor.

YURI NOSENKO'S HSCA TESTIMONY

In 1979 the HSCA questioned Yuri Nosenko about why the Soviets allowed OSWALD to remain in Russia. He said two psychiatrists determined he was insane, and if they tried to deport him he might commit suicide: "Simply a mentally unstable person, they didn't want to go it on any such action." Yuri Nosenko declared that, although extensive KGB resources were devoted to physical and technical surveillance of OSWALD, the KGB never interviewed him.

In 1964 Yuri Nosenko had supplied different information to the FBI: OSWALD was put under "passive observation to make sure he was not an American intelligence agent temporarily dormant...in view of instructions from KGB, Moscow, no active interest in OSWALD could be taken in Minsk without obtaining prior approval from KGB, Moscow. No such approval was ever requested or granted and based on his experience, he opined that the only OSWALD coverage during his stay in Minsk consisted of periodic checks at his place of employment, inquiry of neighbors and review of his mail." Yuri Nosenko explained: "Well I told them there was work done against OSWALD; it was ordered, passive work, it's called passive. Whenever it's ordered not to make an approachment, not to make a contact, not to make a recruitment, this is passive."

THE YURI NOSENKO INCUBUS

When ANGLETON was deposed in HUNT v. ajweberman in 1979, he stated: "Well, I will simply say that during my tenure the [Nosenko] case had never been resolved...and, Mr. Helms, in his testimony before the assassination committee recently, had words to the effect that the problems of Nosenko were still an incubus that hung over our heads...I have never in a, as a matter of policy and as a matter of professional judgement, come to any conclusion other than the case was unresolved. That was the official position and I can speak to my tenure. That was the official position of the former Deputy Director of Operations, i.e., the Clandestine Services, Thomas Karamessines. It was reflected in the FBI disseminations of his reports to the effect that they were from a defector whose bona fides had not been resolved...There were many speculations that the so-called methodology that Nosenko alleged was the methodology of the KGB was inaccurate, but that was in the realm of speculation based on very thorough analysis of Nosenko's testimonies. As I said earlier, the incubus was still hanging over our head. There was no quotation, no determination." Helms told the HSCA: "To this very day no person familiar with the facts, of whom I am aware, finds Mr. Nosenko's comments about OSWALD and the KGB to be credible. That still hangs in the air like an incubus."

ANALYSIS

Nosenko was dispatched by the Soviets to disassociate OSWALD from the KGB. He had to remain in America and he could never redefect. He would be condemned as a traitor by the Russian Intelligence Service and sentenced to death. It was unlikely the death sentence could be carried out within the United States. He was an extremely strong-willed person, and could not be broken by torture. He may have supplied the CIA with a lot of good information, but his information about OSWALD and others was a lie. Nosenko's real mission was to prevent World War III by supplying the CIA with information which disassociated OSWALD from the KGB.

Edited February 21, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Tim Gratz]

Nosenko's polygraph test(MORE TO FOLLOW)

[Tim Gratz]

Below is a shortened version of Chapter 12 of the book "Wedge: The Secret War Between the CIA and the FBI" that discusses the Nosenko case:

Chapter 12: Wedge

Richard Helms had a predicament. By October 1966, it was clear that Yuri Nosenko could not remain incarcerated indefinitely. CIA's Office of Security, which had built Nosenko's jail and was keeping him in it, was beginning to grumble. Security man Bruce Solie had been impressed by Igor Kochnov's claim that Nosenko was bona fide, and Solie began protesting to Security Director Howard Osborn about "the illegality of the Agency's position in handling a defector under these conditions for such a long period of time." Congressmen and journalists were getting curious; as early as January 1965, Angleton had been bothered by a query from Senator Everett Dirksen, based on a letter from a constituent, concerning the "whereabouts" of Nosenko. The CI chief told Papich that while Dirksen's correspondent was probably just a "curious individual who followed the publicity previously given to Nosenko," CIA nevertheless did "not wish to discount the possibility that there may be more to this inquiry" -- the black hand of the KGB, perhaps? -- and so requested "an appropriate check" by the FBI's Soviet Section to "determine the purpose" of Dirksen's query. Nothing sinister was found behind Dirksen's request, but more recently journalist David Wise had discovered reference to Nosenko in a listing of still-classified Commission documents. CIA feared that Wise's article would "immediately result in newspaper inquiries as to the whereabouts of... Nosenko," and Helms was forced to violate the usual code of "plausible deniability" by briefing President Johnson on the Nosenko situation. "Through the years, we have been working with the FBI in an effort to establish whether he is a KGB agent on assignment or a bona fide defector," Helms wrote the President, adding that public access to Nosenko was "not feasible" because "This question is still not resolved."

The thing to do was resolve it. On August 23, 1966, Helms set a limit of 60 days for Bagley, who still oversaw the Nosenko case, to "wind it up." That resulted in a period of frenetic activity, because Bagley felt that it was impossible to prove Nosenko's guilt and couldn't conceive of any way of getting at the truth unless some additional measures were taken. More polygraphs were administered; their results were interpreted as indicating deception, but no firm proof was gained. Bagley proposed that Nosenko be interrogated under the influence of sodium amytal, believed to lower a subject's defenses, but Helms refused to permit any interrogations using drugs. Finally the sixty days ran out, and Bagley was asked how CIA could "clean up traces of a situation in which CIA could be accused of illegally holding Nosenko." Of seven options put down by Bagley, the last three were chilling: "5. Liquidate the man. 6. Render him incapable of giving coherent story (special dose of drug, etc.). Possible aim, commitment to looney bin. 7. Commitment to looney bin without making him nuts."

Helms decided that the case simply could not go on in such a fashion, so he took it to his new DDCI, Admiral Rufus Taylor, and said, "It's all yours."

Taylor quickly moved to head off not only a possible scandal over conditions of Nosenko's incarceration, but to contain the "enormous damage" which the dispute had already to relations between CIA and FBI. He took a two-pronged-approach. Bagley was to begin work on a massive report detailing the history of the case and setting down all the evidence. At the same time, the defector would be turned over to Bruce Solie at CIA's Office of Security, who could work with the FBI in the attempt to square Nosenko's information with Golitsyn's. That latter task was easier ordered than performed, however, and it was also to be seen how Bagley's and Solie's studies would be rectified if they happened to come different results. It would be almost two years before such matters brought FBI-CIA relations to their most desperate and dangerous phase -- catalyzing disagreement over Golitsyn's thesis, mixing with irritation over CIA support for Israeli nuclear espionage, and eventually causing a major crisis over the otherwise minor case of a man who disappeared in Denver. In the meantime, new questions about the assassination, raised both publicly and in secret, would make the problem of Nosenko's bona fides and message ever more pressing.

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The new thinking was spurred by FBI reports about the insecurity of CIA's fall 1963 plottings with Rolando Cubela, alias AM/LASH, to assassinate Fidel Castro. As early as October 1963, it will be recalled, the Bureau had possessed indications that CIA's Cubela contacts might have been known to Castro, but these indications had not been shared with CIA. Consequently, Cubela continued to receive caches of weapons, silencers, pistols, and explosives from CIA until June 1965, when the Bureau finally did relay data that caused the Agency to reassess security. FBI interviews with Eladio del Valle, a Cuban exile who was an old friend of both Cubela and Trafficante, indicated that mobster was secretly in league with Cubela and had discussed with him the Castro plots before November 22, 1963. That report caused Joseph Langosch, a CIA officer who had helped Fitzgerald run Cubela, to conclude that the Cubela plot to kill Castro "had been an insecure operation prior to the assassination [of Kennedy]." Not long afterward, del Valle's head was split open by an axe; the murder was never solved. All contact with Cubela was terminated by a cable to Miami and European stations on 23 June 1965, which cited "Convincing proof that entire AM/LASH group insecure and that further contact with key members of group constitutes a menace to CIA operations." That menacing group was eventually taken to include Trafficante, who had been suspected by FBI informant Jose Aleman of being a Cuban agent. As Langosch noted, "Fidel reportedly knew that this group was plotting against him and once enlisted its support. Hence, we cannot rule out the possibility of provocation." The question, "What Could Castro Have Known?" could only be answered: He could have known everything, right from the start. The question then became: What, if Anything, Had Castro Done About It?

Johnny Rosselli, Trafficante's co-conspirator in CIA's 1962 anti-Castro plots, soon forward to say that Castro, after learning about the plots against his life, had gone after Kennedy. In early fall 1966, Rosselli confided to his Attorney, Robert Morgan, that the 3-man CIA assassination team of "Trafficante mob" recruits dispatched to Cuba to kill Castro in September 1962 had come under Cuban influence or control and returned to the United States to kill President Kennedy. Rosselli's attorney called the office of columnist Drew Pearson, who was known to be tight with Chief Justice Warren, and Pearson dispatched his assistant, Jack Anderson, to extract details from Rosselli. Though it took Anderson several months to get the story -- Rosselli feared that other mobsters would kill him for "talking" -- by late January 1967 he had given it over. Pearson met with Warren and relayed the allegation; Warren informed President Johnson, who promptly ordered a full accounting. Scott Breckenridge, of CIA's Office of the Inspector General, was instructed to summarize the history of CIA's attempts to kill Castro, to assess how widely these schemes were known outside the Agency, and to consider whether these plots might have been "turned around" to cause Kennedy's death.

In the course of his inquiry, Breckenridge somberly surmised that CIA's plots were probably known not only to Castro, but also to the FBI. "As far as we know, the FBI has not been told the sensitive operational details," Breckenridge noted, "but it would be naive to assume that they have not by now put two and two together and come out with the right answer. They know of CIA's involvement with Rosselli and Giancana as a result of the Las Vegas wiretapping incident. From the Chicago newspaper stories of August 1963, and from Giancana's own statement, it appears that they know this related to Cuba. When Rosselli's story reached them... all of the pieces should have fallen into place. They should by now have concluded that CIA plotted the assassination of Castro and used U.S. gangster elements in the operation." Breckenridge felt his hunch confirmed in a May 3 conversation with Sam Papich, who commented that Rosselli had the FBI "over a barrel" because of "that operation." Papich said he doubted that the FBI would be able to do anything about mobsters such as Rosselli or Trafficante because of "their previous activities with your people."

The liaison officer's insight, if pushed to its logical end, contained an implication that was chilling indeed. If Trafficante and his assassins were immunized from prosecution because of participation in CIA's anti-Castro plots, could they not have had a "free shot" against President Kennedy? And could not communist intelligence, by using anti-Castro assets tainted by "CIA fingerprints," force the U.S. Government to cover up any and all evidence of a communist role -- as, indeed, the Government had done? Couldn't the conspirators have reasoned that the U.S. Government would never go after the assassins, or declare war on their suspected foreign sponsors, over evidence which, viewed from the public's perspective, might just as easily implicate CIA? If Santos Trafficante and/or Rolando Cubela were secretly working with Castro -- as Jose Aleman had originally alleged, and as Breckenridge himself reportedly believed -- there was the troubling possibility that any mischief they made on Castro's behalf could not only be undertaken under immunity from prosecution, but, as Angleton later hinted, "ghosted to the doorstep of CIA." Because the U.S. Government would be forced to cover up its own seeming links to the plot, any official investigation would be a de facto cover-up which, when exposed as such, would undermine the country's confidence in its most basic institutions. Finally, as KGB defector Petr Deriabin had hinted four days after the killing, the U.S. intelligence community would be demoralized by such a demonstration of "pure power" by its enemies, who would have effectively said: We can reach out and do this, and you can't do a thing to punish us.

The poetry of that possible deception struck Lyndon Johnson with all the force of legal proof. After reading still-classified portions of Breckenridge's May 1967 study on the Cubela-Trafficante plots, the President was persuaded, as he later told columnist Marianne Means, that his predecessor was liquidated "either under the influence or the orders of Castro." Johnson also confided to his close advisor, Joseph Califano: "I will tell you something that will rock you. Kennedy was trying to get Castro, but Castro got him first."

Yet CIA believed, from Golitsyn and other defectors, that Castro's intelligence service, as that of any Soviet Bloc country, would not have undertaken such a sensitive operation without KGB knowledge and guidance -- and so the Nosenko problem gained urgency. As one CIA memo noted, "the belief that there was Soviet and/or Cuban (KGB and/or DGI) connection with Oswald" would "persist and grow" until there was "a full disclosure" of "all elements of Oswald's handling and stay in the Soviet Union and his contacts in Mexico City" -- or until Nosenko was broken. By summer 1967, as Helms later admitted, the Agency's investigation of Nosenko "reflected the concern or working hypothesis among many officers working on these matters that the Soviets might have been involved in this [i.e., the Kennedy assassination] in some fashion and that Cubans might have been involved.... That was obviously a matter of prime concern, and since Nosenko was in the Agency's hands this became one of the most difficult issues to face that the Agency had ever faced."

It was especially difficult because by February 1967, New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison was forcing CIA's hand by publicly alleging that CIA had killed Kennedy. Garrison had widely reported ties to Trafficante's close friend, reputed New Orleans underboss Carlos Marcello, and his self-styled "investigation," initiated just after Rosselli began to "sing," seemed to confirm precisely what the "turnaround" thesis postulated: that when any hint of Cuban/Soviet involvement in JFK's death threatened to surface publicly, it would be matched by allegations implicating the Agency. Public opinion was meanwhile increasingly restive after several bestselling attacks on the Warren Report, and Helms worried that CIA incarceration of Nosenko, a KGB defector who alleged CIA innocence, might even be mirror-read by the public as evidence of Agency guilt. That was just one more reason the Nosenko situation had become volatile, and Helms moved to defuse it before it could explode.

In November 1967, Nosenko was blindfolded, handcuffed, and driven from his cell at Camp Peary to a luxurious townhouse near Washington. After being held under hostile conditions for 1,277 days, he was now given considerable freedom of independent movement, allowed to brush his teeth, and lived perhaps as well as anyone in Washington. In his plush new pad, Nosenko was questioned daily by Bruce Solie and other sympathetic Security people. They went through his career, and all KGB cases and personnel known to him. To Solie, it was "immediately apparent" that Nosenko was bona fide.

In January 1968, however, Pete Bagley completed a 900-page report which reached exactly the opposite conclusion, as did a study conducted independently by Scotty Miler. Though perhaps only codifying what had been believed since summer 1962, two of the most powerful "black" pieces on the U.S. intelligence chessboard, CIA's Soviet Russia Division and CI Staff, had now officially allied themselves firmly against Nosenko. But the white queen had yet to be heard from.

When Hoover was advised of the Miler-Bagley evaluation, he sensed that it could have grave consequences for his beloved Bureau. So Angleton, at least, seems to have later psychologized: If Nosenko was now found to be phony, this not only undermined the authority of Fedora, Hoover's KGB source at the U.N,, who had backed up Nosenko's story, but might force a new inquiry into Oswald's foreign connections, and expose all the FBI mistakes which had caused Hoover to concede: "There is no question in my mind but that we failed in carrying through some of the most salient aspects of the Oswald investigation." The director therefore abandoned his historical resistance to joint FBI-CIA operations by assigning Bert Turner, and several other FBI agents who accepted Nosenko's authenticity, to work with Solie toward the defector's total rehabilitation.

Solie and the Bureau were an easy "fit." The CIA man had worked closely with the Bureau on many cases, including the ongoing Shadrin-Kochnov double-agent game, and because his job was to see CI as simple security, he shared the G-Men's open disdain for convoluted, theoretical constructs of the Angleton-Golitsyn school. "Solie was a security type, not an analyst, so we felt comfortable with him," FBI Soviet-CI man Bill Branigan said. "He was a rock."

The main emphasis in the Solie-FBI debriefings was in obtaining new counterespionage leads, and those "serials" were then taken as proof of Nosenko's bona fides. "An analysis of this case clearly indicates that Mr. Nosenko has been an extremely valuable source, one who has identified many hundreds of Soviet Intelligence Officers," Solie declared in a March 1968 rebuttal to Bagley's 900-page indictment. It was noted that "a considerable quantity of useful information on the organization of the KGB, its operational doctrine, and methods," including the identities of "nearly 2200" Soviet intelligence officers or recruitment targets, had been "forwarded to the Federal Bureau of Investigation based on data from Mr. Nosenko." The report went on to list some of those leads, including a loyalty investigation of ABC Moscow correspondent Sam Jaffe, and "remarks in regard to personalities in the pocket book entitled, Svetlana, the Incredible Story of Stalin's Daughter."

When Scotty Miler read Solie's report, he dismissed it as "a whitewash." Considering that Nosenko's lies had not been satisfactorily explained, Miler concluded: "To give him merit badges on any of that stuff is bullxxxx." Miler was frustrated, but with both the CI Staff and SR Division against Nosenko, and only Security for him, Nosenko's attackers seemed in a good position to outflank his defenders during CIA's final disposition of the case.

Before that could happen, however, the FBI officially got into the Nosenko sweepstakes with a report of its own. In a Top Secret working paper disseminated to CIA on October 1, 1968, Bert Turner cited "significant confirmatory information" obtained during the Bureau's 1967-68 interrogations, and found "no substantial basis to conclude that Nosenko was not a bona fide defector."

Deputy DCI Rufus Taylor, who was managing the "details" of the case for Helms, now had four reports to consider: Bagley's and Miler's, indicting Nosenko on Golitsynist grounds, and Solie's and Turner's, which supported Nosenko largely because of his utility to the FBI. Bureaucratically speaking, the score was tied, and Taylor would have the swing vote. Three days after receiving the FBI's report, he had made up his mind.

"The FBI summary notes that a minimum of 9 new cases have been developed as a result of this re-examination and that new information of considerable importance on old cases not previously available resulted from this effort. Thus, I conclude that Nosenko should be accepted as a bona fide defector. In addition, I recommended that we now proceed with the resettlement and rehabilitation of Nosenko with sufficient dispatch to permit his full freedom by 1 January 1969."

To discuss just how Nosenko should be freed, Taylor suggested Helms convene "the relevant personalities" at a final meeting in mid-October. Present at the big table in the DCI's seventh-floor Executive Conference Room were Helms, Taylor, Inspector General Gordon Stewart, Solie and others from Security, the new SR chief, and a CI contingent headed by Miler; Angleton was in the hospital with a minor illness. Everyone agreed that Nosenko should be quietly released, but Miler and the CI faction insisted that all past and future data obtained from Nosenko be tagged: "from a defector whose bona fides have not been established." That angered Nosenko's many defenders, especially Taylor.

All eyes were on Helms. He was preoccupied with getting Nosenko resettled, but he had never resolved the case in his own mind, and he hesitated to sign off on any document or make any final decisions about Nosenko's bona fides. He therefore determined to cut the pie in half. The CI caveat about Nosenko's bona fides would stand; in that sense, the Angletonian skeptics had won. But as Taylor recommended, CIA's prisoner would be relocated, employed as a consultant to the Agency, compensated for the time of his incarceration, and made freely available to the FBI for the development of leads; the Agency would also take the official position that Nosenko had been "truthful and honest" in his Solie-FBI debriefings. In that sense the skeptics had lost, Solie and the FBI had won, and a de facto acceptance of Nosenko had been achieved.

