[104-10332-10009.pdf — page 61]
statement of some employee or something. He was designated by the present Director to come here and present the story because he was supposed to be the most familiar with it since he had reviewed it for the CIA.He stated in substance, Mr. Nosenko was taken into custody in this country by the CIA after defection or after alleged defection, held in a so-called safe house on a diet of tea and porridge twice a day, was allowed no reading material. The guards were instructed neither to talk to him or smile to him. He was subjected to 48 hours at a crack interrogation. This being while they built a separate facility somewhere else in the country; namely, a device described by him as a bank vault, and then built a house around the bank vault to put this man in and then kept him there under the equivalent of some 3 years with that kind of thing, 1,277 days to be specific, at which point they finally gave up and gave him some emolument and put him on their payroll and let him go.And then they gave as their-I questioned on the authority to do a thing like that. Did they have any kind of process, and they said other than the fact that Mr. Helms had conferred with you and gotten your OK, that this would be legal. And I just found it awfully difficult to believe that. And that is why and I don't imagine it would be the kind of thing that you would be asked to OK enough that you would not rather clearly remember the incident if it had occurred.Mr. KATZENBACH. If the facts that you have just set forth to me, Congressman, had ever been made known to me, I would recollect it, I am certain; and I would hope to goodness I would not have given the legal advice that is claimed.Mr. SAYWER. It makes me feel better about it. Thank you.That is all I have, Mr. Chairman.Having heard Mr. Katzenbach's testimony of yesterday, can you reconcile his testimony to this committee with your statement just read to this committee?Mr. HELMS. I can only say, Mr. Stokes, that it is very hard to reconcile. I think the basic point at issue here is really whether the meeting with him took place at all. What happened after the meeting is something he was not responsible for as far as I am aware.Let me read to you the memorandum for the record which Mr. Lawrence R. Houston, the General Counsel of CIA, wrote on April 3, 1964. I have a copy in front of me. It is headed Memorandum for the Record and the subject is the Nosenko case.It reads:Mr. Helms, Mr. Murphy, and I met with Mr. Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, J. Walter Yeagley, William E. Foley, and Harold F. Ries, on April 2, 1964. Mr. Helms outlined the problems foreseeable in our future relations with Nosenko and asked the opinion of the Justice representatives on what we could do to control the situation. I pointed out that his technical status is one of exclusion and parole-or more technically, deferment and parole.Paragraph 2:After some discussion, Mr. Foley stated it was his opinion that Agency representatives could take any action necessary to carry out the terms of the parole. Mr. Katzenbach asked Mr. Foley to check this and let me know and Mr. Foley later confirmed this position by telephone.I in turn, after the meeting, reviewed the parole agreement and provided an interpretation thereof for Director of Security, a copy of which is attached hereto. Also, I informed Mr. Foley of this interpretation. Signed, Lawrence R. Houston, General Counsel.The attachment is a memorandum also dated April 3, 1964. It is signed by Lawrence R. Houston, General Counsel. It is a memorandum for the director of security. That would be the officer who was the director of the security office of the Central Intelligence Agency. The subject is Parole status of defectors:On 2 April 1964, we had a discussion with the Department of Justice on the status of aliens whose inspection by INS-