Francesco/who-killed-jfk huggingface dataset:
[104-10150-10004.pdf — page 188]
near the site which was maintained for three months and that he was informed on a daily basis of the results of this stake out (always negative). To take this statement literally would raisea further problem since, in addition to his transfer from the First Department to the Seventh Department as of early January 1962, NOSENKO went to Geneva in mid-March 1962.It is conceivable that, as he himself now maintains, he was kept advised of developments or nondevelopments following the visit of ABIDIAN to the Pushkin Street building by Veniamin KOZLOV, a Chief of Department in the Seventh Directorate who had been known to NOSENKO since 1953, or Vladislav KOVSHUK or Gennadiy GRYAZNOV, Chief and Deputy Chief respectively of the First Section, First Depart- ment. Even so, however, his failure to call our attention to this matter in June 1962 would seem to require explanation, especially in view of the fact that he did warn us about the danger of operational letter mail- ings by ABIDIAN -- a warning which would appear clearly to have been derived from KGB coverage of the activities of ABIDIAN in the spring- summer of 1961.It is to be noted that during the June 1962 meetings NOSENKO was not specifically asked for any additional information regarding any known or suspected intelligence activities of ABIDIAN. Beyond
[104-10150-10004.pdf — page 189]
this, NOSENKO himself has stated that it did not occur to him to tellus because the stake out had long since been dropped, it had revealednothing suspicious on the part of ABIDIAN or anyone else, and thereforehe had regarded it as insignificant.This is not implausible. Another possible explanation, however,derived from the already noted inability of NOSENKO to pin down a datefor the visit, is that he learned of the stationary surveillance post if notof the visit itself after his meetings with us in June 1962. It should benoted in this context that with the public exposure of the PENKOVSKIYcase in the fall of 1962, the Pushkin Street deaddrop undoubtedly becamethe subject of widespread interest within the KGB.That NOSENKO is at a minimum still confused about the visitof ABIDIAN to the Pushkin Street deaddrop and its consequences is clearfrom the record. While it is entirely possible that NOSENKO has con-sciously exaggerated his involvement with the visit and its aftermath,it is also possible that the evident distortions of his accounts of theaffair derive from honest confusion.Current interviews and a check of the tapes of previous inter-views leave no doubt that NOSENKO was aware of the visits of ABIDIANto the upper Gorkiy Street area circa March 1961. These visits byABIDIAN were for cover purposes and preceded his start of operational
[104-10150-10004.pdf — page 190]
SEGRETletter mailing. NOSENKO consistently relates, and has furnished drawings which substantiate, that visits of ABIDIAN to a commission shop, a next-door art shop, and a local post office in the area were known to and considered suspicious by the KGB. The entrance to the art shop, according to NOSENKO, was so situated as to be an ideal place for picking up or placing a deaddrop, and a mobile surveillance was placed on the art shop for a period of time following the visit of ABIDIAN. Official records confirm the visits of ABIDIAN at the time and to the buildings described by NOSENKO.Pages 216 - 220 of the previous summary contain no reference to the specific statements of NOSENKO relative to KGB interest in the visits of ABIDIAN to the upper Gorkiy Street area. It is also clear from a review of certain transcripts of previous interrogations that no differentiation was made concerning his statements relative to KGB coverage of the activities of ABIDIAN in the upper Gorkiy Street area circa March 1961 and his statements concerning his knowledge of the Pushkin Street deaddrop site after the visit of ABIDIAN to that site (30 December 1961).It is impossible at this time to state that a detailed debriefing of NOSENKO concerning ABIDIAN prior to hostile interrogation would have permitted the clarification of all issues including the above, but14SEGRET
[104-10150-10004.pdf — page 191]
