Francesco/who-killed-jfk huggingface dataset:
[104-10150-10136.pdf — page 101]
# Top Secret(AMERICAN EMBASSY SECTION - ca. 1953-June 1955)Comment: STROUD, with BENSON and MULE, was the victim of the Soviets' seizure of technical equipment in Stalingrad and_was declared persona non grata on 7 May 1955. On 31 January 1955 he travelled to Kharkov from Moscow with First Secretary Frank SISCO to interview an American defector living there. According to NOSENKO, SISCOE was suspected by the KGB of being a CIA officer. The visit of ex-FBI agent SISCOE and a military officer to an American defector is judged to be an event in which the KGB would have taken interest and one which the Attache's KGB case officer would find memorable.MULE NOSENKO correctly identified Walter MULE as an Assistant Army Attache and as such said that he was the case officer responsible for him. NOSENKO described an operational approach to MULE, in which he himself participated: In 1953 or 1954 there had been several defection approaches to Soviets in the United States with the promise of money and a new life. After the KGB Second Chief Directorate decided to try the same measures, MULE was selected. He was only a captain despite his lengthy service in the Army and information from concealed microphones indicated that he was often disparaged by the other Attaches. When MULE received letters from home, he threw them in the trash, and the maids turned these over to the KGB. From this mail it was understood that MULE did not have a house in the United States but lived with his family in a trailer. The father of two children, MULE had sent his wife from Moscow to Germany for an abortion, as a third child would have imposed too great an economic burden. On the basis of all this the KGB appointed N.M. BORODIN, a recruiter of the American Department, to attempt to defect MULE Together with BORODIN, KOVSIIUK, and L.A. LEBEDEV (from the Second Chief Directorate's special technical section), NOSENKO travelled to Leningrad for the operation. LEBEDEV installed a clock containing a concealed camera as well as microphones in MULE's hotel room.
[104-10150-10136.pdf — page 102]
# Top Secret(AMERICAN EMBASSY SECTION ca. 1953-June 1955)and BORODIN entered the room to await MULE's return. When MULE started to enter the room, he caught sight of BORODIN and tried to back out, but NOSENKO and KOVSHUK closed the door from the hall and prevented his escape. BORODIN reviewed for MULE the facts the KGB had accumulated about his lack of success in the Army, the disdain of his fellow Attaches, and his shortage of money and then offered him a job as a "consultant". BORODIN had either $5,000 or $10,000 in an envelope to encourage MULE to accept. According to NOSENKO, MULE refused outright, telling BORODIN to get out.Comment: MULE reported this incident. He said that he was locked in his hotel room and subjected to a recruitment attempt by an MVD agent calling himself Jack SIEGAL, who offered him $10,000 for "work" on a long-range basis. SIEGAL emphasized that MULE would not be required to procure documents from the Embassy, and according to MULE, SIEGAL was aware of facts concerning MULE's personal life that could have been obtained only from listening devices in MULE's apartment or office. SIEGAL left after about 20 minutes, having warned MULE not to report the incident. MULE identified SIEGAL/BORODIN by photograph, but was unable to identify NOSENKO.KGB lack of interest in recruitments, which NOSENKO elsewhere cited to explain his ignorance of the personal backgrounds of his Army Attache targets, is belied by the MULE case.BENSON, MULE and STROUD Expulsion from the Soviet UnionAfter NOSENKO had been transferred to the Seventh Department in 1955, BENSON, MULE and STROUD were the targets of a KGB operation which resulted in all three men being declared persona non grata. NOSENKO gave the following account of this incident: For some time the Second Chief Directorate had been trying to acquire a small, convenient piece of95Top SecretC001365TS-No. 197124Copy 10171BR
[104-10150-10136.pdf — page 103]
# Top Secret(AMERICAN EMBASSY SECTION - ca. 1953-June 1955)electronic equipment which American Intelligence officers were known to be using during their travels inside the Soviet Union. As early as the beginning of 1954, the American Department had been given authorization from the Central Committee of the Communist Party to steal this equipment from the Americans, provided that the success of such an operation was assured. Before his transfer to the Seventh Department in 1955, NOSENKO himself had helped to develop plans for the operation and had even arranged an abortive attempt to seize the equipment from an Attache at a railroad station outside Moscow. While [BENSON][MULE] and STROUD were on one of their trips (after NOSENKO's transfer) it was learned that they had the equipment with them, and the KGB decided to take it from them in [Stalingrad].10 The hotel rooms of [BENSON][STROUD] and [MULE] were watched constantly from a visual observation post and it was noted that they never ate in the hotel restaurant but always in their rooms. It was also noted that the apparatus was placed under a pillow before they began to eat. While they were seated at the table having dinner, therefore, the KGB officers suddenly entered the room and seized the equipment. In order to partially cover the illegality of this act, it was decided to make a show of expelling [BENSON][MULE] and [STROUD] from the Soviet Union, and this was done by having the Foreign Ministry declaring each persona non grata.Comment: The equipment was seized from [BENSON], [MULE] and [STROUD] on 5 May 1955, and the three were declared persona non grata on 7 May, a month before NOSENKO claimed to have transferred to the Seventh Department. When the 7 May date was given to NOSENKO during the February 1965 interrogations, he replied that the operation was handled at a higher level, that he did not directly participate in it, but that he had been involved in the earlier planning to seize the equipment. It was pointed out to him that he had always said he was in the Seventh Department at the time of this operation, and that he had consistently said that he transferred from the American to the Seventh Department in June 1955. NOSENKO offered no comment.
