Circumstantial Evidence that James McCord was a KGB "Mole"
Background
In his 2007 book, Spy Wars, former CIA officer Tennent H. Bagley wrote scathingly about Counterintelligence Chief James Angleton’s confidant and mentor, Bruce Solie in the Office of Security, because Solie “cleared” false defector Yuri Nosenko in October 1968 via a bogus polygraph exam and a specious report, and because he was Kremlin-loyal Igor Kochnov’s CIA case officer in the tragic Shadrin Affair.
John M. Newman, a former Army Intelligence analyst and an Executive Aide to a Director of NSA, dedicated his 2022 book, Uncovering Popov’s Mole, to Bagley. In it he explains his reasons for believing Solie betrayed CIA’s spy, GRU Lt. Col. Pyotr Popov, to the KGB in Washington, D.C., movie houses in January 1957 and therefore was the high-level “mole” for whom Angleton had vainly searched for so many years.
If Newman is correct, Solie may have been aided by two other “moles” — Edward Ellis Smith — the honey-trapped and recruited in Moscow CIA officer who became a San Francisco banker and a scholar at the Hoover Institution — whom Bagley believed had betrayed Popov in those movie houses — and James McCord of future Watergate notoriety.
In his 2022 book, Uncovering Popov’s Mole, Newman says the following:
1) Bruce Solie, a high-level officer in the CIA’s Office of Security, was a KGB “mole” who betrayed CIA’s Pyotr Popov and the U-2 spy plane’s specifications to the KGB in January 1957, sent (or duped his protege and mole hunting subordinate James Angleton into sending) Lee Harvey Oswald to Moscow in 1959 as an ostensible “dangle” in a (unbeknownst to Oswald and Angleton) planned-to-fail mole hunt for “Popov’s U-2 Mole” in the wrong part of the CIA — the Soviet Russia Division.
2) The CIA sent Russian-speaking Army Major Edward Ellis Smith to the American Embassy in Moscow in 1953 to serve as its one-man station and to set up “dead drops” for its spy, GRU Lt. Col. Popov, in preparation for his anticipated return from Vienna in 1955. However, Smith proved to be an incompetent dead drop setter-upper and was “honey trapped” and-recruited by the KGB in Moscow in mid-1956. (A Russian book about the history of the KGB boasts that Smith was the first CIA officer recruited by the KGB.) Smith belatedly informed U.S. Ambassador Charles Bohlen (who didn’t know he was CIA), that he’d been compromised by the Soviets, but didn’t volunteer that he’d been recruited. Smith was escorted to Washington by the Office of Security’s James McCord where he was interrogated and allegedly fired but not prosecuted.
Newman, sourcing Richard Harris Smith’s article, “First Moscow Station,” says McCord arranged for Edward Ellis Smith to receive payments for a year from a mysterious organization called the “Information Research Associates” and to be secretly retained by the Agency as a scholar at the Hoover Institution.
3) Bagley (to whom Newman dedicated his book, wrote in his 2007 book, Spy Wars: Moles Mysteries, and Deadly Games, that after Smith was fired and still in Washington, he betrayed Popov to a high-level KGB officer in D.C. movie houses, and that he may have helped the KGB recruit another “mole” in the CIA. Newman, on the other hand, believes that it was Solie who betrayed Popov in those movie houses, and that Smith and McCord provided logistical support.
On 26 July 1956, the CIA Office of Security (OS) cleared James W. McCord for TDY travel through WE (Western Europe), EE (Eastern Europe), and official travel “through controlled areas.” [Footnote 651] CIA documentation shows that McCord’s mission was to escort Edward Ellis Smith from Russia to Washington, D. C., for interrogations. At the time, McCord was the Acting Deputy Chief of the OS Security Research Staff, and Bruce Solie was Chief of the of the SRS’s Research Branch. Both men had served in the Army Air Corps in World War II, and both had joined the CIA in 1951.
From the Office of Security records cited above, it is apparent that McCord and Smith arrived together in Washington around the end of the first week of August [1956]. On the surface, Smith’s future looked truly grim. After being “fired” by State Department Security, Smith faced a lengthy and excruciating interrogation sessions with a CIA security team. The sessions were led by James McCord. Afterward, an OS review board recommended that Smith be dismissed from the Agency. As July 1956 turned into August in Washington, curious changes in Smith’s disposition were taking place during which his fortunes changed dramatically. Within a week or two, according to the plan [Nosenko’s ostensible KGB boss] Kovshuk had hatched in Moscow, the review board’s recommendation to boot Smith from the CIA was covertly overridden. This allowed Smith to operate under deep cover in Washington. Ever since then, Smith’s covert change of status has remained unknown to authors. For example, Richard Harris Smith’s (no relation to Ed Smith) article, the “The Moscow Station,” provided a summary -- without the secret details or their intent -- that noticed positive change in Smith’s status:
Smith defensively demanded a personal interview with the director. “I’ve done nothing wrong,” he remembered telling Allen Dulles. “My record is unblemished. I want a job.” Whether or not there was any threat implicit in this demand – Smith had been privy to some juicy secrets – Dulles was noncommittal. But Smith soon began receiving monthly checks from “Information Research Associates,” being informed by McCord that he was temporarily to be placed on a sort of CIA dole “without duties.”
Smith’s no-duty dole lasted for a year and was hardly temporary. And even DCI Dulles was noncommittal, someone else had ideas for keeping Smith around and under the tight control of two officers of the CIA Security Office – Bruce Solie and James McCord. One thing was certain. What they were up to were not legitimate activities of the Office of Security.
Jumping ahead to 1963 . . .
From Oswald and the CIA, Chapter 19: “The Smoking File”
[Regarding Lee Harvey Oswald’s self-fabricated involvement with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans and his visiting the Cuban and the Soviet Consulates in Mexico City between 9/27/63 and 10/03/63] it is apparent that Oswald’s documents were going to several different locations. Was there anyone who had access to all of them? Again, the 100-300-11 [Fair Play for Cuba file] location seems to be the latchkey. Besides those directly involved in Cuban operations, such as the SAS [Special Affairs Staff] and the Mexico City desk, other CIA elements had been involved with FPCC operations. As previously discussed, [James Angleton’s chief molehunter] Birch O’Neill had written reports about the FPCC for CI/SIG, and the Office of Security’s James McCord had been connected to counterintelligence operations against the FPCC since at least early 1961. Were either of these offices associated with the personal handling of the New Orleans FBI reporting on Oswald? The answer is yes. One of the two documents lists contains an interesting note in the “formerly filed” column for the September 10 [FBI agent James] Hosty report. It states, “Copy CI/SIG [351164] 100-300-11.” The other documents list has a column with the heading “Location of Original,” that has this entry: SI/CI File 100-300-11.” CI/SI was short for CI/SIG, and it appears that the mole hunting unit was again connected with a key change in Oswald’s file designators. Moreover, the association of Oswald’s Security number (351164) with the 100-300-11 file denotes a Security Office tie-in. They had been tracking Oswald all along and now had access to this file, too. Thus, it appears that it was Angleton’s CIA/SIG which, in conjunction with the Office of Security [where McCord had been Acting Deputy Chief of the Security Research Staff and where probable mole Bruce Solie was currently Deputy Chief of the Security Research Staff and Chief of its files-hoarding Research Branch], had all of the pieces to the Oswald puzzle.