there is no doubt that the hostile interrogation has confused matters to the point where complete clarification appears impossible. In any event, one thing is clear -- since he may well have transferred out of the First Section, First Department, by 31 December 1961 and most certainly had transferred by early January 1962, the fact that NOSENKO has supplied confused information regarding the Pushkin Street affair cannot be used to impugn his claim to having been case officer for ABIDIAN from early 1960 until late 1961. Furthermore, the fact that NOSENKO is not able to properly date the visit of ABIDIAN to Pushkin Street, is in no way indicative of KGB dispatch. If dispatched, NOSENKO presumably would have had the date right.In regard to (b), the responsibility of NOSENKO for preliminary re- view of reports from OTU (Technical Unit of KGB) of "take" from micro- phones in the United States Embassy, the previous conclusion was that his claim that he personally reviewed the KGB monitoring reports was not sustained.It is not felt that the previous conclusion made sufficient allow- ance for the explanation of NOSENKO of what the responsibility actually entailed. Information from microphones in the United States Embassy, according to NOSENKO, was handled very specially. Telephone inter- cepts were given to a designated officer for distribution to the appropriate case officer, but microphone reports, to prevent wide dissemination even within the First Section, were brought daily to the Deputy Chief or in his absence to the Chief and then were distributed to the individual responsible15
[104-10150-10004.pdf — page 192]
case officer. In this way, according to NOSENKO, no one below therank of Deputy Chief was aware of the total microphone "take" fromthe United States Embassy as received by the section.As regards political type information, and according to NOSENKOthis was considered the most important by the KGB and OTU, NOSENKOhad no responsibility for review or ultimate dissemination of the infor-mation to the Chief, SCD, the Chairman, KGB, or the Central Committeesince this was the responsibility of a unit in the office of the Chief, SCD.NOSENKO has also stated that the output from certain of theworking microphones was "dying" and that OTU in addition to havingreception difficulties was also having difficulty obtaining a sufficientnumber of qualified monitor-translators. As a result, according toNOSENKO, OTU was not providing complete verbatim transcripts frommost microphones, but actually was reporting only those portions whichOTU considered pertinent. Despite the fact that full transcripts of allconversations in areas covered by active microphones would have beenof interest to responsible officers of the First Section, OTU, accordingto NOSENKO, did not provide full transcripts and when asked to providemore gave the routine answer of, "we could do so if we had morepersonnel." According to NOSENKO, the tapes were maintained atOTU and could not be furnished to the First Section. An officer of the
[104-10150-10004.pdf — page 193]
First Section could listen to a particular tape but he had to go to OTU to do so and as a result this was done very infrequently.It is believed that any presumption that the KGB recovered or transcribed all conversations even in the thirteen areas listed by NOSENKO as having active microphones is not reasonable or even realistic. It is also unrealistic to presume that any conversation conducted within reasonable distance of an active microphone was not compromised to the KGB. The latter is a factor to be considered in any damage assessment; it is not an appropriate basis for a presumption that NOSENKO had to have been aware of this or this just because someone had a conversation in one of the rooms in which there was an active microphone and NOSENKO has claimed he reviewed the "take" from microphones in the United States Embassy.It is apparent that there are a number of imponderable factors to be considered such as whether the conversation could be picked up by the microphone, whether the monitor could recover sufficient portions of the conversation to understand the gist of what was being said, and even if he did, whether he would consider it of sufficient importance or interest to include in his report in verbatim or in summary form.In regard to (c), the claim of NOSENKO that he was responsible for maintenance of the physical security file on the United States Embassy,
[104-10150-10004.pdf — page 194]
it is not considered that there is an adequate basis for questioning this claim.The previous summary contained a conclusion that the claim of NOSENKO that he was custodian of the Embassy security file was an invention. The basis for this conclusion was not then adequate and current interviews with NOSENKO have further indicated that his claim on this point should be accepted.In regard to (d), the claim of NOSENKO that he acted in place of KOVSHUK, the Chief of First Section, when KOVSHUK was absent, it is considered that this claim is acceptable providing it is not converted into a presumption that therefore NOSENKO knew everything that KOVSHUK knew.NOSENKO claims that he was not responsible for the direct supervision of approximately two-thirds of the officers in the First Section. These officers normally reported directly to KOVSHUK and would only report to NOSENKO when KOVSHUK was absent. As an example of this, NOSENKO has shown a lack of detailed knowledge of the work against diplomatic personnel in the United States Embassy. He has stated he is sure he would have known of anything "important" such as a recruitment or attempted recruitment, but he does not claim to have reviewed all the reports of the various officers of the First18
