[104-10211-10001.pdf — page 160]
# 761.find a category of information about himself which he con-sistently remembered nor any that he consistently forgot.If what is important is his can direct experiences, forexample, it is odd that he recorled the operations of othersbetter than his own; he remembered the names of hundreds ofKGB officers, but could not recall names of his own agentsand people involved in his own career; he could recountdetails of the PENKOVSKIY investigation, in which he didnot participate, but not of the discovery of American spiesamong tourists, such as NCGOWAN, for which he was responsible;he remembered details of the 1955 MALIA case in which hedid not meet the target personally but forgot details of the1961 KEYSERS case in which he did. If it is the importanceto him of recruitment operations against U.S. Embussy em-ployees which permitted him to recall some details of theSTORSBERG and MULE operations, it is not important enoughto help him recall some of the other details which wereequally pertinent to him personally; and it is not selectivememory which made him forget almost every detail about CIApersonnel in Moscow and KGB action against them. If it issaid that his parental family is important to him (hencehis memory of his father's funeral and the names of hisuncles and aunts), it is odd that he cannot recall detailsabout his childhood. If drinking with important people ismeaningful to him, it would explain why he remembers oneGRIBANOV evening with sharp clarity, but it does not explainwhy he cannot remember the other two times, not even in whatseason of the year or in what restaurant they took place.Finally, with reference to the "selective memory" hypo-thesis, it is precisely in matters NOSENKO said he remembersbest and which he told most confidently that the majority ofinexplicable contradictions arise. Nothing could shake himfrom his claim to have been directly responsible for ABIDIANor on his story of the Pushkin Street dead drop, amongnumerous examples.## c. EmbellishmentThe third possibility is that he has simply embellishedand boasted, while underlying his story is a core of truthsomewhere near what he has reported. NOSENKO has, after all,admitted many "white lies" and boasts ("painting" himself, ashe called it). Also, in the interrogations there wererepeated signs that he was fabricating and improvising, oftenin ways which led him into more contradictions and furtheradmissions of white lies. Perhaps then, according to thishypothesis, he simply invented, on his own, various aspectsof his career. Perhaps he dated his entry into the KGBearlier to make himself seem more experienced, and inventedhis service in the American Department to make himself moreinteresting to American Intelligence. Perhaps he was onlya principal agent, not a staff officer, but learned enoughfrom his operations and from his handlers to think he couldpose as one. This hypothesis would certainly explain manyof the dubious aspects: the story of his career, his lackof information on KGB staff procedures, his ignorance ofmajor KGB events and sources, the degree of his relationshipwith GRIBANOV, etc. This theory, however, founders on anumber of points: