Undercovering Popov's Mole: The Assassination of President Kennedy by John M. Newman

[Douglas Caddy]

Posted online by John Newman yesterday:

The manuscript finally is under review now on Amazon -- Please forgive the not-so-good PDF converter! And, sorry I have to go to bed to get rest for a hike at 4 AM in the morning... Thought you would like to see Malcolm's take:

FOREWORD BY

MALCOLM BLUNT

A Deep and Complex Story Waiting to be Told

The Cold War was energetically and pervasively waged from the end of WWII through the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. It’s most dangerous highest-risk potential for nuclear Armageddon was a period of 16 years, 1959 - 1976, within which Lee Harvey Oswald, a young high-school dropout, under- went an extraordinary four-year transition from probable false defector to alleged presidential assassin. By focusing an intense multifaceted lens on every available aspect of the Cold War, this volume, number four in a continuing series, may be our best collective effort thus far to examine and explain Oswald's transition, and quite a lot more, that has until now been largely overlooked.

Conspiracies and Theories

Every theory, no matter how absurd, is supported by its own special “dream logic,” which I define as the human mind's ability to believe and rationalize just about anything it conceives. As a defense against those who argue “anything is possible,” John Newman is fond of the term “multiple attestation.” So am I.

Connecting the Dots

For nearly 60 years we have witnessed the proliferation of highly individualized conceptions of one man's identity: who was Lee Harvey Oswald? From the publication of the Warren Report in 1964, all the way up to the present day, range and diversity of opinion about Oswald has emerged from a doctored, incomplete, fractured documentary record which is then reflected, quite naturally, within a fragmented field of assassination researchers. As such, it comes as no surprise that such division plays out as a consequence of bias, wishful thinking, deliberate misdirection, fraud, misinterpretation, illogical inferences, and most of all, the conceit of certainty, by which we find ourselves still grappling to ascertain fundamental answers to fundamental questions. In addition, we must contend with a myriad of intelligence agencies and watchdogs that seem pre-programmed to thwart any meaningful research.

But all is not lost. There is good news in that we now have access to the greatest number of assassination-related records any generation has ever known. We also have some of the best minds of our time following leads which, until recently, could not have been developed or pursued.

For example, the 15 June 1978 HSCA interview of Mr. Angleton which, thanks to Alan Dale and Jeff Morley, was found at the National Archives, listened to, transcribed and made available to us. It's an absolute master class in gaining some small understanding of the mind of James Angleton. You can see in some of Angleton's testimony his obtuseness; however, this interview is the real deal, and we are able to get some sense of this unusual man's lifetime use of elliptical language par excellence: the poet turned intelligence analyst. Simply following his excruciating twists and turns is difficult; gaining a real understanding, all but impossible. Nonetheless, this is a valuable contribution.

Shadow and Light

A paradigm shift occurs when a current framework or system is rendered obsolete. The progress to which scientists and historians devote their lives is earned by working within the most current system. Occasionally, but not very often, something happens that challenges the prevailing wisdom by overturning what had been regarded as unquestionable. New facts create new questions which give birth to new models, new hypotheses. A great deal of this book will fall into the rare cate gory of “new paradigm.” To access this new paradigm, John must first introduce to the reader a detailed chronology of Cold War deceptions: KGB v. CIA, spy v. spy, bona fide defectors v. false defectors, advocates v. detractors, true molehunts v. false molehunts. This lesson will prove to be essential if we are to understand the context of what is new in relation to what must be replaced.

The subversion of routinely generated paperwork associated with Oswald's 1959 defection to the USSR, which should have been disseminated to the various relevant desks of the CIA's Soviet Russia Division, is something we have struggled to understand. For some number of years, we have speculated as to why those mate- rials seem to have gone sideways, to the Office of Security, and just who within the Agency had the necessary foreknowledge of Oswald's defection and the authority to alter the standard distribution trajectory. What follows within the pages of this volume will go a long way toward answering those questions once and for all.

What Does This Change?

The resurrection of Pete Bagley's plea to remember the Ghosts of the Spy Wars, to pick up where he left off and to bring new focus to the issue of uncovering Popov's mole is, for me, an almost unimaginably significant development. The serendipity of my role, quite unintentional, of serving as a conduit to connect John Newman to Pete Bagley is, shall we simply say, an interesting turn of fate. Eight years after Pete's passing, there arises a symbiotic relationship between my dear friends, two atypical thinkers with many shared qualities of distinction.

What I got from Pete was his brilliant intellect, clarity, personal and professional integrity and, despite being drenched by the muck of very dirty internal politics over the Nosenko business, loyalty to the Agency. What I get from John is his deep interest and enthusiasm, and his innate ability to interpret the complexities inherent within the world of espionage. I thank John for his extraordinary mental capacity as an experienced military intelligence analyst, his belief in Pete, and for his dedication to the cause.

A recently published book about the hunt for a mole inside CIA points an accusing finger at long-time Agency officer John Paisley. Yet, in six years and hundreds of hours of face-to-face meetings with Pete, I do not recall the name Paisley ever entering our long and detailed discussions—including about moles. In the case of john Newman's investigation, the identity of the ghost being considered is a legitimate suspect for Popov's high-ranking KGB mole in the CIA—and was perhaps the most successful penetration of any intelligence service during the entirety of the Cold War. This ghost didn't live in the shadows, he was the shadow.