[104-10150-10136.pdf — page 104]
# Top Secret(AMERICAN EMBASSY SECTION ca. 1953-June 1955)CARDELLA 06NOSENKO said that in 1954 and 1955 there was a civilian administrative officer in the Embassy by the name of James CARDELLA.06 The KGB had no interesting or unusual information concerning CARDELLA from any source, and NOSENKO could say nothing more about him. 06Comment: As a member of the Army Attache's staff,CARDELLA also would have been NOSENKO's target.06 Chief Warrant Officer CARDELLA served in Moscow from September 1953 until June 1955. In 1964 a microphone was discovered in the Embassy office06 CARDELLA had occupied. The microphone was believed to have been emplaced in 1952. See p. 227.VAN LAETHEM 0606NOSENKO incorrectly identified George VAII LAETHEM as an Assistant Air Attache at the Embassy against whom an operation was attempted in 1953 or 1954. He said that during this period a Russian actress, Alla LARIONOVA, was placed on a train going from Berlin to Moscow with the mission of striking up an acquaintance with VAN LAETHEM 06 which could be followed up in Moscow. She succeeded in meeting him and gave him her address and telephone number. Although she was certain that she would hear from him, he never did call her in Moscow. NOSENKO said that he had heard about this from P.F. PANKRATOV, the case officer handling LARIONOVA. He added that CHURANOV was the case officer responsible for VAN LAETHEM along with other 06 members of the Air Attache's office at that time. NOSENKO 08 knew of no other KGB interest in or activity concerning VAN LAETHEM0697Top Secret0001367TS No. 197124Copy 10![image]
[104-10150-10136.pdf — page 105]
# Top Secret(AMERICAN EMBASSY SECTION - ca. 1953-June 1955)Comment: VAN LAETHEM was not an Assistant Air Attache But an Assistant Army Attache serving in Moscow from March 1951 to March 1953. When VAN LAETHEM completed his two-year tour in Moscow in March 1953 (when NOSENKO said he entered the KGB), he was succeeded by Walter HULE, for whom NOSENKO has claimed responsibility. The fact that he was Assistant Army Attache and JULES predecessor should be known to the responsible KGB case officer, in this case, NOSENKO. As cryptographic security officer and officer in charge of the Embassy code room, VAN LAETHEM had supervisory responsibility for the military code clerks and mechanics, including Dayle SMITH, and he was on fairly close personal terms with Sergeant Roy RIIODES until VAN LAETHEM's departure from Moscow in March 1953. VAN LAETHEM's duties also included responsibility for sensitive electronic activities in the Embassy.VAN LAETHEM was again in Moscow from 19 March to 19 May 1955, when NOSENKO claims to have been the KGB case officer for Army Attaches. Although this visit was only a temporary assignment, it was represented to the Soviets as a permanent assignment of an Assistant Army Attache (and thus, presumably NOSENKO's target) because of the sensitive nature of his duties. He was project officer for the entire signals collection program at the Embassy, and he went to Moscow to review the program including the planned use of the new electronic equipment which was seized from BENSON, MULE and STROUD in Stalingrad in May 1955 (while VAN LAETHEM was still in Moscow). VAN LAETHER stated that no meeting such as the one NOSENKO described with LARIONOVA ever occurred.98Top SecretTS No. 197124Copy
[104-10150-10136.pdf — page 106]
# Top Secret(AMERICAN EMBASSY SECTION ca. 1953-June 1955)## Additional ReportingKnowledge of another KGB operation involving Americans was said by NOSENKO to stem from his 1953-1955 service in the American Embassy Section, against CIA officer and Embassy Security Officer Edward Ellis SMITH (see p. 37). NOSENKO claimed to have personally participated in the operations against E.E. SMITH in 1954-1955. The incidents which NOSENKO described, however, occurred in June 1956, by which time NOSENKO, by his own account, had been out of the American Embassy Section for a year and when he was involved in the Seventh Department recruitment of Richard[^1] BURGI. His involvement in the BURGI case has been confirmed.NOSENKO has also described the KGB recruitment of military cipher machine mechanic "ANDREY" (Dayle SMITH, see p. 33), whose true name he claimed not to have known. He dated the recruitment as occurring "in 1949-1950" and "before he joined the KGB", although