James Jesus Angleton

[John Bevilaqua]

While James Jesus Angleton was, now doubt an interesting character, is it possible that the more interesting story begins with "the sins of the father"--James Hugh Angleton?

Much has been written about JJ, but little about his father who apparently got him into the business. Of what has been written about James Hugh Angleton, there appears to be some conflict.

Will the real James Hugh Angleton and Carmen Mercedes Moreno Angleton please step forward?

In Jefferson Morley's Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA, Morley states, in relevant part, "[James Jesus Angleton's] grandfather had founded National Cash Register Company, whose machines rang up the surpluses of the American Dream. His father, Hugh Angleton, built NCR into a multinational corporation." Morley, Jefferson

Michael Holzman, however, describes Hugh Angleton as beginning "his business career ina Horatio Alger vein. There are stories of muleback cash register deliveries to isolated fronteir towns, and with the boom and the modernization of the 1920s--a gradual rise through the National Cash Register Company ranks, first to sales manager and then to a vice presidency for international operations in Dayton (ca. 1927). [end note omitted] In 1933 he went to Italy to inspect the NCR operations there, liked what he saw, and--in lieu of a promotion--bought the Italian franchise from the company, moving his family to Milan in December 1933, when their eldest son was sixteen ." Holzman, Michael. James Jesus Angleton, The CIA, & The Craft of Counterintelligence (University of Massachusetts Press Amherst 2008) p. 9.

Tom Mangold describes much of the same beginning for Hugh Angleton in Cold Warrior at page 31 of that book.

Additionally, there appears to be some varying accounts of James Jesus Angleton's mother, and what her family background was. For example, quoting Cicely Angleton, Tom Mangold states that his grandmother, "lived in poverty." Mangold, Cold Warrior, p. 32 Mangold further states that his mother "had no schooling." Mangold, Cold Warrior, p. 32

In an article written comparing the movie The Good Shepard to the real life of James Jesus Angleton, author Pete Earley describes his mother as belonging "to an aristocratic Mexican family." see, http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrori...shepherd/4.html

Why all of the discrepancies in this man who was the father of one of the world's most [in]famous spies?

Are these discrepancies of Hugh Angleton's own making, or is this the JJ we all know and love playing the game that he played so well?

Tom Mangold also stated that James Hugh Angleton was quite Fascist in his views: "...he was very friendly with the Mussolini fascists both before and during World War II." And I have found evidence that Jim Angleton's father, Wickliffe Draper's uncle, George Otis Draper, William F. Buckley's father and a young Charles Willoughby himself all rode in John Pershing's cavalry after Pancho Villa into New Mexico as part of the Buckley family attempts to recover lost Mexican oil properties.

And when Gen. Bonner Fellers sent supposedly encoded and encrypted information back to Italy about Montgomery's troop movements back to Italy they were most likely processed by a young James Angleton who promptly forwarded them on to the Desert Fox, Rommel. Hitler once called Fellers in fact a fellow Nazi, "...our best source of information."

Then later Richard Condon, 1959, writes about Fellers, Angleton, GLK Smith, Buckley, Jordan, Morris, MacArthur, Oliver and others in The Manchurian Candidate calling them all basically Nazis under their sheepskin outer layers. And THAT, my friend is how I solved the mystery of the Assassination of JFK. Quod Est Demonstratum.

[Steve Rosen]

James Angleton in 1976 photographed by Richard Avedon.

Other influential figures from Avedon's 1976 Rolling Stone spread titled "The Family" can be found here:

http://www.richardavedon.com/#s=0&a=0&...mp;p=9&at=0

- Steve

[Michael Hogan]

James Angleton in 1976 photographed by Richard Avedon.

Other influential figures from Avedon's 1976 Rolling Stone spread titled "The Family" can be found here:

http://www.richardavedon.com/#s=0&a=0&...mp;p=9&at=0

- Steve

Steve,

Great photos of a long gone era that seems like just yesterday. I always enjoy your posts. Thanks for the Joannides updates from time to time.

