A Little History

[Tom Graves]

Tennent H. Bagley, a former high-level counterintelligence officer, tells us in his 2007 book, Spy Wars, that in January 1957 a recently-fired-by-CIA mole named Edward Ellis Smith probably betrayed GRU Lt. Col. Pyotr Popov to KGB officer Vladislav Kovskuk in Washington, D.C., movie houses.

A putative KGB staff officer by the name of Yuri Nosenko (who physically defected to the U.S. in 1964 and “cleared” by probable mole Bruce Leonard Solie in 1968 and hired by the Agency to teach “counterintelligence” to its and FBI’s new recruits) would tell Bagley in their late-May 1962 meeting in Geneva that Kovshuk was his boss in the American Embassy section and that he had made a quick trip to Washington to recontact ANDREY, “the most important American spy the KGB had ever recruited in Moscow.”

Years later, Bagley found out that “ANDREY” was a burnt-out Army SERGEANT by the name of Dayle W. Smith, and that Kovshuk, posing as a diplomat at the Soviet Embassy on an ostensible two-year gig, had taken nine months to contact him even though his name and address were in the phone book. Bagley also learned that the FBI had seen Kovshuk in the company of two other KGB-types near D.C. movie houses so often that it nicknamed them “The Three Musketeers.” (Kovshuk returned to his kept-open-for-him job in Moscow after only ten months.)

Former high-level CIA officer William Hood tells us in his 1993 book, Mole, that CIA’s spy, Pyotr Popov, told his handler in Berlin in April 1958 that he had overheard a drunken GRU colonel brag at a New Years Eve party that the Kremlin had all of the top-secret specifications of the U-2 spy plane.

Could the mole in the CIA who had betrayed Popov in early 1957 be the same one who had leaked the U-2’s secrets to the Soviets?

Factoid: In early 1957, the Office of Security was still the repository of the U-2’s secrets.

Factoid: Solie was James Angleton’s Kim Philby-like confidant and mentor, and as Deputy Chief of the Security Research Staff and Chief of its Research Branch, he was also Angleton’s mole-hunting superior.

Author John M. Newman believes Kovshuk was sent to Washington to meet with Solie in those movie houses, and that then-recently-fired-by-CIA Edward Ellis Smith, Popov’s inept and honey-trapped dead drop setter-upper in Moscow, and James McCord, of future Watergate notoriety, gave Solie logistical support.

Newman says in his 2022 book, Uncovering Popov's Mole, that when Solie found out in April 1958, via the Kisevalter cable, that the CIA was now aware of the U-2 leak, he decided to send Marine U-2 radar operator Lee Harvey Oswald to Moscow as an ostensible “dangle” in an unbeknownst to Angleton and Oswald planned-to-fail hunt for “Popov’s Mole” (Solie) in the wrong part of the CIA – the Soviet Russia Division.

Which mole hunt lasted nine years, protected Solie from being uncovered, and decimated the Soviet Russia Division.

[Benjamin Cole]

TG

"burnt-out Army Seargent"

He was seared to a crisp!

[Tom Graves]

TG

"burnt-out Army Seargent"

He was seared to a crisp!

Dear "BC",

Perhaps I should have said, "Of no value to the KGB," instead.

This is what Bagley says about Dayle W. Smith (aka ANDREY) in his 2007 book, Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games.

(Have you read it yet? It's free-to-read, you know.)

[Vladislav] Kovshuk did not go to Washington for the cipher-machine mechanic. When Andrey was finally identified and interviewed by the FBI, his account made that clear. Leaving his wife and children in the United States, Andrey had arrived in Moscow in the fall of 1951 to serve as a cipher-machine mechanic. That work involved only repairs to and testing of exterior parts of the machines, like input and output connections. Only visiting specialists did deeper repair and maintenance. Andrey would never see the rotors, the secret parts in a sealed housing, and if they should happen to break down, the cipher clerks themselves would send them to the United States for repair. Whenever Andrey was admitted to the code room, a code room official closely accompanied him — “like a Siamese twin,” as he put it — even to the toilet. In the winter of 1953, some months before his tour of duty was to end, he accepted his good-looking maid’s invitation to visit her little apartment — where hidden KGB cameras recorded their lovemaking. The KGB called him to a meeting on the river embankment, where two operatives showed him photos, one of which had been touched up to be even more ruinous to his marriage. They would give him the photos and negatives, they said. All he had to do in return was “steal the keys to the Embassy codes.” Shocked, he agreed to meet them again, and at this second meeting one of the KGB officers gave him a special paper and flashlight, instructing him to put the paper against the list of rotor settings and shine the flashlight on the paper. But even if he’d been willing, Andrey would never have had an opportunity to do any such thing, so at the next meeting he returned the paper, blank. For months thereafter there were no more meetings. Andrey thought this might have had something to do with Stalin’s death at that time. Then the KGB called him to a last meeting just before his tour ended in the late summer of 1953. He didn’t yet know where he would next be stationed but expected to learn before he left. So, the KGB man told him to write his next assignment on a piece of paper, put it into a crushed empty cigarette package, and drop it into a trash bin at the airport on departure. Presumably under KGB surveillance, he dropped the package, but he had left the paper blank. From then on, in the United States, Andrey lived in fear that the KGB would get back in touch, especially during the first year or so when he worked in the Pentagon War Room sorting and posting clear-text messages from a teletype machine. So, when he was offered a transfer to an army recruiting station in the Washington area, where he would have no access whatever to classified information, he happily accepted. But in his new job, as in the old one, he heard nothing from the KGB — for four years. Then, one evening in October 1957 at an American Legion post, he was called to the phone where a Russian-accented voice reminded him of the Moscow maid and the pictures and proposed a meeting. The KGB must have been tailing him to know he was there, and if they knew that they presumably also knew how insignificant his job was. Andrey remembered the date of the call because it came at an unpropitious moment. Public attention had just been paid to people like himself by the revelation in the press that an American sergeant named Roy Rhodes had confessed to being recruited by the KGB while serving in Moscow. Rhodes, said the papers, would appear as a surprise witness in the forthcoming trial of the Soviet Illegal operative Rudolf Abel. Rhodes’s name was never mentioned publicly before October 1957. Andrey went to the designated restaurant in the Washington suburb of Falls Church, where a short, heavyset Russian met him. He offered to return the compromising pictures but demanded documentary information in return. Andrey agreed and for the next meeting he grabbed a handful of unclassified recruitment pamphlets from his office, the only documents kept there. At this second meeting the short man was accompanied by another Russian, older and more authoritative. Andrey had never seen either of them before these Washington meetings but recognized them from photographs the FBI showed him. The older man was "Komarov”— Vladislav Kovshuk. Kovshuk never spoke during the meeting, merely nodding whenever the other Soviet looked to him for approval. Evidently, they knew Andrey was close to retirement, for the short Soviet asked him to look for a job in a company working on government contracts. But he never heard from them again. Now, seven years later, the FBI came to him armed with — but not disclosing to him — Nosenko’s information. Andrey had retired from the army in late 1961, six months before Nosenko first reported on him. Now, as a civilian, he had no access whatever to classified information. Sacrificing him cost the KGB nothing. Evidently it considered him a worthless source, and the Americans likewise saw him as no security risk. Even before interviewing him, the FBI had determined from army records that Andrey could not have delivered sensitive information, and during hours of questioning they became convinced of his sincerity. The FBI did not charge or arrest him, and army security authorities saw no reason even to question him further. He was left to live out his retirement in peace. Many years later, by then an old man living alone in a trailer camp, Andrey told a visitor that he had been baffled by the KGB’s actions and inaction. "I’ve never stopped thinking about it,” he said, "and I finally decided that I had somehow been used as a pawn. The KGB knew I hadn’t been helpful and decided to give me away to the FBI. But why? Maybe I was used to promote a Soviet agent who came here? I just don’t know. I don’t suppose I ever will know.” It was surely not for this unnecessary and silent one-time appearance to a dormant and useless agent with whom he had had no previous contact that the Moscow section chief had been sent to Washington on ostensibly permanent [i.e., two-year] assignment nine months earlier.

The identification of Edward Ellis Smith as the near-certain target of Kovshuk’s trip posed a vexing question. Smith had left CIA five years before Golitsyn defected [in December 1961] and told the Americans about Kovshuk’s trip. By then he would presumably be of less interest to the KGB. Why then did it go to the trouble as late as [June] 1962, through Nosenko [in Geneva], to throw CIA off his track? We never found out, but one possible answer troubled us. Might [Edward Ellis] Smith have helped the KGB recruit another CIA official — one still active? [Or, as John M. Newman says in his 2022 book, Uncovering Popov's Mole (which he dedicated to Bagley), maybe Edward Ellis Smith -- who had been Pyotr Popov's incompetent and honey-trapped dead drop setter-upper in Moscow -- helped Mole Solie by reconnoitering D.C. movie houses in which Solie could safely meet with Kovshuk.]

-- "TG"

[Benjamin Cole]

"Years later, Bagley found out that “ANDREY” was a burnt-out Army Seargent by the name of Dayle W. Smith"

Can you fix the spelling in this sentence?

[Tom Graves]

"Years later, Bagley found out that “ANDREY” was a burnt-out Army Seargent by the name of Dayle W. Smith"

Can you fix the spelling in this sentence?

Nice catch!

Hopefully it didn't prevent you from reading the whole post.