he said that he knew of the existence of the agent during his first tour in the Embassy Section in 1953-1955. However, NOSENKO also related that "ANDREY" was recruited while Roy RHODES was in Moscow, that RHODES "had spotted 'ANDREY'". "ANDREY" and RHODES Over- lapped in Moscow from April 1952 to July 1953. "ANDREY" fixes his own recruitment as occurring in December 1953, and until his departure in April 1954 he was responsible for the entire Embassy code room. In that capacity "ANDREY" was a direct subordinate of the Army Attache cryptographic security officer, NOSENKO's target Army Captain Walter MULE. If NOSENKO served in the 'Embassy Section during 1953-1955 as he claimed, it is difficult to perceive how he could have remained unaware of "ANDREY's" identity.## American Embassy Section - ca. 1953-June 1955: Summary and ConclusionAccording to NOSENKO, immediately upon entering on duty with the KGB he was assigned without training to what he describes as the most sensitive and important section of the Second Chief Directorate. There, after first handling agents covering American correspondents resident in Moscow,99Top Secret[^1]: 06
[104-10150-10136.pdf — page 107]
# Top Secret(AMERICAN EMBASSY SECTION ca. 1953-June 1955)he was made the case officer solely responsible for opera-tions against the commissioned officers of the Embassy'sArmy Attache office, until his transfer to the SeventhDepartment. Alleging complete knowledge of all serviceattache operations, NOSENKO flatly asserts that there wereno KGB recruitments of American military personnel duringthe period of his assignment to the Embassy Section.Pertinent to the consideration of NOSENKO's statementsis his reluctance to discuss the 1953-1955 period, and hisinconsistent accounts of the dating and circumstances ofhis entry into the Embassy Section, of his assumption ofresponsibility as sole case officer for Army Attache tar-gets, and of his transfer to the Seventh Department. Al-though NOSENKO could plausibly claim failing memory to ex-plain some areas of ignorance, he does not do so. Instead,he is positive and insistent that his statements about histargets are a factual and complete account of what was thenknown to the KGB. His assertion that the KGB was not in-terested in his targets' vulnerability to recruitment isbelied by his own statements as well as by the MULE case, 06as he himself related it. He is uninformed about both At-tache personnel and agent-informants who, by his own ac-count, were his targets and his agents..## ConclusionNOSENKO did not serve in the American Embassy Sectionthroughout the March 1953-June 1955 period as he claimed.Specifically, he neither entered the Section in March 1953nor transferred from the Section in June 1955. In whateverperiod he may have served, he was not the sole case officerresponsible for commissioned officers in the office of theArmy Attache. Unaware of many aspects of KGB activitiesinvolving Army personnel and by his own account not involvedwith either Air or Naval Attache personnel or diplomats,NOSENKO has no valid claim to certainty that the KGB re-cruited no American Embassy personnel during this period.0001370100Top SecretTS No. 197124Copy IBR
[104-10150-10136.pdf — page 108]
# Top Secret## CHAPTER VI## SEVENTH DEPARTMENT (June 1955-January 1960)Comment: NOSENKO's claimed Second Chief Directorate service during 1955-1960, in which he was involved with Seventh Department operations against American and British tourists, coincides with the growth of a substantial American and British Intelligence program aimed at exploiting tourists visiting the Soviet Union. Beginning in 1956, the growth of tourism which followed the post-Stalin thaw in the USSR had grown to the point where it could be usefully exploited by CIA. Initially, returning American tourists were debriefed on their experiences in the Soviet Union and particularly with regard to their acquaintances there with Soviet citizens who might be susceptible to eventual recruitment. Gradually, leads were developed to Americans planning to visit the USSR, and from among these, agents were selected, trained in clandestine operational techniques, briefed on intelligence requirements, and instructed how to identify and develop potential agents from among their Soviet contacts. The American agents performed a variety of clandestine tasks including passive assessment of Soviet candidates for recruitment, propaganda activities, and infiltrating equipment, loading deaddrops, or mailing letters bearing secret writing, all destined for CIA agents in the Soviet Union.The program reached its height in 1959, by the end of which over one hundred and fifty agents under tourist cover from CIA alone had performed missions in the USSR; by101# Top Secret
[104-10150-10136.pdf — page 109]
