The Unraveling of Richard Case Nagell

[Mitch Todd]

I notice the video does not explain how Nagell had the names of several CIA officers in his notebook. Anyone who claims that Nagell was insane (he most certainly was not) and that he was only a low-level counter-intel officer in the Army needs to explain how in the world he could have known the names of not one or two but six CIA officers.

Here is where my decades of intel experience gives me a broader, deeper perspective. I worked with several Army counter-intel guys. For nearly a year, my direct operational boss was an Army counter-intel guy. I got briefed at least 15 times by Army counter-intel officers/officials. I worked at two NSA sites. I worked several joint intel assignments where we had guys from several three-letter intel agencies, including the CIA. Personally, I never knew of any CIA guys who would even use their real names on assignments, and certainly not in operations. Sometimes you would not even know when someone was CIA--they would be placed under the guise of working for a different agency, and you would find out later that they were CIA.

No Army counter-intel officer working under CIC or in any other CIA-connected capacity is going to know the names of six CIA personnel. That is not going to happen. He will work with one CIA contact, maybe two on rare occasions, and he probably won't even know the CIA guy's real name.

I can assure you that it is astonishing that an Army counter-intel guy would have, much less write down, the names of six CIA personnel. That is extremely suspicious and unusual. If you don't believe me, find someone who has had a TS/SCI clearance, with caveats, and who has worked joint intel assignments, and ask them what they would think if an Army counter-intel guy had the real names of six--not two or three, but six--CIA guys, and also wrote them down, even in a private notebook. I guarantee you they will tell you that this would be extremely unusual and would indicate that the Army counter-intel guy was much more than your usual counter-intel officer.

MG: I notice the video does not explain how Nagell had the names of several CIA officers in his notebook.

It's not actually clear if any of the names in Nagell's list are those of CIA personnel. He listed "F. Parker," "Mrs Guthries," "C. Churchill," "J. Sloss," "E. Leibacher," "J. Davanon," as well as "Richard Fecteau."

Richard Fecteau was indeed a CIA agent, who had the bad luck of being captured by the Communist Chinese government in the early '50's during a botched infiltration attempt. Fecteau's captivity was well publicized: China prosecuted him and sentenced him to 20 years for spying. His case was widely known long before Nagell was arrested in 1963.

Of the rest, the CIA was able people to find associated with the agency whose names were similar to those found in Nagell's notebook and who might have been in position to have come across him at some point, but was unable to determine whether or not any of then were actually a match. An initial and last name aren't a lot to go on when you're talking about an agency as large as the CIA. The CIA did not that they did have two employees named Ernst Leibacker and Joseph Francis Davanon working out of the Los Angeles Domestic Contact Service field office in the early 1960's, when Nagell was living in the LA area. The DCS was an inherently public-facing operation, so their names being in his notes would not be particularly eyebrow raising if they are indeed the same people in his notes.

Fecteau was CIA, but everyone knew that by 1963. Of the others, some, all, or none might have actually been associated with the Agency.

As for your own experiences, just because it was that way where you were working when you worked there does not mean that things were handled that way at other operations in the 50's and early 60's.

[Tom Graves]

MG: I notice the video does not explain how Nagell had the names of several CIA officers in his notebook.

It's not actually clear if any of the names in Nagell's list are those of CIA personnel. He listed "F. Parker," "Mrs Guthries," "C. Churchill," "J. Sloss," "E. Leibacher," "J. Davanon," as well as "Richard Fecteau."

Richard Fecteau was indeed a CIA agent, who had the bad luck of being captured by the Communist Chinese government in the early '50's during a botched infiltration attempt. Fecteau's captivity was well publicized: China prosecuted him and sentenced him to 20 years for spying. His case was widely known long before Nagell was arrested in 1963.

Of the rest, the CIA was able people [sic] to find associated with the agency whose names were similar to those found in Nagell's notebook and who might have been in position to have come across him at some point but was unable to determine whether or not any of then were actually a match. An initial and last name aren't a lot to go on when you're talking about an agency as large as the CIA. The CIA did not [sic] that they did have two employees named Ernst Leibacker and Joseph Francis Davanon working out of the Los Angeles Domestic Contact Service field office in the early 1960's, when Nagell was living in the LA area. The DCS was an inherently public-facing operation, so their names being in his notes would not be particularly eyebrow raising, if they are indeed the same people in his notes.

Fecteau was CIA, but everyone knew that by 1963. Of the others, some, all, or none might have actually been associated with the Agency.

As for your own experiences, just because it was that way where you were working when you worked there does not mean that things were handled that way at other operations in the 50's and early 60's.

See my earlier posts on J. Sloss.

Regarding your comment, ". . . if they are indeed the same people in his notes," Ernst Leibacker and Joseph Francis Davanon are unusual names, wouldn't you agree?

What's the probability that they just happened to have the same names of two LA CIA officers, but, in reality, were just too guys Nagell happened to know at his favorite bar or from his bowling league?