CIA Document: Of Moles and Molehunters

[Tim Gratz]

Peter, how about this for a scenario?

1. The Soviets had nothing to do with it.

2. Nevertheless they were concerned they would be falsely implicated with consequences that would be at least "serious".

3. So Nosenko came over on a KGB mission to spread not misinformation (as the KGB often did) but information that was IN SUBSTANCE correct: that the Soviets had nothing to do with the assassinationt. But to try to make that as believeable as possible, Nosenko DID in fact give disinformation (e.g. the KGB had never even interviewed LHO) as well as disinformation about his credentials. His lies were soon caught so he (or his sponsors) blew the mission and all he did was muddy the waters.

BUT . . .a caveat will come later.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

As Robert points out, Cram is an important investigator that should not be ignored. It should also be remembered that when Cram wrote this he did not know it would one day enter the public domain.

John: Is the link below the COMPLETE TEXT of Cleveland Cram's publicly available commentary on Angleton?

http://cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Of_Moles...Molehunters.htm

[John Simkin]

As Robert points out, Cram is an important investigator that should not be ignored. It should also be remembered that when Cram wrote this he did not know it would one day enter the public domain.

John: Is the link below the COMPLETE TEXT of Cleveland Cram's publicly available commentary on Angleton?

http://cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Of_Moles...Molehunters.htm

No, the copy I have is about 80 pages long.

[Robert Howard]

As Robert points out, Cram is an important investigator that should not be ignored. It should also be remembered that when Cram wrote this he did not know it would one day enter the public domain.

John: Is the link below the COMPLETE TEXT of Cleveland Cram's publicly available commentary on Angleton?

http://cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Of_Moles...Molehunters.htm

No, the copy I have is about 80 pages long.

George Kisevalter, who was no stranger to the subject of moles, is chronicled in the book

CIA Spymaster - Clarence Ashley

http://books.google.com/books?id=iIS1lkQ0AAIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false

As a matter of fact, on the books cover, you see;

"Kisevalter, the Agency's Top Case Officer Who Handled Penkovsky and Popov..."

I can't speak for other researchers, but I always get a little leery when a high ranking CIA official discusses areas that delve into

Lee Harvey Oswald...Sort of, an all bets are off proposition; Nevertheless it is required reading, on at least one level.

Peter Dale Scott's - Oswald and The Search for Popov's Mole directly correlates with this area of course.

On that note, I recently came across a work that for myself

is very interesting in relation to pre-history of this period.

Entitled "Pearl Harbor, Microdots and J. Edgar Hoover"

John F Bratzel/Leslie B. Rout, Jr.

American Historical Review pp 1346-47

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1856917

I know the article focuses on the Tricycle Case.

Microdots are funny, I believe most persons believe that form of

encryption went out of vogue in intelligence operations decades ago, but

that isn't quite so.

More on this era

http://intellit.muskingum.edu/wwii_folder/wwiipearl_folder/wwiipearltricycle.html

Of course, I believe cryptological history further elucidates the mystery of Pres. Kennedy's

assassination.

I saw somewhere where someone even went so far as to claim that JFK

knew about the Japanese attack plans on Pearl Harbor, trying to

tar JFK, in that manner would only be credible if one was provided

access to ONI records of that period......

And then it would be an open question.

[David Andrews]

An excellent thread, very useful to know intel opinion on research work. Thread should be expanded with all materials possible, "Kennedy-related" or not, as the whole ethos and organization of modern intel are "Kennedy-related."

Edited November 28, 2010 by David Andrews

[Paul Rigby]

An excellent thread, very useful to know intel opinion on research work. Thread should be expanded with all materials possible, "Kennedy-related" or not, as the whole ethos and organization olf modern intel are "Kennedy-related."

The first public - mainstream media - critique of the Angletonian "Monster Plot" of which I'm aware:

The Washington Daily News, 11 October 1965, p.31

Undercover and Underhand

By Richard Starnes

The Central Intelligence Agency has undertaken a long term task in reconstructing its public image, a reflection which heretofore has swung between the extremes of sinister empire building and ordinary bureaucratic all-thumbsmanship.

The grand design is lovely in its simplicity: Criticism and critics are to be suppressed and/or discredited; and simultaneously the large espionage apparatus is to be presented in the best possible light.

There is, to be sure, nothing original in the CIA’s techniques. Any reporter bright enough and tough enough to cross the large and unlovely spy agency knows full well that he will be assailed and blackguarded in a disgracefully underhanded manner.

Two notable (and notably unmoved) victims of this technique are the authors of the best book to date on the CIA, “The Invisible Government.” The authors, David Wise and Thomas Ross, have lately experienced a renewed episode of this sort of shabby efflorescence.

A notoriously complaisant spokesman for such organisms as the CIA wrote recently that any other nation would have hanged of imprisoned the authors, which could lead only to the conclusion that economic reprisals are not the only fate the powerful spy agency would like to visit on reporters it deems wayward.

Secretary of State Dean Rusk even joined the attacks when he told a recent audience that “The Invisible Government” was being widely used by communist agents in Asia and Africa and that it was, moreover, replete with errors of fact.

The first charge may well be true but it is not true that the book is inaccurate. To my knowledge the CIA has failed to show that it contains any significant inaccuracies. As to its alleged use by communists, it should be pointed out that its authors have done what they could to avoid this by refusing to sanction translated editions in communist bloc nations.

Apart from the routine blackguarding of journalists who err, the CIA has lately undertaken a curious exercise in historical syllogism. In the last fortnight it has circulated in the House and Senate, and elsewhere in the Nation’s Capital, a document purporting to blueprint a master Soviet plan to “defame and discredit” the American spy apparatus. The CIA describes a “Bureau of Disinformation” established by the Russian KGB in 1959, and to it lays the major role in the CIA busting that is said to be afoot.

The question occurs why, if the vile conspiracy has been underway for six years, the CIA is only now warning our lawgivers of it: More important, of course, is the CIA’s heavy borrowing from the tarnished techniques made infamous by the late Joe McCarthy.

In his ultimate paranoia, Sen. McCarthy saw the hand of communist conspiracy in every breath of criticism directed at him. You were for him and all his wicked foolishness, or you were a slavering Bolshevik bent upon impressing American womanhood into vile servitude in Red Army brothels.

With some superficial refinements, this is the path upon which the CIA has apparently embarked. Communists are its critics, hence it is implicit that all its critics are communists. It is an error that apprentice logicians frequently commit, and it is a sad earnest of the CIA’s misunderstanding of the role of a government agency in a democracy.

[John Dolva]

And a tragic understanding of the role a government agency can take in a non democracy. '65...hmmm. a new tactic was about to unfold because of certain revelations that were in the pipe line. The CIA, to an onlooker, continually motphs.

Weapons of mass deception.

[John Simkin]

People might be interested in seeing an earlier photograph of Cleveland Cram.

[Daniel Burnet]

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Edited August 28, 2015 by Daniel Burnet

[Michael Clark]

On 11/8/2005 at 12:14 AM, Shanet Clark said:

Nosenko and the Orchid runner need a history book about them.

Cram wrote one but it is classified.

OF COURSE EPSTEIN has a conventional spin, we all know that

READ BETWEEN THE LINES

IF LEGEND:OSWALD is even halfway true, then DeMorenschildt was running Marina as an Agent,

and Oswald was a counterdefector in touch with his wifes counterintelligence handlers................

Oswald was a MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE

and if the Russians weren't running him, then the NAVY was

I quoted Shanet for no real critical purpose. I am just bumping the thread to ask a queastion.

 

For those of you who really have a grasp of the Angleton "mole hunt" details. Let me ask this because it popped into my head and stayed there, and it kind of defines part of my CT. Yet I see the Mole hunt as a rabbit hole, and I don't care to become an expert on it. So, my question is....

Does the folllowing hypothesis make sense, given the "mole hunt" evidence:

That is: Angleton's behavior and actions may well describe and actually be, in some way, a mole hunt. But could this actually all be his reaction to the Two Oswald / Doplleganger scenario? Is it possible that JJA's confusion about where LHO was and what he was doing, as compared to what he was supposed to be doing and what he was told Lee was doing, led JJA to take actions to find out what was going on with LHO, his handlers, and the people that were messing with him (JJA), and plans, and operations?

To be sure, in my working theory, JJA was not a conspirator in the plan to kill JFK. He was stovepiped from the JFKA op, and kept off guard, off balanced, confused, and he ultimately appeared to be complicit.

Does  this make any sense?

Edited November 17, 2017 by Michael Clark

[Michael Clark]

On 8/31/2008 at 9:09 PM, J. Raymond Carroll said:

John: Is the link below the COMPLETE TEXT of Cleveland Cram's publicly available commentary on Angleton?

http://cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Of_Moles...Molehunters.htm

 

On 9/1/2008 at 1:52 AM, John Simkin said:

No, the copy I have is about 80 pages long.

Ray Caroll's  link is broken. This may be what he had posted....

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/U-Oct 1993- Of Moles - Molehunters - A Review of Counterintelligence Literature- 1977-92 -v2.pdf

Edited November 17, 2017 by Michael Clark