[104-10150-10004.pdf — page 195]
Section. His recognition of the names of individuals at the United States Embassy in 1960 - 1961 and even their assignments seems adequate.The previous criticism that NOSENKO knew only the names of most agents or operative contacts who were part of the KGB network among the indigenous employees of the American Embassy, did not recognize their photographs, and did not give sufficient details concerning their specific activities is considered to be an unwarranted criticism. NOSENKO indicates that in general the handling of agents in the First Section was the responsibility of individual case officers.It is also apparent that the philosophy in the KGB was to maintain a single handler-agent relationship as much as possible, and that responsibility for an agent would not be transferred merely because the agent had access to a target who was the responsibility of a case officer other than the handler of the agent. This apparent philosophy is of particular interest in connection with NOSENKO, who even though he was the case officer responsible for ABIDIAN and together with KOSOLAPOV and GRYAZNOV worked actively against code clerks, did not have an agent network which he specifically handled. Mere use of an agent for reporting on or a specific activity against a particular target was normally19
[104-10150-10004.pdf — page 196]
not an adequate reason to transfer responsibility for the agent and it appears the KGB considers that the continuation of an established handler-agent relationship has considerable merit.NOSENKO, as previously indicated, has stated that he had the responsibility for work against code clerks at the United States Embassy during 1960 - 1961. Except for the period of time that he claims responsibility for supervision of work against the Service Attaches in early 1960, he was, according to NOSENKO, responsible for supervision of the work of Vadim A. KOSOLAPOV, Gennadiy I. GRYAZNOV, Vladimir DEMKIN and Yevgeniy GROMAKOVSKIY.GRYAZNOV and KOSOLAPOV worked only against code clerks and therefore were supervised solely by NOSENKO, whereas DEMKIN and GROMAKOVSKIY, who handled indigenous agents in American House, came under the supervision of NOSENKO only in those cases where these agents were directed against code clerks.It is quite clear that the knowledge of NOSENKO concerning the code clerks, code machine mechanics and pouch clerks who, according to NOSENKO, were included in his targets in 1960 - 1961, was much greater than his knowledge of any other category of American employees at the United States Embassy during this period except for ABIDIAN.
[104-10150-10004.pdf — page 197]
The following comments are concerned with several specific cases in which, according to NOSENKO, there was an approach by the KGB, interesting information was developed, or in which at least a considerable amount of specific work was carried out by NOSENKO, KOSOLAPOV and GRYAZNOV.The first case, (James STORSBERG), is covered on pages 166 - 177 of the previous summary. Little additional comment is considered necessary on this case since there does not appear to be any adequate reason to question the general story of NOSENKO in regard to the KGB effort against STORSBERG.It is recognized and mentioned elsewhere that NOSENKO in 1962 exaggerated his personal involvement in the case, particularly in placing himself as present with GRIBANOV when the recruitment pitch was made to STORSBERG. NOSENKO has retracted this particular claim, but there is no reason to doubt that he was engaged for approximately a year in the planning and activities which preceded the unsuccessful approach to STORSBERG.An issue was previously made over the timing of the approach to STORSBERG since STORSBERG) dated this as October 1961, NOSENKO has indicated about June 1961, and information from GOLITSYN, based on remarks by KOVSHUK to him, had been interpreted as indicating the
[104-10150-10004.pdf — page 198]