[B. A. Copeland]

Very interesting and powerful to stare a man in the eyes who knows of so much blood...what I would give as an observer of history to learn what he and men like Helms, Bush Sr., etc, know of such pivotal events like the JFK Assassination specifically...does Angleton have blood on his hands from JFK's murder?

[Michael Hogan]

Very interesting and powerful to stare a man in the eyes who knows of so much blood...what I would give as an observer of history to learn what he and men like Helms, Bush Sr., etc, know of such pivotal events like the JFK Assassination specifically...does Angleton have blood on his hands from JFK's murder?

A mansion has many rooms.....

[David Andrews]

Very interesting and powerful to stare a man in the eyes who knows of so much blood...what I would give as an observer of history to learn what he and men like Helms, Bush Sr., etc, know of such pivotal events like the JFK Assassination specifically...does Angleton have blood on his hands from JFK's murder?

He once published Ezra Pound - which makes Angleton what he sometimes resembles: the T. S. Eliot of state-sponsored murder.

In that pic of him before Congress, though, with one hand cupped to an ear and his grey hair gone long in back - he resembles an old woman in black, selling candy skulls in the square at Matamoros.

Edited March 10, 2010 by David Andrews

[Guest Robert Morrow]

James Angleton quote of the day:“A mansion has many rooms... I’m not privy to who struck John.”

James Angleton to Seymour Hersh:

Angleton is implying that the CIA murdered John Kennedy

"In December 1974, pursued by the dogged Seymour Hersh, who was then investigating the CIA’s illegal domestic operations for the New York Times, Angleton suddenly blurted to the reporter, “A mansion has many rooms … I’m not privy to who struck John.” What did the cryptic remark mean? I would be absolutely misleading you if I thought I had any xxxxing idea,” says Hersh today. “But my instinct about it is he basically was laying off [blame] on somebody else inside the CIA, and the whole purpose of the conversation was to convince me to go after somebody else and not him. And also that he was a completely crazy f__king old fart.”" [David Talbot, Brothers, p. 274]

Many JFK researchers think that CIA head of counterintelligence James Angleton was running Lee Oswald and that Angleton (and Richard Helms) had a hand in the JFK assassination and the posthumous framing of US intelligence agent Oswald.

CIA director William Colby to NY Times editor Abe Rosenthal in 1975

"New York Times editor Rosenthal asked CIA Director William Colby if the CIA ever killed anybody in this country. Colby replied, “Not in this country.” When asked who the CIA had killed Colby said, “I can’t talk about it.” Colby said, “Sometimes intelligence operations are high-risk, and sometimes they fail. Then, the question is not whether the CIA is some rogue elephant, which it never has been, but rather that we Americans made a mistake through out constitutional system.”"

[John Armstrong, Harvey and Lee, p. 968]

What Colby is saying, imho, is that the Americans made a "mistake" by electing John Kennedy, so the CIA corrected it by murdering him. - R.

Allen Dulles:

That little Kennedy … he thought he was a god.” [JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 16]

David Morales:

Actual quote was “Well, we took care of that S.O.B.” (referring to JFK).

Cord Meyer, when asked by writer C. David Heymann, who murdered Mary Meyer, the former wife of Cord, and later mistress of John Kennedy: Cord hissed in 2001: “the same sons of bitches that killed John F. Kennedy.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Pinchot_Meyer

From Wikipedia: Cord Meyer's later statements about the murder

Cord Meyer left the CIA in 1977. In his autobiography Facing Reality: From World Federalism to the CIA he wrote, "I was satisfied by the conclusions of the police investigation that Mary had been the victim of a sexually motivated assault by a single individual and that she had been killed in her struggle to escape." However his former personal assistant Carol Delaney later claimed, "Mr. Meyer didn't for a minute think that Ray Crump had murdered his wife or that it had been an attempted rape. But, being an Agency man, he couldn't very well accuse the CIA of the crime, although the murder had all the markings of an in-house rubout."

