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Author Topic: A good article about Nosenko versus Bagley and Angleton, annotated by me.  (Read 7635 times)

Offline Thomas Graves

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The following is a "fair and balanced" article about my hero, Tennent H. Bagley, but one thing the author left out near the end is the distinct possibility that the collapse of the Soviet Union was ... gasp ... planned.

The article:

https://observer.com/2007/02/the-spy-who-came-in-from-geneva-nosenko-the-kgb-defector/?fbclid=IwAR0U_bCIhD71s2GdDAGnDm-TU-aUsu8OxUvczKvIOPwnDTKBb1hFWByWakc

Cheers!

--  MWT  ;)
« Last Edit: November 06, 2019, 04:37:49 AM by Thomas Graves »

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Offline Michael Clark

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Re: A good article about Nosenko versus Bagley and Angleton, annotated by me.
« Reply #1 on: November 02, 2019, 12:00:47 AM »
My annotation:

The following is a fair and balanced article about my hero, Tennent H. Bagley, but one thing the author left out near the end is the distinct possibility that the collapse of the Soviet Union was planned.

That's what one of Bagley's and Angleton's main sources of information, true defector and KGB major Anatoliy Golitsyn believed. Bagley and Angleton were wise enough to realize that KGB officer Yuri Nosenko, ostensibly needing $250, had "walked into" CIA in Geneva in June 1962 (and who, shortly after the assassination of JFK, had ostensibly left his family behind and "defected" to the U.S. in January 1964) had done so in order to discredit what Golitsyn, who had defected to the U.S. in December 1961, was telling CIA about "moles" and KGB double-agents who had penetrated the CIA and FBI as well as the intelligence services of our allies.

The article:

https://observer.com/2007/02/the-spy-who-came-in-from-geneva-nosenko-the-kgb-defector/?fbclid=IwAR0U_bCIhD71s2GdDAGnDm-TU-aUsu8OxUvczKvIOPwnDTKBb1hFWByWakc

Cheers!

--  MWT  ;)


I don’t think Helms was very impressed. And Osborne felt the need to spike Bagely’s career, with this:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32359254.pdf


 TOP SECRET

13 October 1970

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

Subject: BAGELY, Tennant, Harrington

#386 38

1) On Wednesday, 7 October 1970 I briefed Colonel L. K. White, Executive  Director-Controller on certain reservations I have concerning the proposed promotion of subject to a supergrade position.

 2)  I was very careful to explain to Colonel White at the outset that my reservations had nothing whatsoever to do with Bagely's security status. I explained that it was my conviction that Bagely was almost exclusively responsible for the manner in which the Nosenko case had been handled by our SR division. I said I considered that Bagely lacked objectivity and that he had displayed extremely poor judgment over a two year period in the handling of this case. Specifically as one example of Bagely's extreme prejudice I pointed out that the SR division had neglected to follow up several leads provided by Nosenko which subsequently had been followed up by this office (Bruce Solie) and that this lead us to individuals who have confessed their recruitment and use by the Soviets over an extensive period of time.

3)  I explained further that Bagely displayed extremely poor judgment in the actions he took during that time that  Nosenko was incarcerated at ISOLATION. On many occasions, as the individual responsible for Nosenko's care, I refuse to condone Bagely's  instructions to my people who are guarding him. In one instance Bagely insisted that  Nosenko's food ration be reduced to black bread and water three times daily. After I had briefed Colonel White, he indicated that he would refresh the Director's memory on Bagely's role in the Nosenko case at the time he reviews supergrade promotions. 

 

Howard J. Osborn

Director of Security

Offline Thomas Graves

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Re: A good article about Nosenko versus Bagley and Angleton, annotated by me.
« Reply #2 on: November 02, 2019, 12:17:01 AM »

Here's another fair review of Bagley's 2007 book, Spy Wars.

Cheers!

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/books/review/Thomas-t.html

--  MWT   ;)

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Re: A good article about Nosenko versus Bagley and Angleton, annotated by me.
« Reply #2 on: November 02, 2019, 12:17:01 AM »


Offline Michael Clark

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Re: A good article about Nosenko versus Bagley and Angleton, annotated by me.
« Reply #3 on: November 02, 2019, 02:17:19 AM »
Howard Osborn; Director of Security wrote:

« Last Edit: November 02, 2019, 08:55:39 PM by Michael Clark »

Offline Thomas Graves

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Re: A good article about Nosenko versus Bagley and Angleton, annotated by me.
« Reply #4 on: November 02, 2019, 05:40:48 AM »
Howard Osborne; Director of Security wrote:



Michael,

His name is Osborn, not Osborne.

Regardless, guess who coached Nosenko through the 1968 "softball" polygraph exams?

Bruce "Gum Shoe" Solie!

From Spy Wars:

A signal success of the KGB’s operation with [triple-agent] Igor Kochnov ["Operation Kittyhawk," in which the CIA suffered the loss of a true defector when he was kidnapped in Vienna by the KGB and killed] — in addition to eliminating the defector Artamonov ["Shadrin"] — was the restoration of Yuri Nosenko’s fortunes in the West. Although I knew none of this at the time, I sensed in the second half of 1966 the CIA leadership’s growing skepticism, not just impatience, concerning our case against Nosenko. It was evident that some unknown factor was influencing them. This became clearer at the end of that year when they ordered a fresh review of the case— not so much to get new insights as to find ways to rationalize the doubts and to whitewash Nosenko to prepare his release. Deputy Director Rufus Taylor called in Gordon Stewart, a CIA veteran and old friend of Helms, to take a fresh, detached look at this forbidding can of worms. Stewart enjoyed a reputation for integrity and had the added quality of knowing nothing of the Nosenko case and little about KGB deception. To simplify Stewart’s review I organized the essential file materials (including my “1000-page” file summary) with an explanatory table of contents, and turned them over to Stewart in early 1967. This was my parting shot, for I was already preparing my assignment abroad (note: as Chief of Station in Brussels). After my departure the Soviet Block— without telling me— condensed this huge file summary into some 440 pages, lumping together many separate points of doubt into broad categories, each category to support a “conclusion.” In effect, they transformed justifable points of doubt into debatable (and unnecessary) conclusions, making a case against Nosenko. He did not have the naval service he claimed, it said, adding that he did not join the KGB when or how he said, did not serve in the KGB’s American Embassy Section, and had not been deputy chief of its Tourist Department. Stewart thus found himself faced with a mass of material loaded with indications of Nosenko’s bad faith and lacking any innocent explanation. To his professorial eye, these papers looked “unscholarly” (as he said to associates) and “more like a prosecutor’s brief.” Indeed, a file summary is not an academic dissertation, and the Soviet Block's report’s conclusions were unproven. So he called for a critique of the Soviet Block report. In mid-1967 Helms selected for this task the same Bruce Solie who had learned from Kochnov, the KGB volunteer, that Nosenko was a genuine defector. Solie submitted eighteen pages of critique of the 440-page Soviet Block report and of the previous handling of Nosenko. He recommended a new and “untainted” questioning in a friendlier, less confrontational, and “more objective” atmosphere. So Helms and Taylor picked him to do the job himself. Solie was a taciturn, cigar-smoking man whose lean features gave him an air of the American farmlands. He had sat in on some of our interrogations of Nosenko prior to Kochnov’s advent, not contributing but maintaining a generally approving if reserved demeanor. Now, with Nosenko ’s earlier interrogators removed from the scene and being himself convinced by Kochnov of Nosenko ’s genuineness, Solie set out to prove that we had been wrong. Behind Solie’s effort lay the hopes of CIA leaders that he would find ways to believe in Nosenko and rid the Agency of what Director Richard Helms later called this “incubus,” this “bone in the throat.” They picked the right man -- Solie delivered the goods. Starting in late 1967, sometimes accompanied by FBI Special Agent Turner, Solie talked in a friendly manner for nine months with Nosenko and together they worked out ways things might— somehow— be made to look plausible. One who read the transcripts of these interviews described to me the way they were conducted:

Solie: “Wouldn’t you put it this way, Yuri?”

Nosenko: “Yup, yup.”

On another sticking point, Solie: “But you really meant to say it differently, didn’t you?”

Nosenko: "Sure.”

Solie: “Wouldn’t it be more correct to say, for example, that . . . ?

Nosenko: “Yup, yup.”