Even so, CIA officials worried whether tensions with the FBI had been fully resolved. Taylor warned Helms that despite acceptance of the Solie report, "the FBI just might level official criticism at this Agency for its previous handling of this case." Because Solie had conducted Nosenko's re-examination with "finesse and candor," Taylor was "inclined to doubt that the FBI [would] wish to make an issue of our previous actions," but there was no telling what Hoover might do. The Bureau's Washington Field Office interviewed Nosenko regularly after December 8, 1968, but CIA and FBI were unable to agree on the "proper characterization to be used in reporting information from the subject" -- i.e., on whether Nosenko was telling the truth. Even though CIA (after the round-table meeting) formally held that Nosenko had been forthright in his Solie debriefings, no more than a tacit approval of Nosenko's future information could be given without the consent of Angleton's shop. The FBI was free to interview Nosenko, but his information couldn't be disseminated to the Justice Department, or to the White House, as "solid" or "reliable" intelligence.

That epistemelogical roadblock greatly annoyed Hoover, and the 73-year-old director was becoming increasingly testy over constant clashes with CIA. Even if the Nosenko dispute did not provoke him to punitive actions, any number of other episodes might. Indeed, even as Solie and Taylor had been smoothing out FBI resentment over Nosenko, Hoover was riled by an Angletonian scheme that harkened back to the days of Wisner's OPC mischief, and canceled out whatever goodwill Taylor and Solie had won.

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Since the early 1950s Angleton had been in charge of KK/MOUNTAIN, CIA's "Israeli account," and the forging of a special relationship with Israel's Mossad was to be one of his great legacies. The Mossad would become by consensus the most efficient spy service in the world, and it could be said that this had something to with Angleton's role was mentor to its various chiefs. Millions of U.S. dollars also must have helped, in exchange for which the Mossad agreed to act as U.S. intermediaries or surrogates in certain situations throughout the the world. But the intimacy of U.S.-Israeli intelligence relations was not unproblematic from the law enforcement perspective, especially when it was suspected that Israeli agents might be spying on its patrons.

In September 1968, Israeli intelligence officer Rafi Eitan visited the United States through the offices of Angleton's CI Staff. Eitan was a seasoned Mossad officer known as "Rafi the Smelly," because he had to wade through sewage on a 1947 sabotage mission; he had scored his greatest coup in organizing the commando team that kidnapped Adolf Eichmann in 1960. Eitan had been recently put in charge of Lakam, the Mossad's Science Liaison Bureau, which aimed to keep Israel's defenses technologically superior to those of any likely aggressor. During his 1968 trip, Eitan and three other Israelis visited a Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) uranium-processing plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania, which enriched uranium for Westinghouse, the U.S. Navy, and other contractees. After Eitan's visit, an audit by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) determined that 200 pounds of enriched uranium, enough to make six atomic bombs, could not be accounted for.

The AEC suspected that NUMEC's founder and president, Zalman Shapiro, might have helped Eitan smuggle the uranium to Israel, and since the case seemed to have both foreign and domestic angles, both the FBI and CIA were informed. Neither agency could agree, however, on whose problem Israeli espionage really was. Perhaps because spying by a U.S. ally was such a sensitive issue, no one wanted official responsibility for the problem. A former congressional investigator who reviewed the Senate and House intelligence committee's files on Shapiro later described a yearlong war of memoranda over the matter. "The CIA was saying to Hoover, 'You're responsible for counterintelligence in America. Investigate Shapiro, and if he's a spy, catch him.' Hoover's answer was, "Go to Israel and get inside Dimona [the Israeli nuclear program], and if you find it [evidence of the Shapiro uranium], let us know.' It was kind of a game. The memos were hysterical -- they went back and forth."

But Hoover, at least, was playing a double game. Though he refused, on the one hand, CIA's formal requests to investigate Shapiro, FBI was already investigating Shapiro under a massive counterintelligence program whose existence was hidden from the Agency. After Israel's Six-Day war against the Arab nations in 1967, which impressed upon Tel Aviv the importance of technological advantage, the FBI had noted that an increasing number of Israeli experts and business executives were visiting the United States. Reports started filtering back from U.S. executives who had been approached by Lakam agents. In 1968 the FBI began tracking Israeli scientific delegations in the U.S., as well as the movements of Israeli embassy personnel, under a supersecret project Code-named Scope. Knowing the Angleton's CI shop was eager to maintain further, deeper cooperation with Israeli intelligence and would likely not have thought too highly of the program, the FBI did not disclose it to CIA.

Thus, the FBI was investigating Shapiro's connections with Israeli intelligence agents, including Eitan, even as Hoover telling Helms otherwise. Shapiro was put under active FBI surveillance and it was determined that he was under Mossad influence, though there was no firm evidence that he had smuggled the uranium. A Scope assessment of Eitan's visit did conclude that it was part of a Lakam effort to divert uranium from the NUMEC plant to Israel, but no formal charges were ever brought against Shapiro or Eitan. Nevertheless, the Bureau was concerned enough by Eitan's mischief to expand Scope in 1968-69 to include wiretapping and bugging of the Israeli embassy in Washington. Consequently, some Israelis were asked to leave the country.

The Agency's resistance to those expulsions caused Hoover to suspect that Helms, too, might be playing a double game, and that CIA might be a partner in the very espionage it had asked the Bureau to investigate. Among the targets tracked by Scope in 1969 was Israeli Professor Yuval Ne'eman, a former colonel in Israeli military intelligence, who made frequent and lengthy stays in the United States. The FBI watched him was he visited Lawrence Livermore Laboratory near U.C. Berkeley, and Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada, near Pasadena. As a result of that surveillance, FBI officials believed they had conclusive evidence that Ne'eman was working for Lakam and finally they confronted him. Ne'eman was ordered to formally register as a foreign agent of the Israeli government or risk deportation. Ne'eman knew that registering as an agent would automatically deny him access to most research facilities, so he stubbornly pretended innocence. The G-Men then revealed all they had learned about his activities in-country. Horrified, Ne'eman contacted Mossad's chief of station in Washington, D.C. and asked for help. The station chief decided to circumvent the FBI by appealing to CIA.

A few days later, Angleton suggested to FBI Assistant Director William Sullivan that it would it would be in the U.S. national interest if the Bureau left Ne'eman alone. Angleton was negotiating an expanded U.S-Israeli intelligence cooperation deal, he said, and he didn't want the Bureau's hounding of Ne'eman to put that arrangement at risk. Papich relayed the message, and the FBI backed off, but Hoover was furious. Not since the days of Wisner's OPC, when foreign nationals had been running wild all over the country, had the Agency asked the Bureau to countenance such mischief. There was even speculation that Angleton was a silent partner in such illegalities as the smuggling of uranium from NUMEC. At the very least, the Agency's foreign liaison interests were in direct conflict with the FBI's domestic imperatives. "As was typical," recalled an FBI deputy director, "intelligence cooperation superseded effective counterintelligence here to protect our secrets. The Israelis knew that was our tendency, and they took advantage of it."

Also typical was the fact that the whole matter of U.S.-Israeli technological cooperation, like so much conflict between CIA and FBI in the late 1960s, may have been ultimately rooted in Angleton's reliance on Anatoliy Golitsyn. If Angleton was, in fact, helping Rafi Eitan build Israeli's atomic capabilities, he was almost certainly doing so in the attempt to maintain a pro-Western nuclear counterweight to the Baath Socialist government of Iraq, whose role as a Soviet client was a subject of much Golitsynist suspicion. The defector believed that the Soviets would cultivate Third-World client states as part of the KGB's long-range plan, and when Saddam's own writings proclaimed that the Soviet-Iraqi alliance was based on a unity of long- term "strategic interests," Golitsyn began to see Saddam as a key rook or knight in the Soviet endgame. Chilling, then, was Brezhenv's 1968 gift to Saddam of a nuclear "research reactor," at Thuwaitha, on the east bank of the Tigris River. It was only a weeks after this that Angleton arranged for Eitan to visit the NUMEC in Pennsylvania, and only a few months later asked for Ne'Eman to be allowed continued access to rocket propulsion secrets; the sequence of events may not been coincidental. It may well have been Golitsyn's concerns which caused CIA to condone one of the great ironies in the secret war: the smuggling of technology gleaned from ex-Nazi rocket scientists, at JPL and elsewhere, for the delivery of nuclear devices in defense of a Jewish state.

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That even the most otiose of FBI-CIA conflicts in the late 1960s could be traced back to Anatoliy Golitsyn was testament to just how divisive the defector's message was proving to be. Indeed, precisely because he seemed to be the cause of so much trouble, Hoover suggested that Golitsyn was a bogus defector under KGB control. One of Golitsyn's missions, if he were a false defector, would have presumably been to sow internecine discord, but even on the assumption that he was legitimate, there could be no denying that Golitsyn had widened the wedge between CIA and FBI. As the decade neared a close, the longstanding war over which axis would guide U.S. counterintelligence, CIA-Golitsyn or FBI-Nosenko, reached a point of crisis. Papich could sense that something bad was going to happen.

Papich would maintain that Hoover's own opinion on Golitsyn was not unilaterally formed -- that the boss "pretty much relied on the analysis and the viewpoints of his men, no question about it" -- but Hoover clearly had a close acquaintance with the impact of the Golitsyn thesis on FBI reporting from Soviet sources, and in one case it deeply embarrassed him. By 1970 British intelligence had "turned" Oleg Lyalin, a KGB man under diplomatic cover in London, and sent over intelligence digests containing his material to the FBI for circulation through to the CIA, and on up to the President. Hoover was so proud of the fact that Lyalin's information had been obtained from the British by his agency that during a vacation in Florida, when he called on President Nixon at his holiday home on Key Biscayne, the FBI Director went out of his way to ask, "How do you like the British reports from their source Lyalin, Mr. President?"

"What reports?" replied Nixon. He had never received them.

Hoover turned red with rage. Calls to CIA determined that all intelligence from Lyalin had been dead-ended in Angleton's safe. The CI Chief suspected that Lyalin was yet another disinformation agent, as predicted by Golitsyn, and had refused to circulate the documents to Nixon.

If Lyalin had been the first such FBI source to be knocked down by Golitsyn, Hoover might have been able to tolerate Angleton's skepticism. But coming at the end of a decade which had seen CIA knock down FBI sources like Fedora, Top Hat, and Nosenko, the Lyalin affair turned Hoover irrevocably against Angleton and Golitsyn -- and against Sam Papich, who was still trying to merge the incommensurate mindsets.

"There's no question about it, I did present the views of Jim Angleton and his people on defectors," Papich reflected. "And I mean, I made it clear that they should be considered. I needled the hell of out of Hoover and a lot of people. I definitely knew there were people in the Bureau that completely disagreed with me. You can run into FBI agents and they'll tell you, 'Sam's a great friend of mine, but boy did he get sucked in by CIA.' But I honestly felt Jim's criticism could help correct us where we were weak, on disinformation. So I questioned the Bureau's position on Nosenko and FEDORA. I gave my reasons for it. And I presented CIA's views. Of course, at CIA I presented the FBI's position. To me, it wasn't a matter of voting for the Red Team or the White Team, depending on your loyalties. God damn it, it was just a matter of analyzing what you had there."

That attitude was killing his FBI career. "Sam routinely took on Hoover," Larry McWilliams would say, still in awe more than twenty years later. "When Hoover demanded that certain things be written up in certain ways for his own purposes, Sam refused him. He said, 'There's two sides to this argument -- ours, and CIA's.' Well, that was his end."

In 1969, Papich started getting the message that he wasn't "fitting into the picture." There were little hints -- not being invited to "closed meetings," and getting little blue ink digs on interoffice memoranda: Does this fellow Papich have all his marbles today? Papich had been around long enough know Hoover's tactics, and by early 1970 had come to the conclusion "that I was no longer useful as a liaison man."

He probably could have hung on at some post out in the field, but Papich was fifty- seven years old, and he felt physically and mentally beaten. There was no sense staying with an organization that did not really want him anymore, and at such a cost to his family life. He was lucky to have a wife who was considerate about the long days and lost weekends, but it wasn't doing her any good, and it was getting to him, too. He hoped to spend more time with his son, Bill, who was coming home disillusioned from an army tour in Vietnam, cursing Nixon and all the policymakers for fighting a political war, not going in to win, and Sam didn't argue with him; he'd seen in Washington the way decisions were based on all manner of considerations but merit, and it sickened him, too. He didn't like Washington, never did want to work at headquarters, and looking back, he thought it amazing that he had lasted almost twenty years in that atmosphere -- getting into disagreements with Dulles, with Bedell Smith, John McCone, Dick Helms, "bouncing among all those wheels in both agencies like a goddamned tennis ball."

But he had a lot of good friends at both agencies, and no misgivings. Relations between the two outfits had developed and grown. In the beginning, back in 1952, it was just Papich and CIA, but gradually he had got people to see each other, and now, despite all the differences over defectors, which would with luck clear up, G- Men and spooks were working together on cases in New York and Washington and all over the country, whether Hoover wanted them to or not. That wasn't all the liaison man's doing; he had incited it, and inspired it to some extent, but at least he had left the secret world a better place for his having been there, which was something few men could say. He would do it all again, if he could relive the past. But he had no future in the FBI.

On February 15, 1970, Papich submitted a letter to Hoover, giving five weeks' notice of retirement. This letter was an unusual document. Interlarded among traditional kudos to the legendary Director and were a number of polite but implicitly critical pleas for the FBI to move more aggressively, and work more closely with CIA, against foreign spies. The United States had "never faced the kind of sophisticated and dangerous Soviet-bloc espionage" that it did now, and the Bureau needed to make some changes if it were to meet the new level of threat. The FBI had no real CI training program, and "nothing in the way of computerized counterintelligence," and given the Soviets' excellent capability of monitoring telephonic communications from Lourdes, Cuba, steps needed to be taken to secure the lines of FBI communication between Washington and New York. The Bureau should also try to see CIA's side on certain issues, like requests for technical coverage, and Papich later admitted "taking off on the whole subject of defector bona fides." Urging a reconciliation between warring CI philosophies, Papich ended by expressing the hope that Hoover would appoint a new liaison officer who "might more easily smooth over the difficulties between the two agencies."

But his criticism boomeranged, reinforcing Hoover's desire to continue in his old ways. Papich later acknowledged that his criticism "really shook up J. Edgar," as he had hoped it would, but he hadn't anticipated Hoover's furious accusation that the letter had been "drafted by the CIA." Nor had he any idea that his criticism would boil up all the bilious resentment which had been building in Hoover's soul -- stirred by the penetration and defection controversies of the 1960s, but really brewing since Donovan's men had started invading his turf back in the summer of 1941.

"I want to abolish the Liaison Section," Hoover barked at one of his deputies, Mark Felt, after reading Papich's letter. "It's costing us a quarter of a million dollars a year, and other agencies obviously benefit from it more than we do. Let the supervisors handle their own contacts with other agencies." Felt said he would look into it -- "I think we can work out something which will be effective" -- but privately he was horrified. "Papich had an extremely effective working relationship with the CIA," Felt later wrote, "from the lowest supervisor to Richard Helms." His reputation, even among those who thought him too Angletonian for a G-Man, was of "an honest and sincere man with high professional competence and an insatiable appetite for work. More importantly, in an area potentially fraught with jealousy, intrigue and deceit, he had the trust of the CIA and the respect of the FBI, if not its Director." But it was the FBI Director that counted, not his men, and clearly Hoover made up his mind, which meant that nothing was going to change it.

Of course, a pretext was needed for such a drastic move as the breaking off of liaison with CIA. Hoover and Felt found it in a bizarre case 2500 miles to the east, which had begun the spring before.

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Just after midnight on Sunday, March 9, 1969, at a ranch-style home on a snowy hill in Boulder, Colorado, a pretty young woman had locked herself in her first-floor bedroom, opened the window, and screamed for help. When a neighbor ran over and helped her to the ground, he noticed about her a strong odor of what smelled like chloroform. Boulder Police, summoned to the scene of this domestic disturbance, were met at the door by another woman, later described by officers as "the fullback type." She had greying hair, a ruddy complexion, and horn-rimmed glasses; she gave her name as Galya Storm Tannenbaum. She said she was "doing a little work for immigration now and then," and had been attempting to have the screaming woman, Mrs. Thomas Riha, sign some type of immigration papers which had to do with "divorce proceedings." Lurking submissively behind the imposing Miss Tannenbaum was a man who looked like Gary Cooper. This was University of Colorado history professor Thomas Riha, a 39-year-old Czech emigre and the screaming woman's husband. Police sensed immediately that he and the Tannenbaum woman were lovers, a classic case of "opposites attract." But why had Riha's wife been screaming?

When interviewed at the neighbor's house where she had taken refuge, Mrs. Riha said she had been in bed when she heard whispered voices in the study and awoke to sense a strange odor. Feeling dizzy, she opened her window and called for assistance. Under her bed covers, police found a small bottle containing what was subsequently determined to be ether. Nevertheless, it was concluded that there was "no foul play" involved. There was no particular concern about the fact that when asked for proof of her employment with Immigration, Miss Tannenbaum stated it was in her car, but failed to produce it. It would be some months before police learned that the name of Julia Galya Storm Tannenbaum had appeared on the wills of two persons whose deaths had been described by authorities as suicidal and accidental, respectively.

That pattern would loom in significance after March 16, when Professor Riha failed to show up for a meeting with colleagues. They came by his house and looked through the kitchen window. Inside they saw a table set for a breakfast never eaten. They never saw their friend again. Police soon discovered that Riha had recently transferred the title to his car, house and furniture to Miss Tannenbaum, who in January 1970 was arrested for forging the will of another Colorado man, who had recently died with cyanide in his blood. The local police chief told Scott Werner, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Denver Field Office, that Riha had probably been murdered by Tannenbaum. But before any direct evidence could be developed, a District Court declared her legally insane, and she was carted off to a Boulder mental hospital. There she became known to fellow inmates as "a kind of witch of the ward," and it was not long before she was found dead by cyanide poisoning, with a suicide note in the pocket of her dress.

Newspapers were meanwhile speculating that Riha was a victim of international intrigue -- "either kidnapped by the Russians, or picked up by the CIA or the FBI." His colleagues told reporters of generalized suspicions that Riha had intelligence links, but could produce no proof. In fact, Riha had been of some interest to both CIA and FBI since emigrating from Czechoslovakia in 1947. Fluent in five foreign languages, Riha had taken taken a leave of absence from doctoral work in the Harvard history department to study at Moscow University, from June 1958 to September 1959. The Bureau debriefed him on his return, and cross-referenced its Riha file: "Soviet Intelligence Services -- Recruitment of Students." The FBI report noted, "It is not believed at this time that Riha possesses any double agent potential," but a later Bureau document disclosed "that at one time subject was of some interest to CIA."

After Riha's disappearance, Angleton and his staffers were left to wonder, as Miler would put it, "whether there was an STB [Czech intelligence] or KGB connection." Angleton naturally tried to connect the Riha affair with the larger events of the day: Was there any significance that Riha, a Czech, disappeared just after the Prague Spring? Was it possible that Riha was a deep-cover, long-term illegal after the manner of Rudolf Abel, who had bolted after being tipped by an "emergency contact" that he might be exposed by one of several recent Czech defectors? "We never could find out," Miler later said. "There was information that he was in Czechoslovakia, but we never got anything more; we never could confirm it." Indeed, Papich advised his superiors in April 1969 of CIA's belief that the Czechoslovakia story was "without foundation," although the University of Colorado had been publicizing that angle to quiet rumors. The Agency had also stipulated that despite its previous interest in Riha, it was "not utilizing subject in any capacity," and did not know where he had gone.