# Top Secret(SEVENTH DEPARTMENT. June 1955-January 1960)Comment: (Continued)then a substantial number of similar missions had also been launched by American military intelligence organizations and by the [British] and allied services.It is a matter of fact, not of conjecture, that as early as 1957 a large number of these agents were coming to the attention of the KGB within the Soviet Union. Few were arrested. Instead, all were surveilled, and some pro- voked or entrapped, as the Second Chief Directorate and its provincial KGB counter- intelligence elements sought to identify the Soviet citizens with whom the American agents were in contact, as well as the agents' specific clandestine tasks. By the summer of 1959 the KGB had obtained from its British agent, George BLAKF, complete details of the objectives and methods of CIA and British Intelligence tourist programs, together with a number of case examples.It is within this context that one must examine NOSENKO's claims to KGB service in and consequent knowledge of Second Chief Directorate counterintelligence operations against American and British tourists in 1955- 1960.NOSENKO claimed he served with the Seventh Department from June 1955 until January 1960. According to him, the Seventh Department exercised counterintelligence functions involving foreigners then visiting the Soviet Union, including businessmen, seamen, foreign delegations and some tourists, as well as the hotels and restaurants utilized by these visitors. He said that by 1958, however, the number of foreign tourists visiting the Soviet Union had grown appreciably, and in June 1958 the Seventh Department Tourist Section was split, and two new sections were created. NOSENKO explained that one of the new sections became1020001372Top SecretTS No. 197124Copy 2.BR
[104-10150-10136.pdf — page 110]
# Top Secret(SEVENTH DEPARTMENT - June 1955-January 1960)responsible for counterintelligence operations conducted against American and British Commonwealth nationals, the other section was charged with all other nationalities.It is convenient to divide the examination of NOSENKO'S claims to service in the Seventh Department into two periods. The first of these covers the years from June 1955 until June 1958, during which NOSENKO said he was a case officer handling and recruiting agents of all nationalities and planning and managing other operational activities. The second period covers NOSENKO's service from June 1958, when he claimed to have become Deputy Chief of the newly-created American-British Commonwealth Section, to the beginning of 1960.NOSENKO described his personal and direct participation in Seventh Department operations during this four and one-half years as including:- Recruiting and handling Soviet citizen agents and targetting them against American tourists. INOSENKO'S agentura varied in number from eight to fourteen agents, most of whom were employees of Inturist.- Mounting operations against fifteen foreigners, principally Americans, in the Soviet Union.- Recruiting a pair of Soviet homosexuals as agents to be utilized against foreign homosexual targets. NOSENKO managed the pair from their recruitment in 1957 and 1958 until their retirement in 1962 or 1963.- Recruiting and handling Arsene FRIPPEL, the American Express Company representative in Moscow. (NOSENKO continued to meet FRIPPEL even after the latter was transferred from Moscow to New York and after NOSENKO was transferred from the Seventh Department.)From personal involvement or otherwise NOSENKO claimed that he learned of all the important operations conducted against American tourists during this period of his Seventh Department service.103Top Secret0001373TS. No. 197124Copy 10
[104-10150-10136.pdf — page 111]
# Top Secret(SEVENTH DEPARTMENT - June 1955-January 1960)## NOSENKO'S Soviet AgentsThe Seventh Department Tourist Section, just established when NOSENKO was transferred to it in mid-1955, had no agent network for operations against American and British tourists. Consequently, NOSENKO said, he and the other case officers had to "start from the beginning".As a first step NOSENKO was introduced by a fellow officer to a number of "trusted persons" in Inturist. These were not agents, he explained, but "just persons a KGB man could approach with questions about somebody or something". NOSENKO collected information on these and others with the aim of formalizing their recruitments. By the end of 1955, he estimated, he had a network of about eight agents, all of them Inturist interpreters. During the following four years, the number of agents whom NOSENKO handled varied. Agents would be transferred from one case officer to another, some would leave Inturist, and "things were sort of changing all the time, back and forth". In 1956, NOSENKO said, he had about ten agents, in 1957 there were about twelve, in 1958 about eight, and at the end of 1959 (when he was preparing to return to the American Department) he had approximately twelve. The substance of NOSENKO's description of his agents is as follows:## Larissa SOBOROVAAn Inturist English-language interpreter, SOBOROVA was one of the first agents recruited in 1955 by NOSENKO within Inturist. She reported to him on all foreigners with whom she worked as an interpreter. She worked with *NOSENKO* when he served as a guide for British subjects [BIRSE] and [LANE] in the summer of 1957. During 1957-1959 she was involved and possibly sexually intimate with American travel writer (Horace SUTTON). SOBOROVA was NOSENKO's agent until 1959, when she married and "retired".
[104-10150-10136.pdf — page 112]
Top Secret(SEVENTH DEPARTMENT - June 1955-January 1960)Comment: SOBOROVA was an Inturist guide for a number of American tourists, including CIA agents, between 1957 and 1959. [SUTTON] has identified 06 her. In 1959 she was the head of all English-language interpreters at Inturist headquarters in 'the National Hotel, Moscow.Vladimir MUROMTSEVMUROMTSEV, KGB cryptonym "LEELDEV", was recruited by NOSENKO from Inturist in 1955. He was NOSENKO's agent) until called into the army in about 1959, when he was sent to a Soviet Air Force Academy in Central Asia to serve as an interpreter with Syrian students there. During that period his file was held by the KGB organization in Central Asia. When he returned to Moscow he was re-employed by the KGB Second Directorate.Comment: NOSENKO has said elsewhere that MUROMTSEV had been a Second Chief Directorate agent "since 1958", implying that someone else recruited him and that he thus could not have been NOSENKO's agent in 1955. MUROMTSEV was identified in 1957 as an Inturist guide by two CIA sources.Nikolay ROGOVROGOV, KGB cryptonym "OZERO", was recruited in 1955. He had been formerly a "confidential contact" of the KGB. He worked in the central Inturist office which assigned interpreters to British and American citizens visiting the USSR.105Top SecretC001375TS No. 197124Copy 10
[104-10150-10136.pdf — page 113]
# Top Secret(SEVENTH DEPARTMENT – June 1955-January 1960)Comment: CIA records refer only to one Alexander ROGOV who in 1960 was a senior official at the main Inturist office in the Hotel National in Moscow.## Nataliya SHULGINASHULGINA was an Inturist interpreter recruited by NOSENKO in 1955. NOSENKO knew that double agent Boris BELITSKIY [see p.282] "reported to the KGB that CIA had warned BELITSKIY against SHULGINA".Comment: KGB-controlled CIA source BELITSKIY reported to CIA that SHULGINA was a KGB agent: CIA did not warn him. SHULGINA was for two years the secretary-interpreter of NBC correspondent Irving R. LEVINE after his arrival in Moscow in July 1955. She served as a guide for an American musical troupe's visit in the USSR in 1956 and in 1956 and 1957 she served as a guide for American tourists in Moscow. According to BELITSKIY, she was involved in the sexual entrapment_and KGB recruitment of British MP Tom DRIBERG NOSENKO's apparent ignorance of SHULGINA's involvement with LEVINE and other Americans, as well as with DRIBERG, and of her foreign travel, belies his claim that she was his agent during the 1955-1958 period. Shown her photograph in 1964, NOSENKO failed to recognize it. When he was then given her name, he identified her not as his former agent but just as a Second Chief Directorate agent once involved with BELITSKIY.