Operation Tumbleweed?

[Chris Newton]

27 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Can you offer some insight into his CIA connections?

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp70-00058r000300010046-7

[Paul Brancato]

Very interesting Chris. 

[Thomas Graves]

On 7/25/2005 at 2:14 PM, Tim Gratz said:

I believe the TUMBLEWEED operation merits additional commentary. I do not have my "library" with me now but this is the information from the Lancer cite to which Larry refered:

FROM MR. NEWMAN'S PRESENTATION:

So you can see here. 'Kostikov,' this is the story, 'is an identified KGB officer. He was a case officer in an operation that is evidently sponsored by the KGB's 13th department that is responsible for sabotage and assassination...'

"But it gets better.

'The operation which is controlled by the FBI under the cryptonym TUMBLEWEED involved a German national resident of,' and there's the right amount of letters here for New York (actually, it was OKLAHOMA -- Tommy), 'who was recruited in Europe...'

"In other words, we doubled a KGB guy. The CIA recruited him in Europe.

'And met this year with Kostikov in Mexico City and shortly thereafter with a known 13th department officer Oleg Brykin in New York.

"And because he's doing it in New York, who's that going to involve? What federal agency? The FBI, they have jurisdiction over these things, once it's inside U.S. borders.

'The instructions given TUMBLEWEED...,' TUMBLEWEED, meaning the guy that we doubled 'by Kostikov,' by the two officers, meaning Kostikov and Brykin 'pinpointed objectives for sabotage and the circumstances of their involvement in the case left no doubt that both of them,' meaning Kostikov and Brykin, 'were working for the same KGB component, the 13th.'

"I'm going to put this in plain English. We doubled a guy that was working for the KGB. He was receiving orders from the 13th department. And the two guys that were giving him orders were Brykin and Kostikov. And it was going on in 1963. And the FBI was the U.S. agency in control of monitoring, and using, and exploiting TUMBLEWEED because it was happening in New York City. Brykin worked in the United Nations undercover as a Soviet something or other up there.

"And I found another document, that explains it even better, just a little better, that has another little paragraph. And this is what's being uncovered on the 23rd. It's not just that Kostikov is some kind of loosely, known to be associated with the KGB 13th department. WE'VE GOT HIM! There is a guy that he's instructing. HE'S OURS! And every time he (Kostikov) instructs him (TUMBLEWEED) to do something he, (TUMBLEWEED) he comes and tells us what his instructions are. SO WE ARE EXPLOITING THE WHOLE THING, through this guy TUMBLEWEED.

"So, where are we going here? It's only hours after the assassination. They just found out that that is not Oswald in the photographs, his voice isn't even on the tapes, but whoever impersonates him, whoever is on the phone saying, 'I'm Oswald' links Oswald to TUMBLEWEED, to the whole TUMBLEWEED thing that the FBI is in charge of which involves Kostikov, and through Kostikov.

"So, I want you to imagine being at the top of the FBI on Saturday when the CIA passes this along to them. Kostikov has been an active case. The TUMBLEWEED program has been an active case all year long. 'You've been watching. You've been watching Oswald. He's an active case. And that it's worse than that, you've got the two meeting. And it's in your files. And you haven't done anything.'

"This is another document I found. That's my handwriting up there because I found 3 copies of this document. This is Kostikov's 201 number up here. (201-305052) Anyway, here's the paragraph, 'Physical description of Kostikov quite accurately is...we had from a year ago in Mexico, and FBI...

"Here, 'He met in Mexico an FBI controlled double agent...' This is the rest of the story I'm telling you. 'The double agent's Soviet case officer in the U.S. has been Oleg Brykin of the 13 department KGB occupying the overt position of translator/transcriber to U.S. Secretary, New York City.

"Now this is blacked out here, you see this is actually redacted. But, I found like I told you I found 3 or 4 copies of this and guess what? I found another copy that they had neglected to redact. And it has not only TUMBLEWEED, but it has TUMBLEWEED'S CIA cryptonym that goes along with it.

"And of course it's an AE crypt. Those of you who are into collecting these cryptonyms like Nosenko, all of those guys were AE/______, whatever. And this guy is an AE crypt.

"And this here is passing, the whole, all of their stuff along. Bagley from the CIA, he passes it along to the FBI. It's on the 23rd. It's in the afternoon and it's pretty bad news.

"I'm not really certain of what's missing out here but this whole memo here, this is an FBI memo from Brennan to Sullivan referencing a call they just got from Bagley.

"This is the other copy I found. I blew it up and you can see the TUMBLEWEED,

AE/_________. Now you figure it out. What do you think? Looks like DURBILL. That's been my guess. AE/DURBILL. We just got a new crypt..

"It's the TUMBLEWEED project which is an FBI controlled program where we have got the inside line on Valery Kostikov, and had him all year, and that would be the guy that Oswald went down there and met with, and whoever impersonated him, made damn sure was inside U.S. intelligence files the day Kennedy was shot.

 

To whom it may concern,

FBI's only source of information for Oleg Brykin's being "Department 13" was FBI's fake double agent Aleksy Kulak (aka FEDORA).

Regardless, I've read that the "German national" double-agent for the FBI , "Tumbleweed" (i.e., Guenter Schulz), wasn't living in New York at the time, but in Oklahoma.

--  Tommy 
 

PS  TUMBLEWEED's crypto wasn't AE/DURBIL, but AE/BURBLE (AEBURBLE)

Edited March 3, 2018 by Thomas Graves

[Larry Hancock]

As Newman writes above, Tumbleweed was a German national, recruited overseas in Germany.  He came to CIA attention there and later moved to New  York where he was handed off to the FBI as a domestic concern.  Later he traveled to Mexico and was last reported in Oklahoma. There were indications he might be involved in locating targets for sabotage....a major target would have been the new Atlas ICBM base in southwestern Oklahoma.

Reportedly Tumbleweed went back and forth across the border and how his movements were tracked, what surveillance he was under etc would tell us a lot about FBI monitoring of American's in Mexican travel but as far as I know no FBI file has ever emerged about him in those travels.

[Thomas Graves]

4 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

As Newman writes above, Tumbleweed was a German national, recruited overseas in Germany.  He came to CIA attention there and later moved to New  York where he was handed off to the FBI as a domestic concern.  Later he traveled to Mexico and was last reported in Oklahoma. There were indications he might be involved in locating targets for sabotage....a major target would have been the new Atlas ICBM base in southwestern Oklahoma.

Reportedly Tumbleweed went back and forth across the border and how his movements were tracked, what surveillance he was under etc would tell us a lot about FBI monitoring of American's in Mexican travel but as far as I know no FBI file has ever emerged about him in those travels.

 

Larry,

 

IF it is true that FBI's "Fedora"(Aleksey Kulak) was a fake double-agent (he did vouch for Nosenko's being a true defector after all -- lol ), can you think of any reason for him to claim that OLEG BRYKIN at the UN, known to be in contact with Guenter Schulz and Kostikov, was Department 13?

The reason I ask is that it appears that the ONLY reason CIA suspected that Kostikov was Department 13 was because of his associating with Brykin and Schulz.

 

--  Tommy 

Edited February 20, 2018 by Thomas Graves

[Larry Hancock]

Sorry,  really don't know enough to have an opinion on that question. Personally I would doubt that a person in Kostikov's position would be an active Department 13 member, on the other hand he might very well have served as a cut out to deliver assignments or directions.  That is much more SOP for diplomatic staff.  The real operators would have been acting as distantly from any known Soviet personnel as possible. And getting assassins into Mexico would have been no special problem.  All in all it would seem likely to suspect him of handling espionage targeting the U.S. in particular - which would explain why he would have been under active surveillance in any American contact. But assassinations, another story entirely.