The Agency repeated that disclaimer publicly, but by late 1969 it had failed to neutralize speculation about a CIA role in Riha's decampment. As a result, CIA's man in Boulder, a non-operational "domestic contact," worried that the Agency might be "kicked off campus." He therefore told University President Joseph Smiley, who was very concerned about Riha, that the professor's absence was "merely a marital matter" and that Riha was all right. The CIA officer attributed that information to an FBI agent, and pledged Smiley to secrecy.

But Smiley fumbled the ball. By January 1970 he had inadvertently told reporters that government officials had assured him that Riha was safe, and Werner suspected that CIA might have leaked this information. Werner's inquiries produced "some equivocation" from CIA officials, and by January 28 Werner was lamenting "unfavorable relations" with CIA in Denver. Finally, just as the sun sank behind the Rockies on February 10, CIA's Domestic Contact agent in Denver, Mike Todorovich, called Werner and came clean. He admitted that a "CIA representative in Boulder" had told Smiley that Riha was all right. Todorovich alleged that both he and the Boulder officer had "got this information from an FBI agent in Boulder."

Werner demanded to know the name of the FBI agent. Todorovich demurred. Werner began shouting. Until he had the name, he would assume CIA was lying. After all, as Werner informed Hoover in a memo on the conversation, "No Agent would have any reason whatsoever to make such a statement, since we had not conducted any investigation in this matter nor did we have any information concerning Riha and, therefore, we would not be in a position to make such a statement as to whether or not Riha was all right. For the information of the Bureau, we only have two resident agents in Boulder, Colorado, and I have personally contacted each of them and each has assured me both verbally and by memorandum that they have not made such statements as were attributed to them by Todorovich. Not only that, neither of the two has ever had any contact personally or otherwise with... the CIA representative in Boulder."

Four days later, FBI Headquarters was told that Smiley was trying to float a retraction -- his information about Riha was based on someone else's "honest mistake," and he thought this "cleared the air" and that "no further clarification was needed" -- but Hoover scrawled: "I don't. I still want name of our agent which [CIA rep] gave to Dr. Smiley."

Sam Papich was still on duty for a few weeks, closing out his files and cleaning out his office, and his main project before retiring was now to get the name of the offending agent from CIA. On February 17, according to FBI records, "Liaison Agent Papich vigorously protested... to CIA, charging the Agency with impeding our inquiry." Papich pointed out that CIA's "stubborn refusal to divulge the identity of the Bureau agent involved was unacceptable because we had no information to support the information attributed to our agent." As a result of Papich's protest, a CIA official telephoned the Agency's Boulder officer and insisted that he divulge the identity of the G-Man. The officer refused as "a matter of personal honor," and offered to resign before squealing.

Papich went higher. On February 20 he visited CIA Director Helms in his seventh- floor office at Langley, went through the background of the case, and asked Helms to help him. The DCI maintained that he did not have the identity of the FBI Agent, but said that CIA's Boulder officer had been recalled to HQ and would be "interviewed in detail" by Helms personally. In the meantime, Helms was requesting his subordinates to prepare a report covering all CIA knew on the matter. Helms advised that he considered this "a most serious development" and fully recognized "the gravity of the situation," since it had a "bearing on relations between the two agencies and the highly important work of both organizations."

The CIA officer arrived in Washington on February 24 and Helms heard him out. Two days later, Papich carried a Personal and Confidential letter from Helms to Hoover. The FBI Director read it at his desk, with blue pen poised.

"Dear Mr. Hoover," Helms began. "Mr. Papich has informed me that you wish to have the identity of the FBI agent who was the source of certain information communicated to an employee of this Agency. I have reviewed this complicated case and have requested [my employee] to reveal the identity of his source. As a point of honor and personal integrity," Helms wrote, his man "was adamant that he could not disclose the identity of his source, and had maintained this position under further pressure from me stating that in defense of it he was prepared to submit his resignation immediately." The officer had given out his Riha story merely to counter media speculation that U.S. intelligence had killed or kidnapped the professor; he had tried to coordinate this white propaganda process this with SAC Werner, but the FBI man had instead "engaged in an oral exchange during which he remarked that our representative in Boulder was 'lying.'"

Hoover scribbled, "Werner acted properly."

Helms went on: "I feel that poor judgement was employed in passing the information in question. This should only have been done with specific FBI approval." At the same time, Helms had "no reason to doubt" that his man had "acted honestly" and "reported to me in good faith," being "sincerely interested in preserving a sound working relationship between the CIA and the FBI."

Hoover wrote: "I do not agree."

"I hope sincerely," Helms continued, "that this recent incident will not impair our mutual efforts in making certain that we have not overlooked factors possibly having a significant bearing on U.S. intelligence and internal security interests. I shall pursue this matter through our respective liaison offices.

"In closing, Mr. Hoover, I wish to state that this Agency can only fully perform its duties in the furtherance of the national security when it has the closest coordination and teamwork with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Furthermore, it is necessary that we continue to conduct our business in an atmosphere of mutual respect. I trust that we can coordinate closely any future developments or actions in these cases, in order to prevent the airing in public of conflicts or differences between the two agencies."

Hoover's comment: "Helms forgets that it is a two way street."

"I strongly feel that there are representatives of the news media who are eager to exploit alleged differences on a national scale. Disturbing as this experience has been, I wish to thank you in the interests of our common cause for having communicated with me in such a forthright and candid manner. Sincerely, Richard Helms."

Underneath the DCI's signature, Hoover wrote: "This is not satisfactory. I want our Denver office to have absolutely no contacts with CIA. I want direct liaison here with CIA to be terminated & any contact with CIA in the future to be by letter only. H."

When Sam Papich read those words, his blood ran cold. He rushed into Hoover's office and beseeched him in the strongest terms to reconsider, pleading that a close relation between the two agencies was vital to an effective national counterintelligence effort. The intricacy of CI cases, combined with the speed of travel and communication, required direct personal contact between the FBI agents and more than a dozen CIA officers daily. Communicating by mail would be an unworkable situation, Papich warned. By cutting off liaison, Hoover would only "drive a wedge" between FBI and CIA, accomplishing in one capricious instant what the KGB had been patiently trying to do for years. This wedge would create a dangerous gap, which communist intelligence would naturally exploit.

"I was very strongly denouncing the cutoff of liaison," Papich allowed. "You know, I'd been working my butt off for years to build bridges, and the boss severs relations with the agency, just kind of overnight -- yeah, I blew my stack."

Hoover listened quietly. Then he said, "My decision stands," and went back to work on the pile of papers before him.

That afternoon, Papich informed Helms that no "new Papich" would be coming around after his retirement, because Hoover had "terminated" the liaison officer position. Papich was despondent, and Helms was grim.

The outgoing liaison agent tried one last time to reason with Hoover, in a memo on March 2. "I hope that you will share my alarm," Papich wrote, being "absolutely convinced that the intelligence services of Great Britain, France, West Germany and others," including the FBI and CIA, were "well penetrated by the Soviets." It was important for the agencies to work together in rooting out these presentations; the KGB must not profit from interagency differences. "The break in relations between the FBI and CIA will provide a basis for promoting further rifts," he warned Hoover. "I appeal to you to leave the door open."

Hoover did not respond to Papich's letter. Instead, the next day he sent a Secret Coded Urgent teletype to all FBI field offices in cities where CIA also had a presence. "IMMEDIATELY DISCONTINUE ALL CONTACT WITH THE LOCAL CIA OFFICE," the message read.

No one pretended that Hoover had decided to break liaison simply in a "fit of pique" over merely the unsolved disappearance of a Czech professor. After all, the FBI Director had endured far worse transgressions by men like Bill Donovan, Donald Downes, William Harvey, and Frank Wisner, but had never cut off relations because of them. And if it was often true, as CIA officer Lyman Kirkpatrick observed, that "superficial and insignificant mistakes resulted in greater adverse reaction than the important ones," it was no less true that the impact of seemingly trivial errors could be magnified, so to speak, at the end of a bad day, when one was looking for an excuse to blow up. For Hoover it had been a bad decade, coming after two others which, from the perspective of interagency relations, were less than wholly good. Scotty Miler and others at CIA later told Senate investigators that the deeper causes ranged from the Bureau's lack of CI savvy and research resources, differences of opinion on possible moles, and most especially, disputes over the bona fides of Nosenko and Golitsyn. The Riha episode, as Angleton later said, was simply "the straw that broke the Camel's back."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I left under a cloud," Sam Papich recalled. "It was standard for any retiree to get a letter from J. Edgar, and a picture taken with him. But I got nothing. Quite honestly, I'm not bitter about it, but that's the way it was."

Papich insisted that his retirement ceremony be kept "quite brief," but it went on for a couple hours because so many people wanted to talk to him. He was loaded down with gifts of one kind or another, mostly fishing equipment, and he had to get help carrying it all out to his car. It was almost like what Hoover himself would to get from his men for Christmas, and what he used to get from the public, back during the Dillinger days. The comparison was not lost on G-Men like McWilliams. "To me, and to everyone else I knew, Sam was a jewel. What happened to him, with Hoover, was a travesty. Sam should have been running the god-damned place, after Hoover." CIA officers like Raymond Rocca, Angleton's research chief, would revere Papich as a martyr to the True CI cause -- "an outstanding person, who really understood, and because of that, suffered much."

The Papich legend only grew when, in coming years, he stood virtually alone among disillusioned ex-FBI men in refraining from blasting Hoover, supporting him even in private conversation with his closest friends. People asked him, How can you look at Hoover with any sympathy or support or kindness, after what he did? Papich would just say, "Well, I disagree with the man, but on the other hand I had some great assignments under him." And then he would change the subject.

Adapted from WEDGE: The Secret War Between the FBI and CIA, © 1994 by Mark Riebling.

[Jim Root]

Tim

Great information. I agree that Nosenko is an interesting character in the assassination story. If sent by the Soviets to downplay their association with Oswald you have a perplexing problem, "Just who was Oswald woring for?"

We now know that information about Oswald's movements in 1963 were being filtered up to the office of Richard Helms in real time. If the Soviets were aware of and so nervous about Oswald's movements that they dispached Nosenko to the US after the assassination, "Just what do we have with this Oswald?"

In a last interview, Edwin Walker suggested that the Warren Commission had it 80% right but that Oswald was working for both the Soviet KGB and the CIA. Could Walker have been right? How would he know?

Look at a brief timeline for Oswald and overlap Nosenko:

1962

March

3rd: US Embassy receives Oswald's request for a loan

15th: Marina's visa is approved

28th: Lee receives an affidavit of support from Marguerite's employer (remember that it was letters from Marguerite that helped Lee receive an early discharge fromt he Marines).

April

12th: In a letter to Robert, Lee indicates they are not in a hurry to leave since good weather has arrived.

May

10th" The Embassy asks Lee to come and sign the final papers for the departure to America.

18th: Lee leaves his job.

22nd: Lee picks up his exit visa.

24th: The Oswalds arrive in Moscow to visit the Embassy.

June

1st: Lee signs a promissory note for $435.71, and the Oswalds leave for America.

5th - 8th: Nosenko makes first contact with CIA.

13th: The Oswalds arrive in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Is it just a coincidence that Nosenko begins and ends his defection in corrolation to the movements and actions of Oswald?

If you go back further in the record you will find that when Oswald first contacts the Embassy about returing to the United States, a flury of notes pass between the Embassy and the State Department. Within days of deciding that Oswald will be allowed to return to the US, Major General Edwin Walker begins his Pro Blue Program that leads to his resignation from the Army. Is it a coincidence that both the Soviet Union and the US have persons that become associated with Oswald and the assassination whose downfall/rise are tied directly to the movements in time of Lee Harvey Oswald? Is this annomaly related to the assassination or to a previous events in history?

I believe they are related to the U-2 incident and the failure of the Paris Summit (something Oswald was so critical of during his speech at Spring Hill College)!

Jim Root

[Pat Speer]

The strange fact is that the same men who distrusted Nosenko's bona fides also conspired to hide information from the Warren Commission so that the lone-nut scenario could go out unquestioned. One has to ask oneself why this is. Either they were letting the government tell a story they believed to be false, or they believed Nosenko was for real, but were contemplating using him for propaganda purposes, perhaps as a pretext for war.

[Jim Root]

Pat

You pose a great question:

"The strange fact is that the same men who distrusted Nosenko's bona fides also conspired to hide information from the Warren Commission so that the lone-nut scenario could go out unquestioned. One has to ask oneself why this is?"

Perhaps because they knew the truth. Try this senario:

Imagine if you will..... that the Angleton types knew for a fact that Oswald had been used to pass infromation to the Soviets (without Oswald realizing that he was doing what we wanted). We may have known that the Soviets had received the information because it was designed to provide the Russians with the information necessary to down the U-2. Oswald had been identified by the CIA when he had written to the Socialist Workers Party, a few weeks before he joined the Marines, as a potential candidate to be used without being an actual trained agent. Oswald was then put into a classified position dealing with the U-2 and was later helped into the Russia through Helsinki when Edwin Walker (who was on his way from Little Rock, Arkasas to Augsburg, Germany) passed classified information to him (that had been sent to the State Department from the Helsinki Embassy on Oct. 9, 1959) that provides the infromation on how to get easy entry into Russia. When Oswald decides to return to the US, Walker's handler realizes that he could be compromised gives Walker a new assignment to spy on the right wing in America (imagine his surprize when he sees Oswald on TV as the accused assassin of Kennedy, Walker then contacts a German newspaper, but that is a different thread). Oswald receives his visa to return to the US and the Soviets are worried that he may give up a Japanese/Communist intelligence cell that had been used to collect infromation on the U-2. The KGB wants to put themselves in a position to limit the damage if necessary by having Nosenko make contact with the CIA. When Oswald is accused of shooting Kennedy the implications of Soviet complicity are obvious and Nosenko is dispatched to negate this possibe damage. Both sides need to cover there tracks and Nosenko's bonafides are obviously called into question by the Angleton types.

For me this possibility makes to much sense for my own comfort.

Jim Root

[Tim Gratz]

Also see the thread on Rufus Taylor re his participation in "clearing" Nosenko.

[Tim Gratz]

Here is the HSCA testimony of CIA officer John Hurt re the Nosenko affair.

Chairman STOKES - The committee will come to order. The committee calls Mr. John Hart. Mr. Hart, would you please stand, raise your right hand and be sworn. Do you solemnly swear the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mr. HART - I do, sir.

Chairman STOKES - Thank you. You may be seated. The Chair recognizes counsel Ken Klein.

Mr. KLEIN - Mr. Chairman, at this time I believe Mr. Hart would like to make a statement to the committee.

Chairman STOKES - You are recognized, sir.

TESTIMONY OF JOHN HART

Mr. HART - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, gentlemen. Before I begin my statement, I would like to make a prefatory remark on a technical aspect of what was said about me by the chief counsel, Mr. Blakey. I was not and never have been what is called a career agent with the CIA. I bring that up only because that term happens to have a technical meaning in the Agency. I was what you would call an employee or an officer of the Agency. And I would like to have that made part of the record.

Chairman STOKES - The record may so show.

Mr. HART - Mr. Chairman, it has never been my custom to speak from a prepared text. I have tried, and I never succeeded. Therefore, what I have before me are a series of notes which were finished about 8 o'clock last night, based on guidance which I got at that time from Admiral Stansfield Turner, the Director of Central Intelligence. It is my purpose to tell you as much as possible about the background of the Nosenko case with the idea not of addressing what have been called his bona fides, but what has been described as his credibility. Now, I must say that I have difficulty in distinguishing between credibility and bona fides, but in any case, the testimony and the evidence which has been presented regarding Nosenko simply cannot be evaluated properly unless I give you the background which I am about to present.

Mr. DODD - Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a request at this point if I could. As I understood it, last week, the agreement and understanding was that we would prepare a report of our investigation, submit it to the Agency, to which the Agency would then respond in a like report. We were notified earlier this week that a detailed outline of the Agency's response would be forthcoming. Am I to assume that this detailed outline consisting of a single page, listing four subtitles, is the summary of Mr. Hart's presentation? That is, as far as I can determine, the full extent to which we have any response relating to Mr. Hart's testimony at this juncture. What I would like to request at this point is that this committee take a 5- or 10-minute recess, and we have the benefit of examining your notes from which you are about to give your testimony, so that we could prepare ourselves for proper questioning of you, Mr. Hart. Mr. Chairman, I would make that request.

Chairman STOKES - Does the witness care to respond?

Mr. HART - Mr. Chairman, I will do anything which will be of help to the committee. I want to state that I am not personally certain what was promised the committee. I was brought back on duty to be the spokesman for the agency. I spent my time preparing testimony which I am prepared to offer here. If it will be of assistance for the committee to see this in advance, I am perfectly happy to do so, if there is a way of doing that.

Chairman STOKES - Does the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd, want to be heard further?

Mr. DODD - Yes, just to this extent, Mr. Chairman. It is not my intention to delay these proceedings any more than they have to be. I am not asking for a lot of time. If we could have just 5 or 10 minutes in which we might be able to make some Xerox copies of those notes, so that we could have the benefit of following you along in your testimony on the basis of that outline, it would be helpful I think in terms of the committee assessing the material and also preparing itself for the proper questions to be addressed to you at the conclusion of your statement. So I do it only for that purpose, Mr. Chairman. It is not in any way designed to thwart the efforts of Mr. Hart or the Agency to make its presentation.

Chairman STOKES - Would the gentleman be agreeable to providing Mr. Hart the opportunity to proceed with his testimony, and then in the event that you deem it necessary to have additional time to review his notes, or to prepare an examination of him after his testimony, that the Chair would grant you that time at that time.

Mr. DODD - That would be fine, Mr. Chairman. I will agree to that.

Chairman STOKES - I thank the gentleman. You may proceed, sir.

Mr. HART - Mr. Chairman, I also want to emphasize that in order to be of as much help as possible, I am perfectly willing to take questions as we go along. This is not a canned presentation. It may be easier for the members of the committee to ask questions as we go along, in which case I will do my best to answer them as we go along.

Chairman STOKES - I think the committee would prefer to have you make your presentation. Then after that the committee will then be recognized--members will be recognized individually for such questioning as they so desire.

Mr. FITHIAN - Mr. Chairman, may I ask the witness to move the microphone a little closer in some way or another. We are having some difficulty in hearing from this angle.