approach occurred at the "end of 1960."NOSENKO, during current interviews, has given an acceptable account of the STORSBERG) case. He has stated that he cannot precisely date the approach to STORSBERG, but that it occurred before the approach at the Moscow airport to James KEYSERS) (June 16, 1961) because otherwise no action would have been taken against KEYSERS.When recently reinterviewed, (STORSBERG) continued to maintain that the approach occurred in October 1961, but the internal evidence in his description of collateral events makes it clear that the approach had to have taken place considerably earlier.(Joseph MORONE, another code clerk at the United States Embassy, who will be the subject of further discussion below, has been interviewed on the basis of statements by STORSBERG that MORONE was present in American House the night of the approach. Analysis of the statements of MORONE clearly indicates that the events (STORSBERG describe could not have taken place later than the period February to early May 1961.The best estimate possible at this time is that the approach to STORSBERG) occurred in March - April 1961, which is quite compatible with the approximate dating of the approach by NOSENKO. In the face of this approximation of the date of the approach to (STORSBERG, it is000118222
[104-10150-10004.pdf — page 199]
believed reasonable to assume that the remarks of KOVSHUK toGOLITSYN in January 1961, as related by GOLITSYN concerninga successful operation against a military code clerk in Moscow at theend of 1960, referred to STORSBERG, and that KOVSHUK either wasreferring to a compromise phase of the operation rather than the actualapproach, or was prematurely claiming anticipated success.Pages 178 - 181 of the previous summary contain informationin regard to the attempted defection operation against James KEYSERS,As of this time, it is considered that there are no discrepancies betweenrecord information and information from NOSENKO which in any wayreflect against NOSENKO. KEYSERS did not recognize a photographof NOSENKO as the Soviet who made a fast approach to him at the air-port, but this does not provide a valid reason to disbelieve the statementof NOSENKO that it was he who tried to talk to KEYSERSThere are certain statements relative to the KEYSERS case asset forth in the previous summary which require specific comment.(a) The statement is made that no KGB officerdirectly connected with the case could regard (KEYSERS)as the replacement for STORSBERG) In fact, KEYSERSactually was being trained by STORSBERG as a substitute,not a replacement, even though his primary assignment230001183
[104-10150-10004.pdf — page 200]
was not that of a code clerk. NOSENKO has during current interviews related how he received the impression from the OTU reports of conversations picked up by the microphone in the Military code room at the United States Embassy that (KEYSERS) either was not a code clerk or had been away from code work for a considerable period of time. In any event, the impression of NOSENKO was that (STORSBERG) was having a difficult time explaining. the particular work to (KEYSERS). The observations of NOSENKO are of interest since (KEYSERS) actually had not been a code clerk but, as noted, was being trained by (STORSBERG) so that he could act as a substitute. Under the circumstances, it is considered quite logical that the KGB would assume at the time that (KEYSERS) was to be the eventual replacement of (STORSBERG).(b) The previous summary stated that, "prior to his departure from Moscow, (KEYSERS) acknowledged to his supervisors /Colonel URBAN/ his homosexual tendencies and he admitted involvement in three homosexual incidents, all at the American House" (page 179).
[104-10150-10004.pdf — page 201]
Contrary to this assertion, a review of the official memorandum, dated 16 June 1961, of (Colonel (URBAN) reflects that (KEYSERS was not informed by URBAN of the "allegations of homosexuality in order not to aggravate the possibility of a rash act by him while within the Soviet Union."(c) On page 236 of the previous summary, the statement is made that, "In the single case in which he /NOSENKO/ asserted that he relied on information procured from microphones (KEYSERS) failure to report receipt of the defection invitation) he was in error."While the official record shows that KEYSERS did indeed report receipt of the defection letter to Colonel URBAN in the office of Colonel URBAN, it should be noted that this occurred less than one hour before (KEYSERS left the Embassy for the airport. NOSENKO has stated that in the absence of information to the contrary from microphone and telephone taps, the KGB had concluded that KEYSERS had not reported receipt of the defection letter and therefore had decided to approach KEYSERS at the airport. In view of the short time between (KEYSERS) report of receipt250001185
[104-10150-10004.pdf — page 202]