Solie submitted his [278-page] report on 1 October 1968. That whitewash had been the purpose from the outset was revealed by the speed with which the CIA leadership adopted its conclusions. They could not have studied it and had perhaps not even read it before, three days later, Deputy Director Taylor informed Director Helms that "I am now convinced that there is no reason to conclude that Nosenko is other than what he has claimed to be, that he has not knowingly and willfully withheld information from us, that there is no conflict between what we have learned from him and what we have learned from other defectors or informants that would cast any doubts on his bona fides. Most particularly I perceive no significant conflict between the information Nosenko has provided and the information and opinions Golitsyn has provided. Thus, I conclude that Nosenko should be accepted as a bona fide defector."(fn 6)
.
So well had Solie done the job that CIA gave him a medal for his travails. One can only concur in their assessment of him as a “true hero .” (fn 7) The task he performed was truly Herculean and required tricks as cunning as those of Hercules himself. Solie seems to have hidden from Taylor facts that flatly contradicted the deputy director’sconclusions. In reality there were significant “conflicts” between what Nosenko reported and “the information and opinions Golitsyn . . . provided.” And an "other defector,” Peter Deriabin, had cast an indelible stain of doubt on Nosenko’s bona fides. Deriabin was outraged by Taylor’s statement.

A question inevitably arises in the mind of anyone who knows of the accumulated doubts described in previous chapters. How, in the face of all that, could CIA have ever believed in Nosenko?

(emphasis added)
« Last Edit: November 02, 2019, 10:11:39 AM by Thomas Graves »

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Re: A good article about Nosenko versus Bagley and Angleton, annotated by me.
« Reply #4 on: November 02, 2019, 05:40:48 AM »


Offline Michael Clark

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Re: A good article about Nosenko versus Bagley and Angleton, annotated by me.
« Reply #5 on: November 02, 2019, 01:27:03 PM »
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10111-10250.pdf

Note to the reader. AEDONOR is one the CIA cryptonym’s for Nosenko.

104-10111-10250

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD.              Date: 18 Feb 1971
SUBJECT: Nosenko Case

1. On 18 Feb Mr. REDACTED chief/EUR/BNL told me that Mr. John Hart, C/EUR, had told him to tell only me the following.
When REDACTED was in Brussels, in late January, 1971, he was with Mr. Russell Hibbs, G5-14 case officer, for a long Wed. evening. REDACTED said that during their conversation, Hibbs spent a lot of time complaining about what Hibbs claimed was Mr. (Pete) Bagley’s, COS, reluctance to pursue and push investigations of AEDONOR leads. REDACTED said he would not attempt to relate what Hibbs said was the specific leads mentioned. The point he wanted to make sure I knew was Hibbs attitude towards Bagley as deliberately not following-up on AEDONOR leads. REDACTED said Hibbs was coming to Hq. in the Summer and he would let me know about the arrival in the event I wanted to talk to Hibbs.
2. My only contact was to thank REDACTED and tell him to let me know when Hibbs arrived.
(Copy to Solie)

                                                                                    SIGNATURE
                                                                                     Scott Miller

Note on p. 2: This information is not to be disseminated.
Any inquiry or interest in this memo should be brought
to the attention of DC/SRS, Bruce Solie
« Last Edit: November 02, 2019, 09:24:36 PM by Michael Clark »

Offline Thomas Graves

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Re: A good article about Nosenko versus Bagley and Angleton, annotated by me.
« Reply #6 on: November 02, 2019, 09:09:47 PM »
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10111-10250.pdf

104-10111-10250

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD.              Date: 18 Feb 1971
SUBJECT: Nosenko Case

1. On 18 Feb Mr. REDACTED chief/EUR/BNL told me that Mr. John Hart, C/EUR, had told him to tell only me the following.
When REDACTED was in Brussels, in late January, 1971, he was with Mr. Russell Hibbs, G5-14 case officer, for a long Wed. evening. REDACTED said that during their conversation, Hibbs spent a lot of time complaining about what Hibbs claimed was Mr. (Pete) Bagley’s, COS, reluctance to pursue and push investigations of AEDONOR leads. REDACTED said he would not attempt to relate what Hibbs said was the specific leads mentioned. The point he wanted to make sure I knew was Hibbs attitude towards Bagley as deliberately not following-up on AEDONOR leads. REDACTED said Hibbs was coming to Hq. in the Summer and he would let me know about the arrival in the event I wanted to talk to Hibbs.
2. My only contact was to thank REDACTED and tell him to let me know when Hibbs arrived.
(Copy to Solie)

                                                                                    SIGNATURE
                                                                                     Scott Miller

Note on p. 2: This information is not to be disseminated.
Any inquiry or interest in this memo should be brought
to the attention of DC/SRS, Bruce Solie

Michael,

John L. Hart, the guy who perjured himself in front of the HSCA?