Mr. HART - Yes, sir. Is this all right? Mr. Chairman, gentlemen, the effort in this presentation will be to point out some of the unusual factors in the Nosenko case which resulted in a series of cumulative misunderstandings. And I am hoping that once these misunderstandings are explained--and they were misunderstandings within the Agency for the most part--I am hoping that when these are explained, that many of the problems which are quite understandable, which the staff has had with the questions and answers from Mr. Nosenko, and also allegations concerning him, will be cleared up and go away. I will endeavor to show that the handling of Nosenko by the Central Intelligence Agency was counterproductive from the time of the first contact with him in Geneva in 1962, and that it continued in a manner which was counterproductive until the jurisdiction over the case was transferred to the CIA Office of Security in late 1967, specifically in August of that year. The manner in which the defector was handled, which I am going to outline, resulted in generating a large amount of misinformation and in creating difficulties, not only for an investigating body, such as yourself, but for people such as the Director of the Central Intelligence, Mr. Helms, who was not well informed in many cases as to what was actually happening. I do not mean to imply that he was told untruths. He was simply not given the total picture of what was going on. Since Admiral Turner has become Director of Central Intelligence, he has been quite concerned about this case, and he specifically requested that I come back periodically to the Agency, from which I retired in 1972, and give presentations to senior officials of the Agency on the nature of the case. The complexity of the case is such that to give a minimally adequate presentation to the first group which I lectured took me 4 1/2 hours of continuous lecturing. However, I think that since the interests of this committee are more pinpointed than that group I have been lecturing, I can certainly do it in a shorter time. Now, the study which I made was made from mid-June 1976 until late December 1976. It required the full-time efforts of myself and four assistants. We collected from various parts of the Agency 10 4-drawer safes full of documents, and we had also access to documents which were in repositories in other parts of the Agency, and which we simply didn't have room to collect in our office. In making this presentation, I will be somewhat hampered, but not to the point where I can't do the job properly, by the fact that this session is, of course, open to the public. Most of the documentation which we had, in fact I would say, almost without exception was heavily classified, and we pulled together pieces of documentation which no single person had ever seen before. So we put together the first full picture which has ever been had of this activity. The first specific question which I want to address myself to is this case as a human phenomenon, because the human factors involved have a direct bearing on some of the contradictions which have appeared in the case. And unfortunately the human factors were the last to be considered by the people who conducted this case between 1962 and 1967. Some of them were ridiculously simple things which you might have thought would come to their attention. I am about to discuss a psychological profile which was made of Mr. Nosenko on June 24, 1964. This would have been available to any of the persons working on the case, but they--and it probably was seen by them, but they paid no attention to it. Let me say by way of qualification for giving you this evidence that although I am not a psychologist, I have had considerable training in psychology and specifically in giving of intelligence tests. And I am about to talk to you about what is known as the Wexler adult intelligence scale, which was administered to Mr. Nosenko. The Wexler adult intelligence scale measures 10 elements of the--of a person's intelligence. Of the 10 elements shown here on the measure which ! have here, and which I will be happy to make available to the committee staff, if you wish, it is shown that Mr. Nosenko's memory was the weakest aspect of his overall intelligence. His memory in terms of the weighted scale came out as a 7. Now, the mean would have been a 10. Thus he was at the time tested, he was registering a memory well below the normal level. It is impossible to say what he would have scored under conditions which were more normal, because it must be taken into consideration that at the time he was--he was tested, he had been subjected to not only the stresses and strains of--involved in defecting, but also in some rather rough handling which he had received since his defection. However--you will see that if this man--man's memory was below the normal to be expected for a person of his intelligence, that any of the testimony which he gave in the course of various interrogations could be expected to be flawed simply by the human factor of memory alone.

Second, I want to point out that defection is in itself a major life trauma. It has a very serious effect, which I cannot testify to from the medical standpoint, but it is--it has both psychological and physical effects on people, and anybody who has, as I have, had to do, had considerable contact over the years with defectors, knows that a defector is usually a rather disturbed person, because he has made a break with his homeland, usually with family, with friends, with his whole way of life, and above all he is very uncertain as to what his future is going to be. I have had defectors whom I personally took custody of turn to me and the first question they asked was, "When are you going to kill me?" In other words, defection is an upsetting experience, and you cannot expect of a man immediately after he has defected that he will always behave in a totally reasonable way. Another circumstance which I want to bring up is the fact that the initial interrogations of Mr. Nosenko, which took place in Geneva in 1962, were handled under conditions which, while understandable, did not make for good interrogations. They did not make for good questioning. Mr. Nosenko, as of the time he was being questioned in 1962, was still considered by the KGB to be a loyal member of that organization. He had considerable freedom because he actually did not have any duties in connection with the disarmament discussions. He was simply the security guardian of the delegates. He was the KGB's watchdog. And as such, he was able to move freely and in a manner of his own choice. He availed himself of this freedom to make contact with an American diplomat, who in turn turned him over to representatives of the CIA. In making these contacts, which were recurrent, he each time was nervous that the local KGB element might for some reason be suspicious of him, and therefore he took about an hour and a half before each meeting in order to be sure that he was not being tailed. In his particular case, this countersurveillance measure consisted of visiting a number of bars, in each of which he had a drink. He had one scotch and soda in each of four or five bars. So by the time he got to the point where he was going to be questioned, he had had four or five drinks. When he arrived on the spot where he was going to be questioned-this was a clandestine apartment, in the Agency's terms, Agency's jargon it is called a safe house, he was then offered further liquor. And he continued to drink throughout the interrogation. In talking to Nosenko, and requestioning him a few days ago, I asked him to describe his condition during these meetings, and he said, "I must tell you honestly that at all these meetings I was snookered." And I said, "You mean that you were drunk?" "Yes, John," he said, "I was drunk." Therefore he was being interrogated about very important things while he was heavily under the influence of liquor. And he said to me that in some cases he exaggerated the importance of his activities, in some cases he really didn't know what he was doing, he was simply talking.

Now, I want to then tell you how the problems involved with this testimony, if you can call it such, given by Mr. Nosenko, was further worsened. There were two people sent from Washington specifically to talk to Mr. Nosenko after he made the approach. One of them was a native-born American who had learned a certain amount of Russian academically, but did not speak it, write it or read it fluently. The other was an American citizen who spoke native Russian, but whose principal purpose was to be an interpreter. There was a tape recorder on hand at these meetings. Sometimes it worked well, sometimes it did not work well. You must remember, I am sure, that back in the 1960's tape recorders were much less refined than they are now, and the ambient noise, straight noise, and so forth, interfered considerably. However, records of these original meetings were not made from the tapes on the tape recorder. The records which were thought for a number of years to be transcripts were in fact made from notes made by the non-Russian speaker, what he understood as a result of interrogation by the Russian speaker, or what he got himself from his own knowledge of Russian. He made notes. After the meetings, these notes were then used as the basis of purported transcripts, purported transcripts, which went unchallenged for a number of years. When later in 1967 these transcripts were compared carefully with what was on the tape, it was shown that there were a number of discrepancies. These discrepancies were very important in the history of this case, because the discrepancies between what Mr. Nosenko really said and what was on the tapes gave rise to charges within the Agency that Mr. Nosenko was not what he purported to be. But the important point is that in many cases what was being used against him as evidence of telling untruths was not in fact what he had said. I will take simply one example to illustrate for you what happened. Mr. Nosenko mentioned that he had attended what is called the Frunze Naval Preparatory School. Frunze was a general who was a hero of the Russian revolution and there seemed to be countless institutions of a military nature in the Soviet Union named after him. The most famous is the Frunze Military Academy which roughly compares to West Point. Into the transcript was put the fact that Mr. Nosenko said he had graduated from the Frunze Military Academy. He never said this. He never said this at all, but it was held against him that he had said this. That is an example of the type of evidence which was used against him in assessing him. Now I would like to say a few words about what, despite this, these difficulties--excuse me, Mr. Chairman. I would like to say a few words about the intelligence which Mr. Nosenko did produce during that time, despite the adverse circumstances surrounding the questioning. In the first place, Mr. Nosenko was responsible for the discovery of a system of audio surveillance or microphones within the U.S. Embassy in Moscow which hitherto had been suspected but nobody had had enough information on it to actually detect it. The information provided by Mr. Nosenko was sufficiently specific, so that when the necessary action was taken which involved wholesale tearing out of walls, tearing out of plumbing, tearing out of old fashioned radiators, it was discovered that there was a system which totaled 52 microphones which were planted throughout the most sensitive parts of the American Embassy in Moscow. Forty two of these microphones were still active at the time and were being used by the KGB to collect information continuously on what was going on in the American Embassy. It has been said that this was not a significant contribution, that some of the people, whom I shall describe later, who have claimed that Mr. Nosenko was a dispatched Soviet agent sent to deceive the U.S. Government, said this was throwaway information. I can only say, Mr. Chairman, that this is not entirely a matter of judgment on my part or on the part of those of us who have investigated this case. We do not believe that there is any reason to think that the Soviets would ever have given away that information simply to establish somebody in a position to mislead us. There are no adequate precedents to show that they would have done so. Another case which was revealed to us in 1962, despite the, as I say, undesirable circumstances surrounding the questioning of Mr. Nosenko, had to do with a man, whom I in open session cannot identify, but he was a very high level Soviet KGB penetration in a very sensitive position in a Western European Government. He was, and on the basis of Mr. Nosenko's lead, arrested, tried, and convicted of espionage. There is no reason to believe that the Soviets would have given this information away. There is no precedent that we know of for the Soviets giving information of this sensitivity away. Now I want to mention some further aspects of the difficulties which arose in the handling of the agent, some of the events which distorted this case. The first important communication which went back from Geneva after the two Washington emissaries had met with Mr. Nosenko was sent by a man who, in order to avoid the use of personal names, although the true name of this individual is certainly available to the staff, and if they have any questions I will be happy to answer, I am going to call him the deputy chief of the SB Division, Soviet Bloc Division, throughout my testimony. The deputy chief, who is the chief interrogator over there, sent back a telegram to Washington on June 11, 1962, in which he said "Subject" meaning Nosenko "has conclusively proved his bona fides. He has provided info of importance and sensitivity. Subject now completely cooperative. Willing to meet when abroad and will meet as often and as long as possible in his departure in Geneva from June 15." On June 15 both Nosenko and the Deputy Chief SB departed from Geneva, Mr. Nosenko to return to Moscow and his KGB duties, the Deputy Chief SB to return to Washington. In the course of my investigation, I asked the gentleman, who was for many years chief of the CIA counterintelligence staff, to describe to me what ensued after the arrival in Washington of DCSB, and I shall give you a brief quote which was recorded and 41-371 0 - 79 - 32 Vol. 2 transcribed and which is held in our files. This is the chief of the counterintelligence staff of the CIA speaking: We got the first message from Deputy Chief SB--that is the one that I have just previously quoted to you--on Nosenko from Geneva, and Deputy Chief SB was ordered back to Washington, and we had a big meeting here on Saturday morning, and Deputy Chief SB thought he had the biggest fish of his life. I mean he really did. And everything I heard from him, however, was in direct contrast from what we had heard from Mr. X. I now come to the subject of another defector who, throughout this paper, I am going to call Mr. X, although the staff is well aware of his true identity. Mr. X was a defector who had come, who had defected from the Soviet Union in late 1961. In the course of his dealings with the Central Intelligence Agency, he was diagnosed by a psychiatrist and separately by a clinical psychologist as a paranoid. And I am sure that everybody knows what a paranoid is. This man had delusions of grandeur. He was given to building up big, fantastic plots, and he eventually built up a plot, which I will have to go into in a little detail here, which centered around the idea that the KGB had vast resources which it was using to deceive not only the U.S. Government but other Western governments. This plot was master minded by something called the KGB disinformation directorate, and this KGB disinformation directorate was able to deceive the West, as a whole, meaning the United States and the allied European countries, because of the fact that it had penetrations at high levels, both within the intelligence services of these countries, including our own, but also in high places in the governments of the various countries, in the nonintelligence parts of the governments. Mr. X's story did not come out immediately in one piece. It was elaborated over the years, and for all I know, it may be still in the process of exaggeration, exaggeration and elaboration. One aspect of Mr. X's character was that he was rather jealous of other Soviet defectors. Now he did personally know Nosenko, and when Nosenko came out, he did give evidence confirming that Nosenko had had certain jobs, which was in agreement with what Nosenko told us he had done. At later phases of the handling of Mr. X, he changed his story a number of times. I am not an expert on the Mr. X case, and therefore I cannot give you all the details. It is a very lengthy case, but he did go through a number of stages in which he changed his stories. Mr. X was a problem for the Central Intelligence Agency and for anybody else who dealt with him, because he basically insisted that he wanted to deal only with the President of United States. He did not want to deal with people at a lower rank. But he had a substantial influence on the case because he came to be accepted as almost a member of the Central Intelligence Agency, in terms of the handling of the Nosenko case. He was in due time given access to a voluminous amount of information relating to matters of counterintelligence interest. In the case of Nosenko, he was given access to all the debriefings of Nosenko. He was given access to the tapes themselves. He was consulted as to Nosenko's bona fides. He was allowed to think up questions which were to be asked Nosenko. He participated almost as if he were a U.S. citizen, with a status similar to my own in the organization. He did this, however, without the knowledge at that time of Nosenko. He was kept behind the scenes, but he was master minding the examinations in many ways. The final point that I suppose I might make about Mr. X, which will give it, give you some evidence of his peculiar point of view, was that it was one of his contentions that the schism between the Soviet Union and China, Communist China, was simply a KGB disinformation ruse, designed to confuse the West. He offered this theory quite seriously, and in some limited quarters within the agency, it came to be taken seriously. Now Mr. X said, in regard to Nosenko, that Nosenko had been sent out specifically to remedy the damage produced by Mr. X who defected some time previously and had given us information which he thought of great value. In point of fact, quantitatively and qualitatively, the information given by Mr. X was much smaller than that given by Nosenko. But I will read you an excerpt from what Mr. X had to say regarding Nosenko because it bears on the manner in which Nosenko was cheating--was treated. Now this is a report written, not a direct quote, a report written on a conversation with Mr. X. Mr. X felt in general that there were indeed serious signs of disinformation in this affair. He felt that such a disinformation operation to discredit him was a likelihood. A KGB officer could be permitted to tell everything he knew now--that is another KGB officer--everything he knew now, if he worked in the same general field as Mr. X. The purpose of Nosenko's coming out, he thought, would be to contradict what Mr. X had said, and also possibly to set Mr. X up for kidnaping, also to divert our attention from investigations of Mr. X's leads by throwing up false scents, and to protect remaining Soviet sources. Now Mr. X's views were immediately taken to be the definitive views on Nosenko, and from that standpoint, from that point on, the treatment of Mr. Nosenko was never, until 1967, devoted to learning what Mr. X had to say. It was devoted to "breaking"-excuse me, sir, I misspoke. It was never devoted to finding out what Mr. Nosenko said. The Agency's activity was devoted to breaking Nosenko, who was presumed, on the basis of the supposed evidence given by Mr. X, that Nosenko was a "dispatched KGB agent" sent to mislead the United States. It is with this in mind that we have to approach everything that happened from 1962, after the first contact with Nosenko terminated, and the time that Nosenko was turned over to the CIA Office of Security for reinvestigation. The polygraphs themselves must be evaluated in the light of their use, not to get at truth, because they were not used as an instrument of getting at truth, because they were used as an instrument of intimidation of one sort or another, in one way or another. Now again on the handling of Mr. Nosenko, the belief among the small group of people running the Nosenko case, a very limited group of people, was that he was part of a plot of the type outlined by Mr. X, which was so horrendous that therefore not many people could be made privy to this investigation. One of the reasons for that, even within the Agency, was that Mr. X had alleged that the Agency must be penetrated by the KGB at a high level, and therefore you had to limit what Nosenko and Mr. X said to a very small number of people who were thought not to be penetrations, a very small trusted group. The secrecy surrounding this case, I can illustrate to you from the following personal experience. In 1968 I came back, well, after this case had been resolved, I came back from Vietnam and was put in charge of the European Division of the Directorate of Operations of the Agency. Under my supervision at that time, there were two senior officers, one a GS18 and one a GS-16, who had been two of the three persons who were in charge of the Nosenko and Mr. X cases. I was never told of their participation in this case. I was never told that their work on the case had been discredited and had caused them to be transferred out of headquarters to foreign assignments. Therefore even though I was their supervisor, I was not permitted to know of this important part of their recent past and of their performance. In 1964, Mr. Chairman, Nosenko came back out from the Soviet Union, again to Geneva, again in the same capacity as the KGB security officer attached to the Soviet mission to the disarmament conferences. He came out with the intention, a firm intention, of not going back. The Agency in the meantime had built up an elaborate case against him, a case built up under the aegis of the chief of the CI staff, the chief of the Soviet Bloc Division, and the deputy chief of the Soviet Bloc Division. Again it was the man I am referring to as the deputy chief of the Soviet Bloc Division, although he did not as yet hold that rank, who came out to Geneva to make the recontact with Nosenko. The question of just how to deal with Nosenko had been carefully examined, and it was decided that although the Agency was intensely suspicious of him, perhaps more than suspicious, they had concluded that he was being dispatched to mislead the U.S. Government. Nevertheless we must not tip our hand. We must not let Nosenko know that we suspected him, because Nosenko would then report back to his superiors that we knew what they were up to. Thus Nosenko was treated with the maximum of duplicity. As an illustration, I want to read then an excerpt from a transcript, and this is an accurate excerpt from a transcript. I want to read an excerpt of a conversation which ensued on the 30th of January 1964 between the deputy chief SB and Nosenko. Nosenko, who, by the way, was worried about his future. He knew he had some kind of a relationship with us, but he was interested now in breaking finally with the Soviet Union and coming to the West, and he wanted asylum in United States, and he wanted to be sure that he was able to earn his living. He wasn't asking to be in charge of the Government. He wanted an opportunity to earn his living. Nosenko said:

The only thing I want to know, and I ask this question, what should I expect in the future? The Deputy Chief SB replied: The following awaits. As I presented it, you wanted to come to the United States to have some job, some chance for future life which gives you security, and if possible, the opportunity to work in this field which you know; is that correct? Nosenko: Absolutely. Deputy chief SB: The Director has said yes, flatly, absolutely yes, in fact, I would say enthusiastic. That is the only word to describe it. We talked about it, and since this was a business discussion, I will repeat all of it. The next thing will be some details that we spoke about. We talked about the means by which you could have a solid career with a certain personal independence. Because of the very great assistance you have been to us already, and because of this desire to give you a backing, they will give you a little additional personal security. We want to give you an account of your own, a sum at the beginning of just plain $50,000, and from there on, as a working contract, $25,000 a year. But in addition, because of the case." Which I have said I cannot otherwise identify, in which a KGB penetration had been arrested on the basis of Nosenko's information: But, in addition, because of this case, which would have been impossible without your information, we are going to add at least $10,000 to this initial sum. So he was being paid, he was being assured of a bonus of $10,000 for his excellent performance in connection with one case. That commitment was subsequently reiterated in almost those exact words on a later occasion when he was on his way back to the United States. Once Nosenko arrived in the United States, there were a couple of problems. The two agencies were interrogating him, although he was in the actual custody of the Central Intelligence Agency. The FBI did not at that time at least share the doubts about Nosenko which the Agency had. They regarded him as a bona fide defector, and considered that his information was valid and useful. It shows in the record that at a later date Mr. Hoover expressed himself as believing that Nosenko was a valid defector but that Mr. X was a provocateur. So there was a direct conflict between the two agencies on this subject. The position of the Central Intelligence Agency was that it faced a dilemma as to how to keep Nosenko sufficiently isolated so that he could not communicate with his supposed "KGB controllers," who were still master minding his activities, while at the same time keeping him sufficiently cooperative to be debriefed. The dilemma was compounded by the fact that while the FBI was primarily interested in ascertaining from Nosenko valid information which they presumed him to have, the interest of the Agency was not particularly in obtaining valid information because the Agency assumed that he would not be giving valid information except incidental to establishing falsely his bona fides. Therefore, the Agency thought, the Agency effort was devoted to a plan to break him. "Break him" meant getting him to confess to what was presumed by the Agency to be the case that he was a dispatched KGB agent still functioning under KGB control, although in American hands. On February 12, 1964, Nosenko was lodged in a CIA controlled house under constant guard, while being treated in a friendly fashion. Yet, he was, during all this time, still worried about his status because there was a certain unreality, I would say, about his situation. He had been assured that he was going to be granted a salary and that he was going to have a job and so forth. But he was kept very isolated, he was under guard at all times, and he was being interrogated periodically by the FBI and by the Agency. His fear, as he recounts it now, is that he was worried about being milked of information, after which he might be discarded. He didn't know what would happen if he were discarded because he still had a very active fear, as he does to this day, that the KGB would like either to kidnap him or kill him. He nevertheless remained tractable and cooperative for the first few days, although in the succeeding weeks he became more difficult. He had a serious personality crisis, which led to heavy drinking, and he got to the point where he was starting out the day with a drink and was continuing to drink more or less continually throughout the 24 hours, except for those times when he was asleep. This, once again, has a tendency to vitiate some of the testimony. But I would say that one can certainly say that there is no particular reason to believe that what he was saying wasn't in good faith, despite the fact that it may have been inaccurate because of the amount of alcohol. An interesting point is that at about this time, while Nosenko was still in this friendly confinement, a Soviet defector who had been with us for some time and who was doing research for us noticed that there were serious discrepancies between the so-called transcripts of the 1962 meetings and the tapes from which these transcripts had allegedly been made. This particular Soviet defector who is very thorough, very conscientious, wrote a memorandum to the deputy chief "SB" saying that these transcripts do not resemble in many respects the tapes--and here I am afraid I am speaking from memory, but I think my memory is accurate--I think he named 150 discrepancies which he had found in a cursory review of the tapes, and he offered to make a full report of the other discrepancies which might exist. Insofar as the record shows--and we examined the record quite carefully to see if there was any reply--we cannot find anything which indicates that the defector was asked to make a full examination and a full report of the discrepancies. I cannot account for this, but in any case, it can be said with certainty that the responsible people who--or at least one of the responsible people running this operation was in a position to know that the transcripts were not accurate and did not take the trouble to ask for a more accurate version. The next step, since the interrogations conducted by the CIA, which as I say were designed not to ascertain information so much as they were to pin on Nosenko the label of a KGB agent acting to deceive us, since nothing had been proved in the friendly confinement, the people running the operation determined that the next step would be a confinement--much more spartan was the word used in the Rockefeller report--a much more spartan confinement was appropriate and a so-called hostile interrogation. Therefore, they examined the ways in which this might be conducted and they decided to apply to Nosenko's handling approximately the conditions under which an American citizen, Prof. Frederick Barghorn, had been confined for a period of time in Moscow in 1963. You may recall that Professor Barghorn happened, fortunately for him, to be a personal friend of President Kennedy and President Kennedy made a personal appeal to Prime Minister Khrushchev and--Secretary General Khrushchev. On the basis of President Kennedy's appeal, Professor Barghorn was released by the KGB and came back to this country and had been extensively debriefed on how he had been treated. Therefore, it was decided that Nosenko would be given the same treatment. What was to happen was that he was to be given the first of the three polygraph tests that he had in the course of this period during which he was under suspicion, and after the polygraph test, he would be told that he had failed the polygraph test and then would "be arrested"--I put that in quotes--they would act as if he were being arrested. I will come back to the matter of the polygraphs later. He would then be taken to an area where he would be treated as if he were being put in prison. He would be forced to strip, put on prison clothes, and so on. The effort would be to put him at a psychological disadvantage, to shake his confidence, to make him fearful. The guards at the house were given instructions that there must be no physical mistreatment of him, but that they were not to talk to him, they were not to smile at him, they were to treat him very impersonally. The original plan for the so-called cell in which he was to be confined did not envisage even the existence of any heat in the room. It envisaged that one window would be boarded up and that there would be one 60-watt bulb burning all night. As had been the case of Professor Barghorn when imprisoned in Moscow, he would be forced to arise at 6 in the morning and required to go to bed at 10 at night. The food which he was to receive was described as follows: breakfast-weak tea, no sugar, porridge; dinner--watery soup, macaroni or porridge, bread, weak tea; supper--weak tea and porridge. Now, this diet, as a result of the intervention of a medical doctor, was varied and improved. But at first this is what was planned. It never did become very good. But at any rate, it wasn't as meager as I have just described. The man was under 24-hour visual surveillance through the door. He was not allowed to lie down on his couch during the day after he had gotten up at 6 in the morning. He was allowed to sit down on the bed or sit down in the chair. Although originally there had been a plan for reading material, very meager amount of reading material, he was at first actually not given reading material. There was a definite effort to deprive him of any distractions. There was in the house a TV which the guards watched, but the guards were provided with earphones so that he would not hear the sounds of the TV, and he was not to hear anybody speak except on those occasions when the interrogators came to interrogate him. Now, I might also add that originally he was not to have the benefit of toilet facilities. There was to be a slop pail which he was to empty once a day. But that, I am happy to say, was changed. Once again, because the Office of Security refused--which was in charge of the house--refused to some of the more extreme measures which the operational people had produced. Now we come to the polygraph, which as I have mentioned is the first of the occasions on which Mr. Nosenko was polygraphed. This polygraph was administered on the 4th of April 1964 from 1045 to 1515 hours. As I think was mentioned by Professor Blakey, the operator was told to tell him at the end that he had failed the polygraph. I would like, if I may, to pause here for just a minute to say something about the polygraph, and the way that it is used properly--I do not wish to tell you gentlemen things which you already know, but I simply want to establish the way that the polygraph is normally used by the Central Intelligence Agency and has always been used by people who use it responsibly. In the first place, the polygraph, as you know, is not a lie detector. It doesn't detect lies. It simply detects physiological changes, changes of heartbeat, changes of your respiration rate, changes in something known as galvanic skin reaction, which is electrical conductivity, which is measured by a sensor placed on your finger. These changes are measured against a base line, and the base line is obtained by asking you rather ordinary questions, like what is your name, which presumably will not cause you anxiety, unless you are faking your name. But you ask a lot of questions and you get a base line. It is certainly not desirable to raise the tension of the person who is going to be polygraphed if you expect to use the polygraph as an aid to getting at the truth because the tension becomes unpredictable, and then you get tracings on the tape which is run which may seem to indicate that the person is telling a falsehood, but they may simply be due to the extreme tension which you are under. Now, the important things about this particular first polygraph, which also had a considerable influence on the later conduct of the case, was that not only was Mr. Nosenko told after the fact that he had failed the polygraph, but before the fact, a rather unusual thing--I have never heard of it being done before--was done. An artifact which was described to him as an electroencephalograph was attached to him and he was told that in addition to all the other sensors, we were going to read his brainwaves. Now, there was no purpose for this except as the documentary evidence shows--except to raise his tension. He was made to fear this polygraph in every way he could. The first polygraph has been adjudged invalid because of the manner in which it was conducted. The use of these extra strains and stresses might be used in a hostile interrogation if you didn't expect to use the results of the polygraph to support what the man eventually said. But you cannot reconcile using the polygraph in this way if you expect to use the tracings to indicate whether or not the person is lying. A point which is important here is, however, that when the results of this polygraph were reported upwards through the chain of command, there was no indication that there had been any special circumstances surrounding the giving of the polygraph. On the contrary, the report up the chain of command from chief SB simply said that the polygraph had obtained significant reactions. It was after this polygraph that Mr. X was brought deliberately into the case to assist the interrogators to examine the answers which Nosenko gave, and to suggest further questions. As I have mentioned, he was given voluminous material relating to the case to analyze. Mr. Nosenko then remained in solitary confinement, under constant visual observation, until, if my memory serves me correctly, August 1967. There was a change of the location, but that bore no particular significance because he was treated approximately the same way in both locations. Insofar as I could tell from reading a vast number of documents, the expectation and the assumption on the part of the top level leadership of the Agency was that Mr. Nosenko was being interrogated, questioned, whatever you wish to call it, during the entire time that he was incarcerated.

Mr. DODD - Mr. Hart, could you please speak up a little bit. You are fading on me.

Mr. HART - Insofar as I can tell, the assumption among the top leadership of the Agency was that during this period of incarceration Mr. Nosenko was being questioned or interrogated. That is flatly contrary to the facts because although he was incarcerated for 1,277 days, on only 292 days was he in part questioned. We do not know--it is difficult to tell just how many hours of questioning there took place on these 292 days, when he actually was questioned. The rest of the time, which is 77 percent of the total time of incarceration, he was left entirely unoccupied and was not being questioned. There was, in other words, no effort being made to get at more information which he might have. The justification for not dealing with Mr. Nosenko was that the lack of any contact would put additional pressure on him, pressure to confess that he was a dispatched KGB agent. This was eventually surfaced in a memorandum which went to the Director, and it was stated that the interval in isolation will be extremely valuable in terms of allowing subject to ponder on the complete failure of his recent gambits. His gambits, which may or may not have been gambits, included a period when he was hallucinating while incarcerated and totally inactive. The eventual conclusion of the medical officer who examined him was that he was reigning these hallucinations, but that was simply one medical officer's opinion. I am prepared to suggest to the staff, if they wish to look at it, they examine some evidence which has been scientifically collected specifically by the Russians which show that long periods of isolation do lead to hallucination. So, it may have been well that in addition to the other problems which we face in connection with this, or have faced in connection with Mr. Nosenko, that there was a period when he was hallucinating. Now, I am not here speaking as a technical expert on this subject, but I have examined some technical works on the subject of the effects which long confinement of this sort could have. I will have to pause here for a minute to get a date, if I may. Well, I will get the date for you in just a minute. But Mr. Helms, the then Director, became very impatient with the large amount of time spent on this case and the failure to come to a conclusion as to the credibility of this man. Specifically, this was on August 23, 1966. He set a limit of 60 days for the people who were handling this case to wind it up. This resulted in a period of frenetic activity because the people handling the case felt that it was impossible to prove the man's guilt and they couldn't conceive of any way of getting at the truth unless some additional measures were taken. In September 1966 a proposal which they had made that the man be interrogated, Mr. Nosenko be interrogated under the influence of sodium amytal, which was believed to be a drug which lowered the defenses of a subject and made him more vulnerable to questioning, was turned down by the Director, who refused to permit interrogations using drugs. The staff handling the case therefore took refuge once again on the polygraph and they submitted Mr. Nosenko to a second series of polygraphs, which continued from October 19 through October 28, 1966. These are the series of polygraphs which we have been told by Mr. Arther of Scientific Lie Detection are the most valid of the polygraphs which were given the man. We take serious exception to the statement, the judgment given by Mr. Arther that these were valid polygraphs for a number of reasons. We take serious exceptions to them partly because we have no understanding of the basis for Mr. Arther's conclusions, and we have doubts that Mr. Arther examined all the relevant data in connection with making this judgment. When Mr. Arther visited the Central Intelligence Agency in connection with evaluating the polygraphs, he did not, as I understand it, evaluate the 1962 polygraph, only the series of polygraph examinations made in 1966. He was offered the Agency's own 1966 evaluations of the examinations as part of providing him with all the data available. He declined to see the Agency's evaluations. Since the October 18 test was the most significant because it was the one which had to do with the Oswald matters.----

Chairman STOKES - I wonder if the gentleman would suspend for just a minute. It is about 1:30 now. I wonder if you could give the committee some indication as to about how much longer you think you will go, and then perhaps we can judge whether this is an appropriate time for us to take a recess.

Mr. HART - I can wind this up, Mr. Chairman, in about 15 minutes.

Chairman STOKES - You may proceed then, sir.

Mr. HART - As I was saying, the Agency attempted to give the examiner, Mr. Arther, as much data as they could, in order to make a meaningful analysis. However, he did not accept all the data which they were offered. The examiners at the Agency feel that it would be very hard for anybody, any expert, themselves or anybody else, to make an evaluation of these, of the tapes of this series of polygraphs without knowing the surrounding conditions, and there were a number of serious conditions which would interfere with a satisfactory polygraph. . . . For one thing, the times involved in this series of polygraphs were excessive, were very excessive. It is a principle of polygraphing, on which most polygraphers agree, that if you keep the person on the machine for too long, the results, the effectiveness of the polygraph declines. In the case of this series, on the first day the man was kept on it, on the polygraph machine, for 2 hours. On the second day he was kept on the polygraph for a total of almost 7 hours, and for comparable periods of time leading to a total of 28 hours and 29 minutes of time on the machine. In addition to that, it was later discovered that while he was actually not being interrogated, he was also left strapped on the chair where he was sitting so that he could not move. And so while lunchbreaks were being taken, he actually was not being interrogated but he was still strapped to the chair. Now these lunchbreaks, or whatever they were, perhaps they were also used as time for further preparation of questions. But at any rate, the record shows that they lasted, for example, on October 20, from 12:15 to 3:30, and on October 21, from 12:45 to 4:45. That is 4 hours that the man was left in the chair with no rest. In addition to that, the operator was guilty of some provocative remarks. He told, before the polygraph examination, one of the polygraph examinations began, he told Nosenko that he was a fanatic, and that there was no evidence to support his legend, and your future is now zero. The operator also on another occasion preceded his interrogation by saying that the subject didn't have any hope, there would be no hope for subject, and he might go crazy, to which Nosenko replied that he never would go crazy. Thus the combination of an antagonistic operator who, I might add, was by now not operating under the auspices of the CIA Office of Security, but who was operating under the aegis of the chief of SB and the deputy chief of SB, the fact that the man was kept for extraordinary lengths of time strapped into the chair, all of these add up, in the estimation of the CIA examiners who have gone over this series of tests, to an invalid polygraph. Now in the handwriting of the deputy chief SB, who was a day to-day supervisor of the activity which I have been describing, it is--there is an admission which implies fairly clearly that there was no intention that this 1966 series of polygraphs would be valid. I read here a direct quotation which exists in writing, and most of it is in the handwriting of the deputy chief of SB. Speaking of the aims to be achieved by the 1966 polygraph examinations, he writes: To gain more insight into points of detail which we could use in fabricating an ostensible Nosenko confession, insofar as we could make one consistent and believable even to the Soviets, a confession would be useful m any eventual disposal of Nosenko. Now he doesn't clarify what he means in this document by "disposal," but it is apparent that--

Mr. SAWYER - Excuse me. Did you use the term "eventual disposal of him"?

Mr. HART - I used the term "the eventual disposal," yes, sir.

Mr. SAWYER - Thank you.

Mr. HART - I want finally to address myself very briefly to the two reports which were turned out, one of which, both of which have been described by Professor Blakey. One was actually about 900 pages, but it came to be called the thousand paper simply because of its extraordinary size. That was originally, it had originally been hoped that that would be the official CIA write-up on the subject, but there was no agreement between the CI staff and the SB Division on this paper, in part because the SB paper had an implication in it that Mr. X, of whom I have previously talked, had contradicted himself and was not totally reliable. I read here an excerpt in which the chief of the SB Division is talking: "Chief CI said that he did not see how we could submit a final report to the bureau" meaning the FBI "if it contained suggestions that Mr. X had lied to us about certain aspects of Nosenko's past. He recalled that the Director of the FBI had stated that in his opinion Mr. X himself was a provocateur and a penetration agent." Thus, what happened was that a long negotiation took place during which a briefer paper, which as I remember is 446 pages long, was eventually produced, and this became the agreed document, agreed between the CIA staff, I mean the CIA-CI staff and the SB Division, until such time as Mr. Helms, exasperated by the long delays on this case and dissatisfied with the results, took the matter out of the hands of both the SB Division and the CI staff, turned the matter over to his Director, Admiral Rufus Taylor, and Admiral Taylor brought in the Office of Security to try to resolve the case. I have nothing more to say about the resolution of that case because it has been adequately covered by Professor Blakey's presentation this morning. That is all I have to say in this presentation, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman STOKES - Thank you, sir. I think this is probably an appropriate place for us, then, to take a recess. The committee will recess until 2:30 this afternoon, at which time we will resume questioning of the witness.

[Whereupon, at 1:43 p.m., the select committee was recessed, to reconvene at 2:30 p.m.]

AFTERNOON SESSION

Chairman STOKES - The committee will come to order. The Chair recognizes counsel for the committee, Mr. Klein.

Mr. KLEIN - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would only like to state for the record that I have spoken to Mr. Arther, the committee's polygraph consultant, and his account of the events leading to the writing of his report are significantly different than those stated today by Mr. Hart, and I understand that Mr. Hart has stated that he was only repeating what was told to him by the Office of Security. But for the record, Mr. Arther states that he accepted and read all materials made available to him by the CIA and considered all of these materials in reaching these conclusions. That is all I have to say, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much.

Chairman STOKES - Thank you, Counsel. The Chair will recognize the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd, for such time as he may consume, after which the committee will operate under the 5-minute rule. Mr. DoDD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hart, thank you for your statement this morning. Mr. Hart, let me ask you this question at the very outset. Would it be fair for me to conclude that it was the responsibility of the Central Intelligence Agency to find out, from whatever available sources between late 1963 and 1964, what the activities and actions of Lee Harvey Oswald were during his stay in the Soviet Union? TESTIMONY OF JOHN HART--Resumed

Mr. HART - Congressman, I want to answer that by telling you that I do not know---

Mr. DODD - Let me say this to you, Mr. Hart. Wouldn't it be a fair assessment that the Central Intelligence Agency had the responsibility during that period of time to examine whatever information could point to or lead to those activities, to provide us with information regarding Lee Harvey Oswald's activities in the Soviet Union? Isn't that a fair enough, simple enough statement?

Mr. HART - Sir, I can't agree to that in an unqualified manner for several reasons. May I give the reasons in sequence?

Mr. DODD - Go ahead.

Mr. HART - In a telephone conversation between the then Director of Central Intelligence, John McCone, and Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, which took place on the 16th of November 1963 at 11:20 a.m., Mr. McCone said: I just want to be sure that you were satisfied that this agency is giving you all the help that we possibly can in connection with your investigation of the situation in Dallas. I know the importance the President plays on. this investigation you are making. He asked me personally whether CIA was giving you full support. I said they were, but I just wanted to be sure that you felt so. Mr. Hoover said "We have had the very best support that we can possibly expect from you." Then the implication through the rest of this document, which I am perfectly happy to turn over to the committee, is that Mr. McCone and Mr. Hoover feel that the main responsibility for the investigation falls on the FBI. My second point is that when I came on board in the Agency, having been recalled in mid-June, I asked about the responsibility for the Lee Harvey Oswald matter because I knew that he had entered into the overall Nosenko case. I was told that the responsibility for the investigation had rested almost entirely with the FBI. There were a couple of reasons for that. First, it was understood, although I realize that there had been violations of this principle, Mr. Congressman, it was understood that the jurisdiction of the Central Intelligence Agency did not extend within the territorial limits of the United States, and the Central Intelligence Agency had no particular, in fact, did not have any assets capable of making an investigation within the Soviet Union, which were the two places really involved. Third, I want to say that in my own investigation, since I intended to depend entirely or almost entirely on documentary evidence for the sake of accuracy, I ruled out going into the Lee Harvey Oswald matter because I realized that I could not possibly have the same access to FBI documents which I had in the Agency where I had formerly been employed which gave me complete access to everything I wanted.

Mr. DODD - Mr. Hart, as I understand what you have given me in response to my question is the fact that you assumed that the FBI was principally responsible for the investigation, and that Mr. McCone, as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in his conversation with Mr. Hoover, indicated that he would be cooperating fully in that investigation. So to that extent, and that is the extent I am talking about, it was the responsibility of the Central Intelligence Agency to cooperate in a responsible fashion in ferreting out whatever information would bear on the activities of Lee Harvey Oswald when he was in the Soviet Union, utilizing whatever sources of information were available to the Central Intelligence Agency in achieving that goal. Is that not a correct and fair statement of the responsibilities of your Agency?

Mr. HART - Insofar as I am aware of them. Keep in mind please, Congressman, that I had nothing to do with this case. I do not know about.

Mr. DODD - I am asking you Mr. Hart, for a comment about the activities of the Agency, not specifically your actions as one individual. You spent 24 years with the Agency, so you are familiar with what the responsibilities of the Agency are.

Mr. HART - My response to that is that I believe that the Agency should have done everything that it could to assist the FBI. I do not know exactly what the Agency did to assist the FBI, nor do I know what relevant assets or capabilities the Agency had during the time we are concerned with to take any relevant action.

Mr. DODD - All right. But you are answering my question; you are saying, "yes," in effect. It was their responsibility to assist the FBI or do whatever else was necessary in order to gain that information about Lee Harvey Oswald's activities when he was abroad.

Mr. HART - Congressman, I have to repeat that there may have been agreements between the Agency and Mr. Hoover or other parts of the Government of which I am not aware. I, for example, am virtually without knowledge of a very long span of time during which the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Mr. Hoover were barely on speaking terms. I know that it was very difficult for the two Agencies to get along. I do not happen to know the reasons for it, and I am in no position to judge what they did, why they did it or what they should have done in order to resolve the lack of cooperation.

Mr. DODD - Well, after listening to your statement for 1 hour and 40 minutes this afternoon, do I take it that you would concede the point that, as the CIA's activities pertain to one vitally important source, potential source of information namely, Mr. Nosenko, that in the handling of that potential source of information, as it bore on the assassination of a President of the United States, the Central Intelligence Agency failed in its responsibility miserably?

Mr. HART - Congressman, within the context of the total case, I would go further than that. I would say that the Agency failed miserably in its handling of the entire case, and that since the Lee Harvey Oswald question was part of that case; yes.

Mr. DODD - And, Mr. Hart, I am not going to--I will ask you if you recall with me, basically, the conclusion or one of the conclusions of the Warren Commission report. Were we not told in the conclusion of the Warren Commission report that "All of the resources of the U.S. Government were brought to bear on the investigation of the assassination of the President," and in light of your last answer, that conclusion was false? Would you agree with me?

Mr. HART - Well, Congressman, I do not like to have my rather specific answer extrapolated.

Mr. DODD - But we do consider the Central Intelligence Agency to be part of the U.S. investigatory body; don't we?

Mr. HART - I do.

Mr. DODD - And you just said they failed miserably.

Mr. HART - I said they failed miserably in the handling of this whole case.

Mr. DODD - Therefore, it would be fair to say that the conclusion of the Warren Commission report in its statement that all of the resources of the U.S. Government were brought to bear in the investigation of the death of the President is an inaccurate statement. That is not a terribly difficult piece of logic to follow, I don't think.

Mr. HART - It requires me to make a judgment, which I am not sure that I am willing to make, because I can think of possible other evidence which might come up which might show that there is a case to support the fact that the leader, top leadership of the Agency, may have thought they were bringing all their resources to bear. I simply do not know that.

Mr. DODD - The only question left, it would seem to me, in going back to Mr. Blakey's narration at the outset of this part of our investigation, where he noted that the Nosenko case was important in two areas. One had to do with the efficiency, the effectiveness, the thoroughness of the CIA's performance, and, second, the credibility of Mr. Nosenko. It would seem to me, in response to the last series of questions you have just given me, that we have answered the first question, and what is left is the second question, that is, whether or not this committee and the American public can believe Mr. Nosenko's story with regard to the activities of Lee Harvey Oswald during his tenure in the Soviet Union. And Mr. Hart, I would like to ask you, in light of your testimony today, again going more than an hour and a half, why should this committee believe anything that Mr. Nosenko has said when, after your testimony, you state that he was intimidated, not interrogated, for more than 3 years, that he was probably hallucinating during various stages of that interrogation, that he was, according to your testimony, a man of a very short memory; that he was drunk or at least heavily drinking during part of the questioning; that there are no accounts, verbatim accounts, of some of the interrogation but rather notes taken by people who didn't have a very good knowledge of Russian. Why then should we believe any of the statements of Mr. Nosenko, which from point to point contradict each other, in light of the way he was treated by the Central Intelligence Agency from the time he defected in

[Tim Gratz]

Here is the HSCA testimony of CIA officer John Hurt re the Nosenko affair.

Chairman STOKES - The committee will come to order. The committee calls Mr. John Hart. Mr. Hart, would you please stand, raise your right hand and be sworn. Do you solemnly swear the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mr. HART - I do, sir.

Chairman STOKES - Thank you. You may be seated. The Chair recognizes counsel Ken Klein.

Mr. KLEIN - Mr. Chairman, at this time I believe Mr. Hart would like to make a statement to the committee.

Chairman STOKES - You are recognized, sir.

TESTIMONY OF JOHN HART

Mr. HART - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, gentlemen. Before I begin my statement, I would like to make a prefatory remark on a technical aspect of what was said about me by the chief counsel, Mr. Blakey. I was not and never have been what is called a career agent with the CIA. I bring that up only because that term happens to have a technical meaning in the Agency. I was what you would call an employee or an officer of the Agency. And I would like to have that made part of the record.

Chairman STOKES - The record may so show.

Mr. HART - Mr. Chairman, it has never been my custom to speak from a prepared text. I have tried, and I never succeeded. Therefore, what I have before me are a series of notes which were finished about 8 o'clock last night, based on guidance which I got at that time from Admiral Stansfield Turner, the Director of Central Intelligence. It is my purpose to tell you as much as possible about the background of the Nosenko case with the idea not of addressing what have been called his bona fides, but what has been described as his credibility. Now, I must say that I have difficulty in distinguishing between credibility and bona fides, but in any case, the testimony and the evidence which has been presented regarding Nosenko simply cannot be evaluated properly unless I give you the background which I am about to present.

Mr. DODD - Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a request at this point if I could. As I understood it, last week, the agreement and understanding was that we would prepare a report of our investigation, submit it to the Agency, to which the Agency would then respond in a like report. We were notified earlier this week that a detailed outline of the Agency's response would be forthcoming. Am I to assume that this detailed outline consisting of a single page, listing four subtitles, is the summary of Mr. Hart's presentation? That is, as far as I can determine, the full extent to which we have any response relating to Mr. Hart's testimony at this juncture. What I would like to request at this point is that this committee take a 5- or 10-minute recess, and we have the benefit of examining your notes from which you are about to give your testimony, so that we could prepare ourselves for proper questioning of you, Mr. Hart. Mr. Chairman, I would make that request.

Chairman STOKES - Does the witness care to respond?

Mr. HART - Mr. Chairman, I will do anything which will be of help to the committee. I want to state that I am not personally certain what was promised the committee. I was brought back on duty to be the spokesman for the agency. I spent my time preparing testimony which I am prepared to offer here. If it will be of assistance for the committee to see this in advance, I am perfectly happy to do so, if there is a way of doing that.

Chairman STOKES - Does the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd, want to be heard further?

Mr. DODD - Yes, just to this extent, Mr. Chairman. It is not my intention to delay these proceedings any more than they have to be. I am not asking for a lot of time. If we could have just 5 or 10 minutes in which we might be able to make some Xerox copies of those notes, so that we could have the benefit of following you along in your testimony on the basis of that outline, it would be helpful I think in terms of the committee assessing the material and also preparing itself for the proper questions to be addressed to you at the conclusion of your statement. So I do it only for that purpose, Mr. Chairman. It is not in any way designed to thwart the efforts of Mr. Hart or the Agency to make its presentation.

Chairman STOKES - Would the gentleman be agreeable to providing Mr. Hart the opportunity to proceed with his testimony, and then in the event that you deem it necessary to have additional time to review his notes, or to prepare an examination of him after his testimony, that the Chair would grant you that time at that time.

Mr. DODD - That would be fine, Mr. Chairman. I will agree to that.

Chairman STOKES - I thank the gentleman. You may proceed, sir.

Mr. HART - Mr. Chairman, I also want to emphasize that in order to be of as much help as possible, I am perfectly willing to take questions as we go along. This is not a canned presentation. It may be easier for the members of the committee to ask questions as we go along, in which case I will do my best to answer them as we go along.

Chairman STOKES - I think the committee would prefer to have you make your presentation. Then after that the committee will then be recognized--members will be recognized individually for such questioning as they so desire.

Mr. FITHIAN - Mr. Chairman, may I ask the witness to move the microphone a little closer in some way or another. We are having some difficulty in hearing from this angle.

Mr. HART - Yes, sir. Is this all right? Mr. Chairman, gentlemen, the effort in this presentation will be to point out some of the unusual factors in the Nosenko case which resulted in a series of cumulative misunderstandings. And I am hoping that once these misunderstandings are explained--and they were misunderstandings within the Agency for the most part--I am hoping that when these are explained, that many of the problems which are quite understandable, which the staff has had with the questions and answers from Mr. Nosenko, and also allegations concerning him, will be cleared up and go away. I will endeavor to show that the handling of Nosenko by the Central Intelligence Agency was counterproductive from the time of the first contact with him in Geneva in 1962, and that it continued in a manner which was counterproductive until the jurisdiction over the case was transferred to the CIA Office of Security in late 1967, specifically in August of that year. The manner in which the defector was handled, which I am going to outline, resulted in generating a large amount of misinformation and in creating difficulties, not only for an investigating body, such as yourself, but for people such as the Director of the Central Intelligence, Mr. Helms, who was not well informed in many cases as to what was actually happening. I do not mean to imply that he was told untruths. He was simply not given the total picture of what was going on. Since Admiral Turner has become Director of Central Intelligence, he has been quite concerned about this case, and he specifically requested that I come back periodically to the Agency, from which I retired in 1972, and give presentations to senior officials of the Agency on the nature of the case. The complexity of the case is such that to give a minimally adequate presentation to the first group which I lectured took me 4 1/2 hours of continuous lecturing. However, I think that since the interests of this committee are more pinpointed than that group I have been lecturing, I can certainly do it in a shorter time. Now, the study which I made was made from mid-June 1976 until late December 1976. It required the full-time efforts of myself and four assistants. We collected from various parts of the Agency 10 4-drawer safes full of documents, and we had also access to documents which were in repositories in other parts of the Agency, and which we simply didn't have room to collect in our office. In making this presentation, I will be somewhat hampered, but not to the point where I can't do the job properly, by the fact that this session is, of course, open to the public. Most of the documentation which we had, in fact I would say, almost without exception was heavily classified, and we pulled together pieces of documentation which no single person had ever seen before. So we put together the first full picture which has ever been had of this activity. The first specific question which I want to address myself to is this case as a human phenomenon, because the human factors involved have a direct bearing on some of the contradictions which have appeared in the case. And unfortunately the human factors were the last to be considered by the people who conducted this case between 1962 and 1967. Some of them were ridiculously simple things which you might have thought would come to their attention. I am about to discuss a psychological profile which was made of Mr. Nosenko on June 24, 1964. This would have been available to any of the persons working on the case, but they--and it probably was seen by them, but they paid no attention to it. Let me say by way of qualification for giving you this evidence that although I am not a psychologist, I have had considerable training in psychology and specifically in giving of intelligence tests. And I am about to talk to you about what is known as the Wexler adult intelligence scale, which was administered to Mr. Nosenko. The Wexler adult intelligence scale measures 10 elements of the--of a person's intelligence. Of the 10 elements shown here on the measure which ! have here, and which I will be happy to make available to the committee staff, if you wish, it is shown that Mr. Nosenko's memory was the weakest aspect of his overall intelligence. His memory in terms of the weighted scale came out as a 7. Now, the mean would have been a 10. Thus he was at the time tested, he was registering a memory well below the normal level. It is impossible to say what he would have scored under conditions which were more normal, because it must be taken into consideration that at the time he was--he was tested, he had been subjected to not only the stresses and strains of--involved in defecting, but also in some rather rough handling which he had received since his defection. However--you will see that if this man--man's memory was below the normal to be expected for a person of his intelligence, that any of the testimony which he gave in the course of various interrogations could be expected to be flawed simply by the human factor of memory alone.

Second, I want to point out that defection is in itself a major life trauma. It has a very serious effect, which I cannot testify to from the medical standpoint, but it is--it has both psychological and physical effects on people, and anybody who has, as I have, had to do, had considerable contact over the years with defectors, knows that a defector is usually a rather disturbed person, because he has made a break with his homeland, usually with family, with friends, with his whole way of life, and above all he is very uncertain as to what his future is going to be. I have had defectors whom I personally took custody of turn to me and the first question they asked was, "When are you going to kill me?" In other words, defection is an upsetting experience, and you cannot expect of a man immediately after he has defected that he will always behave in a totally reasonable way. Another circumstance which I want to bring up is the fact that the initial interrogations of Mr. Nosenko, which took place in Geneva in 1962, were handled under conditions which, while understandable, did not make for good interrogations. They did not make for good questioning. Mr. Nosenko, as of the time he was being questioned in 1962, was still considered by the KGB to be a loyal member of that organization. He had considerable freedom because he actually did not have any duties in connection with the disarmament discussions. He was simply the security guardian of the delegates. He was the KGB's watchdog. And as such, he was able to move freely and in a manner of his own choice. He availed himself of this freedom to make contact with an American diplomat, who in turn turned him over to representatives of the CIA. In making these contacts, which were recurrent, he each time was nervous that the local KGB element might for some reason be suspicious of him, and therefore he took about an hour and a half before each meeting in order to be sure that he was not being tailed. In his particular case, this countersurveillance measure consisted of visiting a number of bars, in each of which he had a drink. He had one scotch and soda in each of four or five bars. So by the time he got to the point where he was going to be questioned, he had had four or five drinks. When he arrived on the spot where he was going to be questioned-this was a clandestine apartment, in the Agency's terms, Agency's jargon it is called a safe house, he was then offered further liquor. And he continued to drink throughout the interrogation. In talking to Nosenko, and requestioning him a few days ago, I asked him to describe his condition during these meetings, and he said, "I must tell you honestly that at all these meetings I was snookered." And I said, "You mean that you were drunk?" "Yes, John," he said, "I was drunk." Therefore he was being interrogated about very important things while he was heavily under the influence of liquor. And he said to me that in some cases he exaggerated the importance of his activities, in some cases he really didn't know what he was doing, he was simply talking.

Now, I want to then tell you how the problems involved with this testimony, if you can call it such, given by Mr. Nosenko, was further worsened. There were two people sent from Washington specifically to talk to Mr. Nosenko after he made the approach. One of them was a native-born American who had learned a certain amount of Russian academically, but did not speak it, write it or read it fluently. The other was an American citizen who spoke native Russian, but whose principal purpose was to be an interpreter. There was a tape recorder on hand at these meetings. Sometimes it worked well, sometimes it did not work well. You must remember, I am sure, that back in the 1960's tape recorders were much less refined than they are now, and the ambient noise, straight noise, and so forth, interfered considerably. However, records of these original meetings were not made from the tapes on the tape recorder. The records which were thought for a number of years to be transcripts were in fact made from notes made by the non-Russian speaker, what he understood as a result of interrogation by the Russian speaker, or what he got himself from his own knowledge of Russian. He made notes. After the meetings, these notes were then used as the basis of purported transcripts, purported transcripts, which went unchallenged for a number of years. When later in 1967 these transcripts were compared carefully with what was on the tape, it was shown that there were a number of discrepancies. These discrepancies were very important in the history of this case, because the discrepancies between what Mr. Nosenko really said and what was on the tapes gave rise to charges within the Agency that Mr. Nosenko was not what he purported to be. But the important point is that in many cases what was being used against him as evidence of telling untruths was not in fact what he had said. I will take simply one example to illustrate for you what happened. Mr. Nosenko mentioned that he had attended what is called the Frunze Naval Preparatory School. Frunze was a general who was a hero of the Russian revolution and there seemed to be countless institutions of a military nature in the Soviet Union named after him. The most famous is the Frunze Military Academy which roughly compares to West Point. Into the transcript was put the fact that Mr. Nosenko said he had graduated from the Frunze Military Academy. He never said this. He never said this at all, but it was held against him that he had said this. That is an example of the type of evidence which was used against him in assessing him. Now I would like to say a few words about what, despite this, these difficulties--excuse me, Mr. Chairman. I would like to say a few words about the intelligence which Mr. Nosenko did produce during that time, despite the adverse circumstances surrounding the questioning. In the first place, Mr. Nosenko was responsible for the discovery of a system of audio surveillance or microphones within the U.S. Embassy in Moscow which hitherto had been suspected but nobody had had enough information on it to actually detect it. The information provided by Mr. Nosenko was sufficiently specific, so that when the necessary action was taken which involved wholesale tearing out of walls, tearing out of plumbing, tearing out of old fashioned radiators, it was discovered that there was a system which totaled 52 microphones which were planted throughout the most sensitive parts of the American Embassy in Moscow. Forty two of these microphones were still active at the time and were being used by the KGB to collect information continuously on what was going on in the American Embassy. It has been said that this was not a significant contribution, that some of the people, whom I shall describe later, who have claimed that Mr. Nosenko was a dispatched Soviet agent sent to deceive the U.S. Government, said this was throwaway information. I can only say, Mr. Chairman, that this is not entirely a matter of judgment on my part or on the part of those of us who have investigated this case. We do not believe that there is any reason to think that the Soviets would ever have given away that information simply to establish somebody in a position to mislead us. There are no adequate precedents to show that they would have done so. Another case which was revealed to us in 1962, despite the, as I say, undesirable circumstances surrounding the questioning of Mr. Nosenko, had to do with a man, whom I in open session cannot identify, but he was a very high level Soviet KGB penetration in a very sensitive position in a Western European Government. He was, and on the basis of Mr. Nosenko's lead, arrested, tried, and convicted of espionage. There is no reason to believe that the Soviets would have given this information away. There is no precedent that we know of for the Soviets giving information of this sensitivity away. Now I want to mention some further aspects of the difficulties which arose in the handling of the agent, some of the events which distorted this case. The first important communication which went back from Geneva after the two Washington emissaries had met with Mr. Nosenko was sent by a man who, in order to avoid the use of personal names, although the true name of this individual is certainly available to the staff, and if they have any questions I will be happy to answer, I am going to call him the deputy chief of the SB Division, Soviet Bloc Division, throughout my testimony. The deputy chief, who is the chief interrogator over there, sent back a telegram to Washington on June 11, 1962, in which he said "Subject" meaning Nosenko "has conclusively proved his bona fides. He has provided info of importance and sensitivity. Subject now completely cooperative. Willing to meet when abroad and will meet as often and as long as possible in his departure in Geneva from June 15." On June 15 both Nosenko and the Deputy Chief SB departed from Geneva, Mr. Nosenko to return to Moscow and his KGB duties, the Deputy Chief SB to return to Washington. In the course of my investigation, I asked the gentleman, who was for many years chief of the CIA counterintelligence staff, to describe to me what ensued after the arrival in Washington of DCSB, and I shall give you a brief quote which was recorded and 41-371 0 - 79 - 32 Vol. 2 transcribed and which is held in our files. This is the chief of the counterintelligence staff of the CIA speaking: We got the first message from Deputy Chief SB--that is the one that I have just previously quoted to you--on Nosenko from Geneva, and Deputy Chief SB was ordered back to Washington, and we had a big meeting here on Saturday morning, and Deputy Chief SB thought he had the biggest fish of his life. I mean he really did. And everything I heard from him, however, was in direct contrast from what we had heard from Mr. X. I now come to the subject of another defector who, throughout this paper, I am going to call Mr. X, although the staff is well aware of his true identity. Mr. X was a defector who had come, who had defected from the Soviet Union in late 1961. In the course of his dealings with the Central Intelligence Agency, he was diagnosed by a psychiatrist and separately by a clinical psychologist as a paranoid. And I am sure that everybody knows what a paranoid is. This man had delusions of grandeur. He was given to building up big, fantastic plots, and he eventually built up a plot, which I will have to go into in a little detail here, which centered around the idea that the KGB had vast resources which it was using to deceive not only the U.S. Government but other Western governments. This plot was master minded by something called the KGB disinformation directorate, and this KGB disinformation directorate was able to deceive the West, as a whole, meaning the United States and the allied European countries, because of the fact that it had penetrations at high levels, both within the intelligence services of these countries, including our own, but also in high places in the governments of the various countries, in the nonintelligence parts of the governments. Mr. X's story did not come out immediately in one piece. It was elaborated over the years, and for all I know, it may be still in the process of exaggeration, exaggeration and elaboration. One aspect of Mr. X's character was that he was rather jealous of other Soviet defectors. Now he did personally know Nosenko, and when Nosenko came out, he did give evidence confirming that Nosenko had had certain jobs, which was in agreement with what Nosenko told us he had done. At later phases of the handling of Mr. X, he changed his story a number of times. I am not an expert on the Mr. X case, and therefore I cannot give you all the details. It is a very lengthy case, but he did go through a number of stages in which he changed his stories. Mr. X was a problem for the Central Intelligence Agency and for anybody else who dealt with him, because he basically insisted that he wanted to deal only with the President of United States. He did not want to deal with people at a lower rank. But he had a substantial influence on the case because he came to be accepted as almost a member of the Central Intelligence Agency, in terms of the handling of the Nosenko case. He was in due time given access to a voluminous amount of information relating to matters of counterintelligence interest. In the case of Nosenko, he was given access to all the debriefings of Nosenko. He was given access to the tapes themselves. He was consulted as to Nosenko's bona fides. He was allowed to think up questions which were to be asked Nosenko. He participated almost as if he were a U.S. citizen, with a status similar to my own in the organization. He did this, however, without the knowledge at that time of Nosenko. He was kept behind the scenes, but he was master minding the examinations in many ways. The final point that I suppose I might make about Mr. X, which will give it, give you some evidence of his peculiar point of view, was that it was one of his contentions that the schism between the Soviet Union and China, Communist China, was simply a KGB disinformation ruse, designed to confuse the West. He offered this theory quite seriously, and in some limited quarters within the agency, it came to be taken seriously. Now Mr. X said, in regard to Nosenko, that Nosenko had been sent out specifically to remedy the damage produced by Mr. X who defected some time previously and had given us information which he thought of great value. In point of fact, quantitatively and qualitatively, the information given by Mr. X was much smaller than that given by Nosenko. But I will read you an excerpt from what Mr. X had to say regarding Nosenko because it bears on the manner in which Nosenko was cheating--was treated. Now this is a report written, not a direct quote, a report written on a conversation with Mr. X. Mr. X felt in general that there were indeed serious signs of disinformation in this affair. He felt that such a disinformation operation to discredit him was a likelihood. A KGB officer could be permitted to tell everything he knew now--that is another KGB officer--everything he knew now, if he worked in the same general field as Mr. X. The purpose of Nosenko's coming out, he thought, would be to contradict what Mr. X had said, and also possibly to set Mr. X up for kidnaping, also to divert our attention from investigations of Mr. X's leads by throwing up false scents, and to protect remaining Soviet sources. Now Mr. X's views were immediately taken to be the definitive views on Nosenko, and from that standpoint, from that point on, the treatment of Mr. Nosenko was never, until 1967, devoted to learning what Mr. X had to say. It was devoted to "breaking"-excuse me, sir, I misspoke. It was never devoted to finding out what Mr. Nosenko said. The Agency's activity was devoted to breaking Nosenko, who was presumed, on the basis of the supposed evidence given by Mr. X, that Nosenko was a "dispatched KGB agent" sent to mislead the United States. It is with this in mind that we have to approach everything that happened from 1962, after the first contact with Nosenko terminated, and the time that Nosenko was turned over to the CIA Office of Security for reinvestigation. The polygraphs themselves must be evaluated in the light of their use, not to get at truth, because they were not used as an instrument of getting at truth, because they were used as an instrument of intimidation of one sort or another, in one way or another. Now again on the handling of Mr. Nosenko, the belief among the small group of people running the Nosenko case, a very limited group of people, was that he was part of a plot of the type outlined by Mr. X, which was so horrendous that therefore not many people could be made privy to this investigation. One of the reasons for that, even within the Agency, was that Mr. X had alleged that the Agency must be penetrated by the KGB at a high level, and therefore you had to limit what Nosenko and Mr. X said to a very small number of people who were thought not to be penetrations, a very small trusted group. The secrecy surrounding this case, I can illustrate to you from the following personal experience. In 1968 I came back, well, after this case had been resolved, I came back from Vietnam and was put in charge of the European Division of the Directorate of Operations of the Agency. Under my supervision at that time, there were two senior officers, one a GS18 and one a GS-16, who had been two of the three persons who were in charge of the Nosenko and Mr. X cases. I was never told of their participation in this case. I was never told that their work on the case had been discredited and had caused them to be transferred out of headquarters to foreign assignments. Therefore even though I was their supervisor, I was not permitted to know of this important part of their recent past and of their performance. In 1964, Mr. Chairman, Nosenko came back out from the Soviet Union, again to Geneva, again in the same capacity as the KGB security officer attached to the Soviet mission to the disarmament conferences. He came out with the intention, a firm intention, of not going back. The Agency in the meantime had built up an elaborate case against him, a case built up under the aegis of the chief of the CI staff, the chief of the Soviet Bloc Division, and the deputy chief of the Soviet Bloc Division. Again it was the man I am referring to as the deputy chief of the Soviet Bloc Division, although he did not as yet hold that rank, who came out to Geneva to make the recontact with Nosenko. The question of just how to deal with Nosenko had been carefully examined, and it was decided that although the Agency was intensely suspicious of him, perhaps more than suspicious, they had concluded that he was being dispatched to mislead the U.S. Government. Nevertheless we must not tip our hand. We must not let Nosenko know that we suspected him, because Nosenko would then report back to his superiors that we knew what they were up to. Thus Nosenko was treated with the maximum of duplicity. As an illustration, I want to read then an excerpt from a transcript, and this is an accurate excerpt from a transcript. I want to read an excerpt of a conversation which ensued on the 30th of January 1964 between the deputy chief SB and Nosenko. Nosenko, who, by the way, was worried about his future. He knew he had some kind of a relationship with us, but he was interested now in breaking finally with the Soviet Union and coming to the West, and he wanted asylum in United States, and he wanted to be sure that he was able to earn his living. He wasn't asking to be in charge of the Government. He wanted an opportunity to earn his living. Nosenko said:

The only thing I want to know, and I ask this question, what should I expect in the future? The Deputy Chief SB replied: The following awaits. As I presented it, you wanted to come to the United States to have some job, some chance for future life which gives you security, and if possible, the opportunity to work in this field which you know; is that correct? Nosenko: Absolutely. Deputy chief SB: The Director has said yes, flatly, absolutely yes, in fact, I would say enthusiastic. That is the only word to describe it. We talked about it, and since this was a business discussion, I will repeat all of it. The next thing will be some details that we spoke about. We talked about the means by which you could have a solid career with a certain personal independence. Because of the very great assistance you have been to us already, and because of this desire to give you a backing, they will give you a little additional personal security. We want to give you an account of your own, a sum at the beginning of just plain $50,000, and from there on, as a working contract, $25,000 a year. But in addition, because of the case." Which I have said I cannot otherwise identify, in which a KGB penetration had been arrested on the basis of Nosenko's information: But, in addition, because of this case, which would have been impossible without your information, we are going to add at least $10,000 to this initial sum. So he was being paid, he was being assured of a bonus of $10,000 for his excellent performance in connection with one case. That commitment was subsequently reiterated in almost those exact words on a later occasion when he was on his way back to the United States. Once Nosenko arrived in the United States, there were a couple of problems. The two agencies were interrogating him, although he was in the actual custody of the Central Intelligence Agency. The FBI did not at that time at least share the doubts about Nosenko which the Agency had. They regarded him as a bona fide defector, and considered that his information was valid and useful. It shows in the record that at a later date Mr. Hoover expressed himself as believing that Nosenko was a valid defector but that Mr. X was a provocateur. So there was a direct conflict between the two agencies on this subject. The position of the Central Intelligence Agency was that it faced a dilemma as to how to keep Nosenko sufficiently isolated so that he could not communicate with his supposed "KGB controllers," who were still master minding his activities, while at the same time keeping him sufficiently cooperative to be debriefed. The dilemma was compounded by the fact that while the FBI was primarily interested in ascertaining from Nosenko valid information which they presumed him to have, the interest of the Agency was not particularly in obtaining valid information because the Agency assumed that he would not be giving valid information except incidental to establishing falsely his bona fides. Therefore, the Agency thought, the Agency effort was devoted to a plan to break him. "Break him" meant getting him to confess to what was presumed by the Agency to be the case that he was a dispatched KGB agent still functioning under KGB control, although in American hands. On February 12, 1964, Nosenko was lodged in a CIA controlled house under constant guard, while being treated in a friendly fashion. Yet, he was, during all this time, still worried about his status because there was a certain unreality, I would say, about his situation. He had been assured that he was going to be granted a salary and that he was going to have a job and so forth. But he was kept very isolated, he was under guard at all times, and he was being interrogated periodically by the FBI and by the Agency. His fear, as he recounts it now, is that he was worried about being milked of information, after which he might be discarded. He didn't know what would happen if he were discarded because he still had a very active fear, as he does to this day, that the KGB would like either to kidnap him or kill him. He nevertheless remained tractable and cooperative for the first few days, although in the succeeding weeks he became more difficult. He had a serious personality crisis, which led to heavy drinking, and he got to the point where he was starting out the day with a drink and was continuing to drink more or less continually throughout the 24 hours, except for those times when he was asleep. This, once again, has a tendency to vitiate some of the testimony. But I would say that one can certainly say that there is no particular reason to believe that what he was saying wasn't in good faith, despite the fact that it may have been inaccurate because of the amount of alcohol. An interesting point is that at about this time, while Nosenko was still in this friendly confinement, a Soviet defector who had been with us for some time and who was doing research for us noticed that there were serious discrepancies between the so-called transcripts of the 1962 meetings and the tapes from which these transcripts had allegedly been made. This particular Soviet defector who is very thorough, very conscientious, wrote a memorandum to the deputy chief "SB" saying that these transcripts do not resemble in many respects the tapes--and here I am afraid I am speaking from memory, but I think my memory is accurate--I think he named 150 discrepancies which he had found in a cursory review of the tapes, and he offered to make a full report of the other discrepancies which might exist. Insofar as the record shows--and we examined the record quite carefully to see if there was any reply--we cannot find anything which indicates that the defector was asked to make a full examination and a full report of the discrepancies. I cannot account for this, but in any case, it can be said with certainty that the responsible people who--or at least one of the responsible people running this operation was in a position to know that the transcripts were not accurate and did not take the trouble to ask for a more accurate version. The next step, since the interrogations conducted by the CIA, which as I say were designed not to ascertain information so much as they were to pin on Nosenko the label of a KGB agent acting to deceive us, since nothing had been proved in the friendly confinement, the people running the operation determined that the next step would be a confinement--much more spartan was the word used in the Rockefeller report--a much more spartan confinement was appropriate and a so-called hostile interrogation. Therefore, they examined the ways in which this might be conducted and they decided to apply to Nosenko's handling approximately the conditions under which an American citizen, Prof. Frederick Barghorn, had been confined for a period of time in Moscow in 1963. You may recall that Professor Barghorn happened, fortunately for him, to be a personal friend of President Kennedy and President Kennedy made a personal appeal to Prime Minister Khrushchev and--Secretary General Khrushchev. On the basis of President Kennedy's appeal, Professor Barghorn was released by the KGB and came back to this country and had been extensively debriefed on how he had been treated. Therefore, it was decided that Nosenko would be given the same treatment. What was to happen was that he was to be given the first of the three polygraph tests that he had in the course of this period during which he was under suspicion, and after the polygraph test, he would be told that he had failed the polygraph test and then would "be arrested"--I put that in quotes--they would act as if he were being arrested. I will come back to the matter of the polygraphs later. He would then be taken to an area where he would be treated as if he were being put in prison. He would be forced to strip, put on prison clothes, and so on. The effort would be to put him at a psychological disadvantage, to shake his confidence, to make him fearful. The guards at the house were given instructions that there must be no physical mistreatment of him, but that they were not to talk to him, they were not to smile at him, they were to treat him very impersonally. The original plan for the so-called cell in which he was to be confined did not envisage even the existence of any heat in the room. It envisaged that one window would be boarded up and that there would be one 60-watt bulb burning all night. As had been the case of Professor Barghorn when imprisoned in Moscow, he would be forced to arise at 6 in the morning and required to go to bed at 10 at night. The food which he was to receive was described as follows: breakfast-weak tea, no sugar, porridge; dinner--watery soup, macaroni or porridge, bread, weak tea; supper--weak tea and porridge. Now, this diet, as a result of the intervention of a medical doctor, was varied and improved. But at first this is what was planned. It never did become very good. But at any rate, it wasn't as meager as I have just described. The man was under 24-hour visual surveillance through the door. He was not allowed to lie down on his couch during the day after he had gotten up at 6 in the morning. He was allowed to sit down on the bed or sit down in the chair. Although originally there had been a plan for reading material, very meager amount of reading material, he was at first actually not given reading material. There was a definite effort to deprive him of any distractions. There was in the house a TV which the guards watched, but the guards were provided with earphones so that he would not hear the sounds of the TV, and he was not to hear anybody speak except on those occasions when the interrogators came to interrogate him. Now, I might also add that originally he was not to have the benefit of toilet facilities. There was to be a slop pail which he was to empty once a day. But that, I am happy to say, was changed. Once again, because the Office of Security refused--which was in charge of the house--refused to some of the more extreme measures which the operational people had produced. Now we come to the polygraph, which as I have mentioned is the first of the occasions on which Mr. Nosenko was polygraphed. This polygraph was administered on the 4th of April 1964 from 1045 to 1515 hours. As I think was mentioned by Professor Blakey, the operator was told to tell him at the end that he had failed the polygraph. I would like, if I may, to pause here for just a minute to say something about the polygraph, and the way that it is used properly--I do not wish to tell you gentlemen things which you already know, but I simply want to establish the way that the polygraph is normally used by the Central Intelligence Agency and has always been used by people who use it responsibly. In the first place, the polygraph, as you know, is not a lie detector. It doesn't detect lies. It simply detects physiological changes, changes of heartbeat, changes of your respiration rate, changes in something known as galvanic skin reaction, which is electrical conductivity, which is measured by a sensor placed on your finger. These changes are measured against a base line, and the base line is obtained by asking you rather ordinary questions, like what is your name, which presumably will not cause you anxiety, unless you are faking your name. But you ask a lot of questions and you get a base line. It is certainly not desirable to raise the tension of the person who is going to be polygraphed if you expect to use the polygraph as an aid to getting at the truth because the tension becomes unpredictable, and then you get tracings on the tape which is run which may seem to indicate that the person is telling a falsehood, but they may simply be due to the extreme tension which you are under. Now, the important things about this particular first polygraph, which also had a considerable influence on the later conduct of the case, was that not only was Mr. Nosenko told after the fact that he had failed the polygraph, but before the fact, a rather unusual thing--I have never heard of it being done before--was done. An artifact which was described to him as an electroencephalograph was attached to him and he was told that in addition to all the other sensors, we were going to read his brainwaves. Now, there was no purpose for this except as the documentary evidence shows--except to raise his tension. He was made to fear this polygraph in every way he could. The first polygraph has been adjudged invalid because of the manner in which it was conducted. The use of these extra strains and stresses might be used in a hostile interrogation if you didn't expect to use the results of the polygraph to support what the man eventually said. But you cannot reconcile using the polygraph in this way if you expect to use the tracings to indicate whether or not the person is lying. A point which is important here is, however, that when the results of this polygraph were reported upwards through the chain of command, there was no indication that there had been any special circumstances surrounding the giving of the polygraph. On the contrary, the report up the chain of command from chief SB simply said that the polygraph had obtained significant reactions. It was after this polygraph that Mr. X was brought deliberately into the case to assist the interrogators to examine the answers which Nosenko gave, and to suggest further questions. As I have mentioned, he was given voluminous material relating to the case to analyze. Mr. Nosenko then remained in solitary confinement, under constant visual observation, until, if my memory serves me correctly, August 1967. There was a change of the location, but that bore no particular significance because he was treated approximately the same way in both locations. Insofar as I could tell from reading a vast number of documents, the expectation and the assumption on the part of the top level leadership of the Agency was that Mr. Nosenko was being interrogated, questioned, whatever you wish to call it, during the entire time that he was incarcerated.

Mr. DODD - Mr. Hart, could you please speak up a little bit. You are fading on me.

Mr. HART - Insofar as I can tell, the assumption among the top leadership of the Agency was that during this period of incarceration Mr. Nosenko was being questioned or interrogated. That is flatly contrary to the facts because although he was incarcerated for 1,277 days, on only 292 days was he in part questioned. We do not know--it is difficult to tell just how many hours of questioning there took place on these 292 days, when he actually was questioned. The rest of the time, which is 77 percent of the total time of incarceration, he was left entirely unoccupied and was not being questioned. There was, in other words, no effort being made to get at more information which he might have. The justification for not dealing with Mr. Nosenko was that the lack of any contact would put additional pressure on him, pressure to confess that he was a dispatched KGB agent. This was eventually surfaced in a memorandum which went to the Director, and it was stated that the interval in isolation will be extremely valuable in terms of allowing subject to ponder on the complete failure of his recent gambits. His gambits, which may or may not have been gambits, included a period when he was hallucinating while incarcerated and totally inactive. The eventual conclusion of the medical officer who examined him was that he was reigning these hallucinations, but that was simply one medical officer's opinion. I am prepared to suggest to the staff, if they wish to look at it, they examine some evidence which has been scientifically collected specifically by the Russians which show that long periods of isolation do lead to hallucination. So, it may have been well that in addition to the other problems which we face in connection with this, or have faced in connection with Mr. Nosenko, that there was a period when he was hallucinating. Now, I am not here speaking as a technical expert on this subject, but I have examined some technical works on the subject of the effects which long confinement of this sort could have. I will have to pause here for a minute to get a date, if I may. Well, I will get the date for you in just a minute. But Mr. Helms, the then Director, became very impatient with the large amount of time spent on this case and the failure to come to a conclusion as to the credibility of this man. Specifically, this was on August 23, 1966. He set a limit of 60 days for the people who were handling this case to wind it up. This resulted in a period of frenetic activity because the people handling the case felt that it was impossible to prove the man's guilt and they couldn't conceive of any way of getting at the truth unless some additional measures were taken. In September 1966 a proposal which they had made that the man be interrogated, Mr. Nosenko be interrogated under the influence of sodium amytal, which was believed to be a drug which lowered the defenses of a subject and made him more vulnerable to questioning, was turned down by the Director, who refused to permit interrogations using drugs. The staff handling the case therefore took refuge once again on the polygraph and they submitted Mr. Nosenko to a second series of polygraphs, which continued from October 19 through October 28, 1966. These are the series of polygraphs which we have been told by Mr. Arther of Scientific Lie Detection are the most valid of the polygraphs which were given the man. We take serious exception to the statement, the judgment given by Mr. Arther that these were valid polygraphs for a number of reasons. We take serious exceptions to them partly because we have no understanding of the basis for Mr. Arther's conclusions, and we have doubts that Mr. Arther examined all the relevant data in connection with making this judgment. When Mr. Arther visited the Central Intelligence Agency in connection with evaluating the polygraphs, he did not, as I understand it, evaluate the 1962 polygraph, only the series of polygraph examinations made in 1966. He was offered the Agency's own 1966 evaluations of the examinations as part of providing him with all the data available. He declined to see the Agency's evaluations. Since the October 18 test was the most significant because it was the one which had to do with the Oswald matters.----

Chairman STOKES - I wonder if the gentleman would suspend for just a minute. It is about 1:30 now. I wonder if you could give the committee some indication as to about how much longer you think you will go, and then perhaps we can judge whether this is an appropriate time for us to take a recess.

Mr. HART - I can wind this up, Mr. Chairman, in about 15 minutes.

Chairman STOKES - You may proceed then, sir.

Mr. HART - As I was saying, the Agency attempted to give the examiner, Mr. Arther, as much data as they could, in order to make a meaningful analysis. However, he did not accept all the data which they were offered. The examiners at the Agency feel that it would be very hard for anybody, any expert, themselves or anybody else, to make an evaluation of these, of the tapes of this series of polygraphs without knowing the surrounding conditions, and there were a number of serious conditions which would interfere with a satisfactory polygraph. . . . For one thing, the times involved in this series of polygraphs were excessive, were very excessive. It is a principle of polygraphing, on which most polygraphers agree, that if you keep the person on the machine for too long, the results, the effectiveness of the polygraph declines. In the case of this series, on the first day the man was kept on it, on the polygraph machine, for 2 hours. On the second day he was kept on the polygraph for a total of almost 7 hours, and for comparable periods of time leading to a total of 28 hours and 29 minutes of time on the machine. In addition to that, it was later discovered that while he was actually not being interrogated, he was also left strapped on the chair where he was sitting so that he could not move. And so while lunchbreaks were being taken, he actually was not being interrogated but he was still strapped to the chair. Now these lunchbreaks, or whatever they were, perhaps they were also used as time for further preparation of questions. But at any rate, the record shows that they lasted, for example, on October 20, from 12:15 to 3:30, and on October 21, from 12:45 to 4:45. That is 4 hours that the man was left in the chair with no rest. In addition to that, the operator was guilty of some provocative remarks. He told, before the polygraph examination, one of the polygraph examinations began, he told Nosenko that he was a fanatic, and that there was no evidence to support his legend, and your future is now zero. The operator also on another occasion preceded his interrogation by saying that the subject didn't have any hope, there would be no hope for subject, and he might go crazy, to which Nosenko replied that he never would go crazy. Thus the combination of an antagonistic operator who, I might add, was by now not operating under the auspices of the CIA Office of Security, but who was operating under the aegis of the chief of SB and the deputy chief of SB, the fact that the man was kept for extraordinary lengths of time strapped into the chair, all of these add up, in the estimation of the CIA examiners who have gone over this series of tests, to an invalid polygraph. Now in the handwriting of the deputy chief SB, who was a day to-day supervisor of the activity which I have been describing, it is--there is an admission which implies fairly clearly that there was no intention that this 1966 series of polygraphs would be valid. I read here a direct quotation which exists in writing, and most of it is in the handwriting of the deputy chief of SB. Speaking of the aims to be achieved by the 1966 polygraph examinations, he writes: To gain more insight into points of detail which we could use in fabricating an ostensible Nosenko confession, insofar as we could make one consistent and believable even to the Soviets, a confession would be useful m any eventual disposal of Nosenko. Now he doesn't clarify what he means in this document by "disposal," but it is apparent that--

Mr. SAWYER - Excuse me. Did you use the term "eventual disposal of him"?

Mr. HART - I used the term "the eventual disposal," yes, sir.

Mr. SAWYER - Thank you.

Mr. HART - I want finally to address myself very briefly to the two reports which were turned out, one of which, both of which have been described by Professor Blakey. One was actually about 900 pages, but it came to be called the thousand paper simply because of its extraordinary size. That was originally, it had originally been hoped that that would be the official CIA write-up on the subject, but there was no agreement between the CI staff and the SB Division on this paper, in part because the SB paper had an implication in it that Mr. X, of whom I have previously talked, had contradicted himself and was not totally reliable. I read here an excerpt in which the chief of the SB Division is talking: "Chief CI said that he did not see how we could submit a final report to the bureau" meaning the FBI "if it contained suggestions that Mr. X had lied to us about certain aspects of Nosenko's past. He recalled that the Director of the FBI had stated that in his opinion Mr. X himself was a provocateur and a penetration agent." Thus, what happened was that a long negotiation took place during which a briefer paper, which as I remember is 446 pages long, was eventually produced, and this became the agreed document, agreed between the CIA staff, I mean the CIA-CI staff and the SB Division, until such time as Mr. Helms, exasperated by the long delays on this case and dissatisfied with the results, took the matter out of the hands of both the SB Division and the CI staff, turned the matter over to his Director, Admiral Rufus Taylor, and Admiral Taylor brought in the Office of Security to try to resolve the case. I have nothing more to say about the resolution of that case because it has been adequately covered by Professor Blakey's presentation this morning. That is all I have to say in this presentation, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman STOKES - Thank you, sir. I think this is probably an appropriate place for us, then, to take a recess. The committee will recess until 2:30 this afternoon, at which time we will resume questioning of the witness.

[Whereupon, at 1:43 p.m., the select committee was recessed, to reconvene at 2:30 p.m.]

AFTERNOON SESSION

Chairman STOKES - The committee will come to order. The Chair recognizes counsel for the committee, Mr. Klein.

Mr. KLEIN - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would only like to state for the record that I have spoken to Mr. Arther, the committee's polygraph consultant, and his account of the events leading to the writing of his report are significantly different than those stated today by Mr. Hart, and I understand that Mr. Hart has stated that he was only repeating what was told to him by the Office of Security. But for the record, Mr. Arther states that he accepted and read all materials made available to him by the CIA and considered all of these materials in reaching these conclusions. That is all I have to say, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much.

Chairman STOKES - Thank you, Counsel. The Chair will recognize the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd, for such time as he may consume, after which the committee will operate under the 5-minute rule. Mr. DoDD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hart, thank you for your statement this morning. Mr. Hart, let me ask you this question at the very outset. Would it be fair for me to conclude that it was the responsibility of the Central Intelligence Agency to find out, from whatever available sources between late 1963 and 1964, what the activities and actions of Lee Harvey Oswald were during his stay in the Soviet Union? TESTIMONY OF JOHN HART--Resumed

Mr. HART - Congressman, I want to answer that by telling you that I do not know---

Mr. DODD - Let me say this to you, Mr. Hart. Wouldn't it be a fair assessment that the Central Intelligence Agency had the responsibility during that period of time to examine whatever information could point to or lead to those activities, to provide us with information regarding Lee Harvey Oswald's activities in the Soviet Union? Isn't that a fair enough, simple enough statement?

Mr. HART - Sir, I can't agree to that in an unqualified manner for several reasons. May I give the reasons in sequence?

Mr. DODD - Go ahead.

Mr. HART - In a telephone conversation between the then Director of Central Intelligence, John McCone, and Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, which took place on the 16th of November 1963 at 11:20 a.m., Mr. McCone said: I just want to be sure that you were satisfied that this agency is giving you all the help that we possibly can in connection with your investigation of the situation in Dallas. I know the importance the President plays on. this investigation you are making. He asked me personally whether CIA was giving you full support. I said they were, but I just wanted to be sure that you felt so. Mr. Hoover said "We have had the very best support that we can possibly expect from you." Then the implication through the rest of this document, which I am perfectly happy to turn over to the committee, is that Mr. McCone and Mr. Hoover feel that the main responsibility for the investigation falls on the FBI. My second point is that when I came on board in the Agency, having been recalled in mid-June, I asked about the responsibility for the Lee Harvey Oswald matter because I knew that he had entered into the overall Nosenko case. I was told that the responsibility for the investigation had rested almost entirely with the FBI. There were a couple of reasons for that. First, it was understood, although I realize that there had been violations of this principle, Mr. Congressman, it was understood that the jurisdiction of the Central Intelligence Agency did not extend within the territorial limits of the United States, and the Central Intelligence Agency had no particular, in fact, did not have any assets capable of making an investigation within the Soviet Union, which were the two places really involved. Third, I want to say that in my own investigation, since I intended to depend entirely or almost entirely on documentary evidence for the sake of accuracy, I ruled out going into the Lee Harvey Oswald matter because I realized that I could not possibly have the same access to FBI documents which I had in the Agency where I had formerly been employed which gave me complete access to everything I wanted.

Mr. DODD - Mr. Hart, as I understand what you have given me in response to my question is the fact that you assumed that the FBI was principally responsible for the investigation, and that Mr. McCone, as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in his conversation with Mr. Hoover, indicated that he would be cooperating fully in that investigation. So to that extent, and that is the extent I am talking about, it was the responsibility of the Central Intelligence Agency to cooperate in a responsible fashion in ferreting out whatever information would bear on the activities of Lee Harvey Oswald when he was in the Soviet Union, utilizing whatever sources of information were available to the Central Intelligence Agency in achieving that goal. Is that not a correct and fair statement of the responsibilities of your Agency?

Mr. HART - Insofar as I am aware of them. Keep in mind please, Congressman, that I had nothing to do with this case. I do not know about.

Mr. DODD - I am asking you Mr. Hart, for a comment about the activities of the Agency, not specifically your actions as one individual. You spent 24 years with the Agency, so you are familiar with what the responsibilities of the Agency are.

Mr. HART - My response to that is that I believe that the Agency should have done everything that it could to assist the FBI. I do not know exactly what the Agency did to assist the FBI, nor do I know what relevant assets or capabilities the Agency had during the time we are concerned with to take any relevant action.

Mr. DODD - All right. But you are answering my question; you are saying, "yes," in effect. It was their responsibility to assist the FBI or do whatever else was necessary in order to gain that information about Lee Harvey Oswald's activities when he was abroad.

Mr. HART - Congressman, I have to repeat that there may have been agreements between the Agency and Mr. Hoover or other parts of the Government of which I am not aware. I, for example, am virtually without knowledge of a very long span of time during which the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Mr. Hoover were barely on speaking terms. I know that it was very difficult for the two Agencies to get along. I do not happen to know the reasons for it, and I am in no position to judge what they did, why they did it or what they should have done in order to resolve the lack of cooperation.

Mr. DODD - Well, after listening to your statement for 1 hour and 40 minutes this afternoon, do I take it that you would concede the point that, as the CIA's activities pertain to one vitally important source, potential source of information namely, Mr. Nosenko, that in the handling of that potential source of information, as it bore on the assassination of a President of the United States, the Central Intelligence Agency failed in its responsibility miserably?

Mr. HART - Congressman, within the context of the total case, I would go further than that. I would say that the Agency failed miserably in its handling of the entire case, and that since the Lee Harvey Oswald question was part of that case; yes.

Mr. DODD - And, Mr. Hart, I am not going to--I will ask you if you recall with me, basically, the conclusion or one of the conclusions of the Warren Commission report. Were we not told in the conclusion of the Warren Commission report that "All of the resources of the U.S. Government were brought to bear on the investigation of the assassination of the President," and in light of your last answer, that conclusion was false? Would you agree with me?

Mr. HART - Well, Congressman, I do not like to have my rather specific answer extrapolated.

Mr. DODD - But we do consider the Central Intelligence Agency to be part of the U.S. investigatory body; don't we?

Mr. HART - I do.

Mr. DODD - And you just said they failed miserably.

Mr. HART - I said they failed miserably in the handling of this whole case.

Mr. DODD - Therefore, it would be fair to say that the conclusion of the Warren Commission report in its statement that all of the resources of the U.S. Government were brought to bear in the investigation of the death of the President is an inaccurate statement. That is not a terribly difficult piece of logic to follow, I don't think.

Mr. HART - It requires me to make a judgment, which I am not sure that I am willing to make, because I can think of possible other evidence which might come up which might show that there is a case to support the fact that the leader, top leadership of the Agency, may have thought they were bringing all their resources to bear. I simply do not know that.

Mr. DODD - The only question left, it would seem to me, in going back to Mr. Blakey's narration at the outset of this part of our investigation, where he noted that the Nosenko case was important in two areas. One had to do with the efficiency, the effectiveness, the thoroughness of the CIA's performance, and, second, the credibility of Mr. Nosenko. It would seem to me, in response to the last series of questions you have just given me, that we have answered the first question, and what is left is the second question, that is, whether or not this committee and the American public can believe Mr. Nosenko's story with regard to the activities of Lee Harvey Oswald during his tenure in the Soviet Union. And Mr. Hart, I would like to ask you, in light of your testimony today, again going more than an hour and a half, why should this committee believe anything that Mr. Nosenko has said when, after your testimony, you state that he was intimidated, not interrogated, for more than 3 years, that he was probably hallucinating during various stages of that interrogation, that he was, according to your testimony, a man of a very short memory; that he was drunk or at least heavily drinking during part of the questioning; that there are no accounts, verbatim accounts, of some of the interrogation but rather notes taken by people who didn't have a very good knowledge of Russian. Why then should we believe any of the statements of Mr. Nosenko, which from point to point contradict each other, in light of the way he was treated by the Central Intelligence Agency from the time he defected in

[Lee Forman]

Tim,

FWIW - Alexander Cockburn, New Statesman, February 24, 1978.

"The counter-intelligence section of the CIA, debriefing Nosenko, took a very different view.  In 1961 another senior officer of the KGB, Major Anatoli Golitsyn, had defected to the CIA in Helsinki.  Golitsyn claimed, inter alia, that the KGB had spies implanted in the upper echelons of the CIA and FBI.  He said that another Soviet agent was close to De Gaulle...and he also made a claim which led to extraordinary suspicion in the bosom of James Angleton, head of CIA counter-intelligence, toward the leadership of the Labour Party.

Golitsyn said that, just prior to defection, he had been told by a KGB officer in charge of the North European section that the Soviets were planning to kill the leader of an opposition party.  Hugh Gaitskell was the only such Opposition leader to die at this time, and CIA counter-intelligence noted that he had falled to a rare virus and that a KGB officer  suspected of connection to the Agency's sabotage and assassination section had been in Britain around that time.  As Epstein says:  'Counter-intelligence officers in the CIA suspected that the Soviets had done away with Gaitskell in order to promote Harold Wilson, but the facts could never be established.'  Efforts to establish them may have provoked the surveillance of which Wilson subsequently complained and which Chapman Pincher, from his sources in British counter-intelligence, confirmed.

In 1962 Nosenko had made a preliminary overture to the CIA.  It seemed to CIA counter-intelligence that he was supplying information designed to deflect them from the search for the spy in the CIA mentioned by Golitsyn.  Therefore, when he finally defected in January of 1964, whith his 'exoneration' of Oswald, Angelton and his men were doubly suspicious.  Nosenko was caught in several highly damaging contradictions, and by 1967 the CIA's Soviet Russia division concluded in a 900 page report that it was virtually certain that Nosenko was still a Soviet agent."

2 observations:

1. Richard Case Nagell and his comments concerning the murder of John Paisley.

2. James Jesus Angleton.

Maybe I have too much imagination, but Nagell fingered Paisley as 'Nash' [Dick Russell's Man who knew too much]. I don't know the history on the slang, but Soviet Double-Agent is the implication.

It doesn't take much for me to make the leap that Nosenko may have fallen into the very hands of the man he was seeking to blow the whistle on. Sheer speculation, and nothing to support it at all - but it's interesting that Angleton recruited Paisely, and Paisely was pals with Nosenko.

- lee

[Tim Gratz]

Lee,

yes indeed there are some who think that Angleton himself may have been the mole. I tend to doubt it however, but in the strange world of 1960s espionage and counterespionage anything is possible.

Victor Marchetti, an anti-CIA writer (former agent) seemed to believe that the CIA was indeed heavily penetrated by moles. If I recall right, Marchetti speculated the assassination could have been orchestrated by KGB moles in the CIA. I think Marchetti thought the moles were primarily in the Soviet Russia division of the CIA.

Glad you brought up Paisley's name. There seems to be a good indication he was, as Nagell puts it, "nash", in which case his close association with Nosenko raises troublesome questions. As most Forum members know, Paisley died under unusual circumstances and although his death was ruled a suicide there are many circumstantial indications of foul play.

Edited March 2, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Antti Hynonen]

Tim Gratz Posted Today, 07:22 AM

  Lee,

yes indeed there are some who think that Angleton himself may have been the mole. I tend to doubt it however, but in the strange world of 1960s espionage and counterespionage anything is possible.

Victor Marchetti, an anti-CIA writer (former agent) seemed to believe that the CIA was indeed heavily penetrated by moles. If I recall right, Marchetti speculated the assassination could have been orchestrated by KGB moles in the CIA. I think Marchetti thought the moles were primarily in the Soviet Russia division of the CIA.

Glad you brought up Paisley's name. There seems to be a good indication he was, as Nagell puts it, "nash", in which case his close association with Nosenko raises troublesome questions. As most Forum members know, Paisley died under unusual circumstances and although his death was ruled a suicide there are many circumstantial indications of foul play.

As I recall Tony (Anthony) Frank's claims regardng KGB infiltration of the CIA, on several threads in this Forum supports these views. He claims to have first hand knowledge of the contents of a closed door congressional hearing where a massive KGB infiltration of the CIA was exposed. This is from memory, so it could have been FBI, but I think it was the CIA.

[Roger Fong]

The Nosenko movie starring Tommy Lee Jones (he plays a character called Steve Daley who is actually Tennent "Pete" Bagley, Deputy Chief CIA's Soviet Division and Nosenko's handler) concludes with a statement that Fedora, the FBI's mole in the Soviet UN delegation was eventually exposed (after Hoover's death) as a double agent. Fedora had originally backed up some Nosenko's statements that were later exposed to be lies. Specifically, Nosenko claimed that he was a Lieutenant Colonel (he was actually a Captain) and he claimed that he had received a cable in Geneva ordering him to return to Moscow which was the reason he gave for having to defect immediately (there was no such cable). I have not been able to locate another reference that states that Fedora was a double agent. Does anyone have information about this? (the movie, available at Netflix, is otherwise quite accurate, if incomplete).

Speaking of Bagley. He appeared before the House Select Committee and gave a strong rebuttal to John Hart's testimony (reproduced above in Tim's post). Bagley's name is not listed; he's referred to as Deputy Chief, Soviet Bloc Division, or Mr. D.C. (Vol. 12, beginning on page 571).

[Lee Forman]

Tim,

Paisley's son registered at least one FOIA that I came across once. It was my intention to look him up [along with a million other things I meant to do]. I may still see if I can locate him just to see what he learned regarding his Father.

- lee