In response to the above question: what does this change? The answer, I think, is quite a lot. The molehunt wrought catastrophic consequences to the Agency for more than a decade. When viewed as a calculated misdirection, being run by the mole himself, what does that mean in relation to the utilization of Oswald as bait? There are staggering ramifications, the scope and depth of which may take years to unfold. As Alan Dale has said, regarding this path, unearthed by Peter Dale Scott, inspired by Pete Bagley, now being illuminated by John Newman, “A new door is about to open.”

Edited September 30, 2022 by Douglas Caddy

[Douglas Caddy]

[Paul Brancato]

Popov’s mole was JJA? 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

Popov’s mole was JJA? 

Can he be? He was outraged by the way Kim Philby had deceived him, right? 

[Benjamin Cole]

Thanks for posting this. 

[Joseph Backes]

9 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Popov’s mole was JJA? 

NO.

[Paul Brancato]

15 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

Can he be? He was outraged by the way Kim Philby had deceived him, right? 

Was he deceived though? He stubbornly held on to his friendship with Philby even after others like I believe William Harvey had figured this out. I have always found this suspicious. I guess there are a few here who know Newman’s answer but won’t share until the book is released. It was the use of the word ghost in the blurb that made me wonder. But I’ve suggested as much here for years because the mole hunt was so destructive. It’s hard to imagine a man like Angleton with impeccable fascist credentials being a Soviet agent, and as Joseph Backes says the answer is probably NO. 

[Guest]

55 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Was he deceived though? He stubbornly held on to his friendship with Philby even after others like I believe William Harvey had figured this out. I have always found this suspicious. I guess there are a few here who know Newman’s answer but won’t share until the book is released. It was the use of the word ghost in the blurb that made me wonder. But I’ve suggested as much here for years because the mole hunt was so destructive. It’s hard to imagine a man like Angleton with impeccable fascist credentials being a Soviet agent, and as Joseph Backes says the answer is probably NO. 

What’s in it for JJA? You’re screwed if you get caught. I feel like JJA justified his actions as patriotism or the greater good. He seems an unlikely double agent. He could see first hand the Soviets losing. There was all of the money in the world for JJA to make with the foreknowledge of CIA ops and how they change things abroad. He wouldn’t be better off. I guess the Soviets could have blackmail materials compromising him, its a possibility. 

I don't think he was. 

[Douglas Caddy]

11 hours ago, Joseph Backes said:

NO.

I agree with you.

[Douglas Caddy]

I have his book and am about to start reading it.

 

Robert Baer: Putin, Russia, and The Hunt for a KGB Spy (commonwealthclub.org)

 

[Tom Gram]

I’m guessing that Newman’s vol. IV expands on Blunt’s hypothesis that the mole was Bruce Solie, so it should be pretty damn interesting. Blunt’s arguments on this are compelling, and that’s just from listening to him ramble in his excellent interview series with Bart Kamp.
 

 

[Paul Brancato]

If it was Bruce Solie, might that imply that Oswald had been turned by the KGB, and that Nosenko was a plant designed to keep that fact hidden? 

[Sandy Larsen]

Why is the mole referred to as "Popov's mole?"

I know that Pyotr Popov was a KGB double agent. But what has he to do with Angleton's hypothetical mole?

 

[Tom Gram]

4 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

If it was Bruce Solie, might that imply that Oswald had been turned by the KGB, and that Nosenko was a plant designed to keep that fact hidden? 

OS SRS, for which Solie was Deputy Chief, was the group that arranged to receive any incoming documents on Oswald instead of the Soviet Russia division prior to Oswald’s defection. Blunt’s interpretation, which is almost certainly a major thesis of Newman’s book, is that this was done in an attempt to flush out the suspected KGB mole in CIA that betrayed Popov. The twist to this is that if Solie was a mole, he was literally investigating himself and would have likely tipped off KGB that Oswald was a false defector.

After the assassination, the KGB didn’t want America to suspect any Soviet involvement, and they obviously couldn’t betray Solie and reveal that they’d known about Oswald, so the B.S. story sent with Nosenko that Oswald was never interviewed by KGB was pretty much their only option. Basically, the Oswald story was most likely “tacked on” (Blunt’s term) to the much larger Nosenko disinformation campaign as a matter of convenience to dispel any suspicions that Oswald was a Russian agent. In this scenario, Solie’s defense of Nosenko only suggests that he was supporting the KGB agenda and doesn’t imply anything about Oswald being turned, IMO.

Solie’s suspiciously early unconditional defense of Nosenko’s bona fides to David Slawson in ‘64 alone is pretty compelling evidence of Solie being a mole, at least by CIA standards. A senior CIA Security Officer should have never been defending a defector like that just two months into his interrogations, especially one the entire SR division thought was full of crap.

This is all assuming the Blunt/Newman scenario is correct of course. I’m really looking forward to this book, and am excited to see if Newman turned up any new evidence for Blunt’s theory. 

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Why is the mole referred to as "Popov's mole?"

I know that Pyotr Popov was a KGB double agent. But what has he to do with Angleton's hypothetical mole?

 

Okay, I think I get it.

Double agent Popov was arrested and sentenced to death in October 1959. Apparently Angleton figured that a KGB mole working for the CIA had informed the Soviets that Popov was giving secrets to the CIA, and that was the reason for his arrest and death sentence. And so Angleton set out to find "Popov's mole."