of the letter and his departure from Moscow, it would have been remarkable if the KGE had learned this in- formation in time to cali off the airport approach. The account of NOSENKO in the KEYSERS matter therefore is considered completely credible.Pages 181 - 184 of the previous summary contain information in regard to Matthew ZUJUS, who succeeded James STORSBERG, having arrived in Moscow in September 1961. GRYAZNOV was the responsible case officer for ZUJUS, according to NOSENKO.The previous summary states (page 183) that ZUJUS, during a routine debriefing, confirmed an Embassy report that in the summer of 1962 he had been intimate with an Austrian woman, "LILLIAN," who visited the American House with someone from the United Arab Republic. "LILLIAN" was interviewed by the American House manager and she claimed to be from Vienna but traveling with her employer, a Czech. Further inquiry revealed that no Austrian passport had been issued to "LILLIAN," and she was later asked for her passport. "LILLIAN" replied that she had forgotten it, then left, and did not return.The previous summary stated that the above incident had been described by NOSENKO but in connection with attempts to entrap Joseph MORONE in 1960, not ZUJUS in 1962.260001186
[104-10150-10004.pdf — page 203]
Page 194 of the previous summary relates information from NOSENKO that GRYAZNOV went to East Berlin in early 1960 to obtain two German women who could be used against the residents of American House. During current interviews, this matter has been again covered with NOSENKO. According to NOSENKO, GRYAZNOV arranged for these two women, agents of the Berlin KGB Residentura, to visit Moscow under false documentation, one as a West German and the other as an Austrian. NOSENKO further identified the "West German" agent, "HANNA, " as having the cover of a journalist, and stated he believed "HANNA" had met MORONE at American House. In a recent interview, MORONE confirmed that in early 1961 he had met a West German girl at American House who claimed to be a journalist. The statements of MORONE therefore appear to substantiate the report of NOSENKO.Concerning the agent documented as an Austrian, NOSENKO re- ported that she was queried about her passport at American House and as a result the KGB returned her to East Germany without further attempts to use her at American House, NOSENKO places this incident in the same time period as the "HANNA" case; i.e., 1960 - 1961. He has never suggested any connection with (ZUJUS, nor is there reason to assume that he could be referring to the experience of (ZUJUS since this took place in the summer of 1962, after NOSENKO had left the American Embassy Section.
[104-10150-10004.pdf — page 204]
It was the conclusion of the previous summary that NOSENKOdid not know enough about (ZUJUS) or his background to have exercisedany supervision in the development of (ZUJUS. Granted that NOSENKOdid not know many details regarding (ZUJUS), the fact is that NOSENKOleft the First Section, First Department, at the end of 1961 at whichtime any supervisory functions of NOSENKO terminated. (ZUJUS), whodid not arrive in Moscow until September 1961, remained in Moscowuntil January 1963. NOSENKO could hardly be held responsible forknowing anything about ZUJUS after 1 January 1962.Pages 185 - 189 of the previous summary contain a synopsis ofprevious information from NOSENKO in regard to(Paul JENNER)Basically, NOSENKO had reported that when the KGB learned that(Paul JENNER, who was thought to be a code clerk, was coming toMoscow through Helsinki, a plan was made to send Vadim V. KOSOLAPOVto Helsinki to travel on the same train as JENNER to Moscow. A femaleagent of GRYAZNOV was to be placed on this train at Vyborg after thetrain entered the USSR. The female agent was to become acquaintedwith JENNER as a part of a future operation against JENNER in Moscow,and KOSOLAPOV was also to become acquainted with (JENNER).NOSENKO has stated that the operation was successful, that bothKOSOLAPOV and the female agent made the acquaintance of JENNER,
[104-10150-10004.pdf — page 205]
and that he, NOSENKO, read the report submitted by KOSOLAPOV on the trip from Helsinki to Moscow.JENNER, after arriving in Moscow, reported that he was approached on the train from Helsinki by two young Russians, "a boy and a giri, probably university students," who struck up a conversation. According to JENNER, they both said that they might see (JENNER) in Moscow. About three months later JENNER) reported being approached again by the same girl, this time at the Moscow airport where he had gone on courier business. There was a short conversation and she gave JENNER a phone number, insisting that he call her. The woman also advised JENNER not to mention the conversation to anyone. NOSENKO has stated that in an effort to follow up the initial train acquaintance, the KGB had arranged for the female agent to encounter JENNER at the Moscow railroad station or airport when he went alone to meet couriers.Insofar as is known, JENNER has never been shown a photograph of KOSOLAPOV. Although KOSOLAPOV was approximately 34 years of age in 1960, his photograph and remarks by NOSENKO indicate that in appearance he was much younger and that he could have passed as a university student.290001189