What a piece of work he was.

This is what Tennent H. Bagley had to say, on page 215 of Spy Wars, about a 1976 incident between himself and Hart:

While paying lip service to the need for vigilance, Colby saw counterintelligence mainly as an impediment to intelligence collection. His impatience and disinterest came out in the form of simplification and sarcasm. “I spent several long sessions doing my best to follow [Counterintelligence Staff chief Angleton’s] tortuous theories about the long arm of a powerful and wily KGB at work, over decades, placing its agents in the heart of allied and neutral nations and sending its false defectors to influence and under- mine American policy. I confess that I couldn’t absorb it, possibly because I did not have the requisite grasp of this labyrinthine subject, possibly because Angleton's explanations were impossible to follow, or possibly because the evidence just didn’t add up to his conclusions. ... I did not suspect Angleton and his staff of engaging in improper activities. I just could not figure out what they were doing at all.” (fn 17)
.
Colby soon got to work reorganizing the (Angleton's) Counterintelligence Staff and divesting it of some of its components. Then in 1974 the New York Times exposed the fact that in apparent violation of the Agency’s charter, Angleton’s staff had been checking international mail to and from some left-wing Americans. This gave Colby the ammunition he needed to rid himself of this nuisance. At the end of that year he demanded Angleton’s resignation and was glad to see Angleton’s chief lieutenants Raymond Rocca, William Hood, and Newton Miler follow him into retirement.
.
To steer a less troubling course, Colby appointed to head the Counterintelligence Staff George Kalaris, a man without experience in either counterintelligence or Soviet bloc operations, and, as his deputy, Leonard McCoy, a handler of reports, not an operations officer, who had already distinguished himself as a fierce advocate for Nosenko. Now began an extraordinary cleanup inside the (Angleton's) Counterintelligence Staff— and the disappearance of evidence against Nosenko. Miler’s carefully accumulated notes on this and related cases were removed from the files and disappeared, along with a unique card file of discrepancies in Nosenko’s statements. (fn 18)
.
Shortly afterward Colby appointed an officer to review the files anew. John L. Hart was assisted by four officers. They worked for six months, from June to December 1976. I caught a glimpse of their aims and work methods when Hart came to Europe to interview me (in Belgium). He had not bothered to read what I had written (though he said nothing new had come to light on the question of Nosenko’s bona fides) and seemed interested only in why, eight years earlier, I had warned that bad consequences might flow from Nosenko’s release. I saw that his aim was not to get at the truth but to find a way to clear Nosenko, so I refused to talk further with him. As I later learned, Hart’s team did not even interview the Counterintelligence Staff officers who had analyzed the case and maintained files on it for nine years. Among them were two veteran analysts who, having come “cold” to the case, had concluded on their own that Nosenko was a plant— and had written their reasons. Hart then wrote a report that affirmed total trust in Nosenko. (fn 19)
.
Having decreed their faith and gotten rid of disbelievers, the CIA leadership banned further debate. One experienced officer in the Soviet Bloc Division— my old colleague Joe Westin, who knew so much about this case— took a late stand against Nosenko’s bona fides. He was told by higher-ups, “If you continue on this course, there will be no room for you in this Division”— and his future promotion was blocked. Peter Deriabin, who kept trying to warn Agency officials about Nosenko, was told to desist or his relations with CIA would be threatened (see Appendix A).
.
Nosenko’s rescuers then set out to discredit those who had distrusted him. They first labeled them as paranoid (a charge always difficult to refute) and then moved on to distort the record.

.....

Cheers!

--  MWT   ;)
« Last Edit: November 02, 2019, 09:18:52 PM by Thomas Graves »

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Re: A good article about Nosenko versus Bagley and Angleton, annotated by me.
« Reply #6 on: November 02, 2019, 09:09:47 PM »


Offline Michael Clark

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Re: A good article about Nosenko versus Bagley and Angleton, annotated by me.
« Reply #7 on: November 02, 2019, 09:16:40 PM »
More from CIA Director of Security, Howard Osborne: