[104-10211-10001.pdf — page 89]
# TOP SECRET690. - NOSENKO identified George VAN LAETHEM as an Assistant Air Attache in 1953 or 1954: he was a target of another U.S. Embassy Section officer, and an unsuccessful KGB development operation was carried out against him. NOSENKO did not know that VAN LASTHEM was actually an Assistant Army Attache, who left Moscow in March 1953 and was succeeded by NOSENKO's own target Walter MULE (see above). What NOSENKO additionally did not know is that in Moscow VAN LAETHEM was the Attache cryptographic security officer, the superior of Dayle SMITH (the subject of NOSE KO'S "ANDREY" lead--see below) and a friend of the motor pool sergeant Roy RHODES, a KGB agent. NOSENKO furthermore did not know that on 19 March 1955, again as en Army Attache, and only two years after being transferred from Moscow, VAN LAETHEM was again sent to Moscow, ostensibly on a PCS assignment but actually on temporary duty. During this latter assignment, when NOSENKO by his own account should have been responsible for him, VAN LAETHEM was in Moscow to review the entire electronics program at the Embassy. (VAN LAETHEM's second tour in Moscow involved the planned use of the electronic equipment. which was seized in Stalingrad while VAN LAETHEM was still in Moscow.)d. Additional ReportingHis information on two other operations involving Americans was said by NOSENKO to stem from his 1953-1955 service in the U.S. Embassy Section. One was the recruitment of the military cipher machine mechanic having the KGB cryptonym "ANDREY" (Dayle SMITH, see Pages 413-426 and further comments in Part VIII.B.3. and VIII.C.). NOSENKO in 1962 was sure not only that this recruitment took place before he joined the KGB but that "ANDREY" had left the USSR by then as well: he repeatedly estimated "ANDREY'S" recruitment date as "1949-1950." At all times he has claimed certainty that "ANDREY" was the last KGB recruitment in the Embassy until the time of NOSENKO's defection in January 1964. In 1964, however, NOSE KO changed his story and said "ANDREY" was active while NOSENKO was in the U.S. Embassy Section it. 1954-1955. The other operation was an unsuccessful recruitment approach to the U.S. Embassy Security Officer Edward Ellis SMITH (see Pages 468-469 and further comments in Part VIII.B.3. and VIII.C. above) at a meeting with the KGB arranged through letters which had been sent to SMITH. This occurred in 1954 or 1955, NOSENKO said, and in support of the recruitment approach, he handled the surveillance phone-watch. SMITH admitted to U.S. authorities having received four letters from the KGB between 2 and 5 June 1956 (a year after NOSENKO dated his departure from the U.S. Embassy Section), but he denied having had any personal meetings with KGB officers.e. RemarksNOSENKO's accounts of the 1953-1955 period are confused, contradictory, and, when compared with collateral information, incomplete and inaccurate. He has been inconsistent in dating his shift of responsibilities within the U.S. Embassy Section, in dating his departure from the Section (viz., the timing of the Stalingrad incident and the approach to SMITH), and in dating his first knowledge of the microphones in the Embassy. Having# TOP SECRET