In February 2001 writer C. David Heymann asked Cord Meyer about Mary Pinchot Meyer's murder and he replied, "My father died of a heart attack the same year Mary was killed. It was a bad time." When asked who had murdered Mary Pinchot Meyer, the retired CIA official, six weeks before his own death from lymphoma, reportedly "hissed" back, "The same sons of bitches that killed John F. Kennedy."[2]

(Note Cord Meyer was in charge of Operation Mockingbird for the CIA and played a big role in covering up the JFK assassination for the Agency. I think that Cord Meyer personally wrote the following famous memo to the Agency's media assets:

http://mtracy9.tripod.com/cia_instructions.htm

CIA Document #1035-960, marked "PSYCH" for presumably Psychological Warfare Operations, in the division "CS", the Clandestine Services, sometimes known as the "dirty tricks" department.

Edited December 28, 2010 by Robert Morrow

[Tony Frank]

In November 1964, Dr. Stefan T. Possony, Director of International Political Studies at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, who had served in U.S. intelligence agencies for eighteen years, prepared a report for a Congressional subcommittee at the request of Congressman Cornelius E. Gallagher. Dr. Possony put forth that “Russian spy schools know all about the CIA’s use of lie detectors in personnel screening and could be presumed to have no trouble at all training infiltrators to outwit the machine.”

Dr. Possony stated, “There is some ground to believe that Communist agents still are operating in American intelligence organizations and perhaps there are more of them than ever.”

Back on September 29, 1952, twelve years before Dr. Possony’s declaration, the Director of the CIA, General Walter Bedell Smith, testified at Senate hearings and stated, “I believe there are Communists in my own organization.”

When Senator Joseph McCarthy’s counsel, Warren Magee, asked General Smith if he knew who they were, he testified, “I do not. I wish I did. I do everything I can to detect them. I believe they are so adroit and adept that they have infiltrated practically every security agency of the government.”

President Ford’s Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States documented that in 1966 and 1967, CIA Counterintelligence Chief James Angleton and the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board were focused on “the general problem of KGB agents in the U.S. and the specific problem of penetration of our intelligence services.”

[Thomas Graves]

"Senator Ole Banstoffsen, Washington" in "The Manchurian Candidate" deciphers into: J. Angleton Waffen SS Notsi.

Really? Where's the "J" in "Senator Ole Banstoffsen, Washington"? Also, I count 31 letters versus 22. (But I must confess I never was very good at math...)

--Thomas

Edited February 5, 2011 by Thomas Graves

[Mike Rago]

From the Book

James Jesse Angelton, the CIA and the craft of counterintelligence - Michael Howard Holzman

Mounuments in Israel for James Angleton

http://books.google.com/books?id=H8q_zVR_5EYC&pg=PA153#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=H8q_zVR_5EYC&pg=PA154#v=onepage&q&f=false

Angeltons role in preserving Israeli secrecy in connection with Suez

http://books.google.com/books?id=H8q_zVR_5EYC&pg=PA155#v=onepage&q&f=false

The roots of the Suez crisis

http://books.google.com/books?id=H8q_zVR_5EYC&pg=PA161#v=onepage&q&f=false

The CIA telling the president the Israeli's were planning to invade Jordan

There was one true report Israel planning to attack Egypt. James Angelton intervened...

http://books.google.com/books?id=H8q_zVR_5EYC&pg=PA162#v=onepage&q&f=false

Dulles had reason to rue his trust in Angelton's Israeli agents

http://books.google.com/books?id=H8q_zVR_5EYC&pg=PA163#v=onepage&q&f=false

Israeli Nuclear Program

http://books.google.com/books?id=H8q_zVR_5EYC&pg=PA164#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=H8q_zVR_5EYC&pg=PA165#v=onepage&q&f=false

French no longer sure they wanted Israel as part of nuclear club

Dimona completed in 1963 or 1964

Why did it take the CIA more than 3 years to reach the conclusion that

the Israeli's were planning to build nuclear weapons at the "peaceful" nuclear

plant at Dimona? James Jesse Angelton was in charge of the Israeli desk.

http://books.google.com/books?id=H8q_zVR_5EYC&pg=PA166#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=H8q_zVR_5EYC&pg=PA167#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=H8q_zVR_5EYC&pg=PA168#v=onepage&q&f=false

[Guest Robert Morrow]

James Angleton sums up his career in the CIA in a mid 1980’s interview with author Joseph Trento

[Joseph Trento, “The Secret History of the CIA,” (2001) pp. 478-479]

“You know how I got to be in charge of counterintelligence? I agreed not to polygraph or require detailed background checks on Allen Dulles and 60 of his closest friends.” His monologue would stop only for a sip of tea or a violent fit of coughing. “They were too arrogant to believe that the Russians would discover it all.” The real problem Angleton concluded, was that “there was no accountability. And without real accountability everything turned to xxxx.”

All the trappings of Angleton’s legend were gone by this time, except for his love of exotic tea. But now, this man who had struck fear into most of his colleagues- this man who had been able to end a CIA career with a nod or a phone call- unassuming house in Arlington seemed empty. “You know, the CIA got tens of thousands of brave people killed… We played with lives as if we owned them. We gave false hope. We - I – so misjudged what happened.”

I asked the dying old man how it all went so wrong.

With no emotion in his voice, but with his hand trembling, Angleton replied: “Fundamentally, the founding fathers of U.S. intelligence were liars. The better you lied and the more you betrayed, the more likely you would be promoted. These people attracted and promoted each other. Outside of their duplicity, the only thing they had in common was a desire for absolute power. I did things that, in looking back on my life, I regret. But I was part of it and loved being in it …. Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, Carmel Offie, and Frank Wisner were the grand masters. If you were in a room with them you were in a room full of people that you had to believe would deservedly end up in hell.” Angleton slowly sippled his tea and then said, “I guess I will see them there soon.”

[Joseph Trento, “The Secret History of the CIA,” (2001) pp. 478-479]

[David Andrews]

…. Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, Carmel Offie, and Frank Wisner were the grand masters. If you were in a room with them you were in a room full of people that you had to believe would deservedly end up in hell.”

Did Offie know Clay Shaw? They were two foreign-minded gentlemen.

[John Dolva]

Robert? Does he mention Benjamin Franklin at all?

[John Dolva]

Robert? Does he mention Benjamin Franklin at all?

reasons

BF was a 'founding father'

BF was a xxxx

BF founded the Unisted States Postal Service and some years later founded the USPO Postal Inspection department

edit typos

Edited March 10, 2013 by John Dolva

[Thomas Graves]

On 3/2/2005 at 11:44 PM, Tim Gratz said:

Angleton was right!

James Jesus Angleton's concern that the Soviets had "moles" in high stations in the U.S. intelligence community was probably correct even if he was unsuccessful in locating them. The "reforms" of the Church Committee and the CIA intself following the revlations of the CIA abuses decimated Angleton's counter-intelligence operation with tragic results. Several CIA "assets" lost their lives as a result of the betrayals of Aldrich Ames. a.j. weberman states on his web-site that had the Angleton operation been in operation, Ames would have been discovered before he had wreaked all of his damage.

And consider this example. Willliam Charles Godell was a member of one of the Pentagon's most secret offices, the Advanced Research Projects Agency. President Johnson nominated him to be the director of the National Security Agency. As director, Godell would have had extraordinary access to U.S. intelligence information. But it was discovered that Godell was probably a Soviet mole. The US was unable to indict Godell for espionage because the man to whom he was handing documents was either murdered or commited suicide. To prevent Godell from ever again holding a government job, he was instead indicted and convicted for misspending appropriated government funds.

I agree.  

Interested readers should google "The Ghosts Of Spy Wars" by Tennent H. Bagley and download his free 37-page essay, or better yet, go to the library and check out his book Spy Wars - Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games.

In his book, Bagley insists that Nosenko’s first contact with CIA in 1962 was designed to conceal the presence of Soviet penetration agents who, operating in US intelligence since at least the late 1950's, had betrayed double agent GRU Colonel Pyotr Popov to the KGB, and that Nosenko's reappearance barely two months after the JFK murder was a risky change in that concealment operation. Bagley challenges those who believe Nosenko was a genuine defector to answer 20 questions about the case, claiming that a “no” to any one of them would be enough to discredit Nosenko and substantiate Angleton’s view that the defector was dispatched. 

Shall I list the 20 questions here or would you rather read the book?

LOL

--  Tommy

Edited May 16, 2017 by Thomas Graves