[104-10332-10009.pdf — page 51]
532Mr. MURPHY. Well, the pattern before was one of pretty much permitting Nosenko to call the shots. In other words, we wanted his cooperation and we wanted to discuss these things in a reasonable manner, but his preference was not to sit still for a full day's briefing, to want to go out socially all the time, which made it difficult the next day to continue to work. And the most important aspect, I think, of the change was the decision to confront him with inconsistencies as opposed to taking what he said and passing it on.Mr. KLEIN. What about the day-to-day living conditions, were they changed?Mr. MURPHY. Well, he was not permitted to leave. He was not permitted to depart.Mr. KLEIN. Other than that, his day-to-day treatment, not the actual interrogation sessions, but his food intake, his recreation, was that changed at that time?Mr. MURPHY. I don't think so, not that early. I don't remember that.* * * Mr. KLEIN. Subsequent to April 4, is it correct that Nosenko was interrogated by people from the Soviet Russia Division?Mr. MURPHY. That is right.Mr. KLEIN. And how were the particular subareas on which he was interrogated chosen?Mr. MURPHY. I am not sure. I don't know. Subject areas? This is a guess, this is a recollection, but I think the decision was made based on what the CIA people thought offered the best opportunity to get an admission and to break on that. In other words, I think it was based on points that they had collateral on. By that I mean other information which said what this man is saying is not the truth or this man does not know about this and, therefore, let us hit him hard on this. And so it was a fully tactical, these were tactical considerations relating to possession of information in the hands of the interrogators which then offered the best opportunity to get through and get the truth.One breakthrough it was felt, as is normally the case, gives you other breakthroughs. The decision on what subjects to be interrogated was essentially a factor of the tactics of the debriefing.Mr. KLEIN. Would it be fair to say that after April 4 the subject areas were determined by a desire to try to catch him, to break him, as opposed to a desire to gain knowledge that would be of use to you in your role as an intelligence agency? In other words, knowledge of the operation.Mr. MURPHY. That is an accurate impression. The answer is yes because by the end of April there was a view that the man was not telling the truth, that parts of what he was saying were known to be untrue and that, therefore, made no sense, and although the reasons for his behavior and his statements were not clear, it made no sense then, it did not appear to make sense to accept as valid any data he might provide unless you could be sure that that data was in fact correct, and there were so many doubts about this, leaving aside the motivation for it, the contradictions or the way in which he presented it, that the information was not considered acceptable.* * * * Mr. KLEIN. Were you aware of the substance of what Nosenko had to say about Oswald?Mr. MURPHY. From the very first. I mean, when he first said it back in February or March.Mr. KLEIN. Do you recall now the substance of it?Mr. MURPHY. No; not exactly, anything I said would be polluted by so much back and forth. I know that the thrust of the message was that Oswald was never of interest to the Soviet Intelligence Services, that he was never debriefed by them, and I can guarantee that because I was personally involved in the affair. There is more detail, but I can't really pin it down.Mr. KLEIN. Did you accept this statement by Nosenko?Mr. MURPHY. I did not. I did not believe that it would be possible for the Soviet Intelligence Services to have remained indifferent to the arrival in 1959 in Moscow of a former Marine radar operator who had served at what was an active U-2 operational base. I found that to be strange. It was only later, I think, that as the Nosenko case and its other ramifications began to emerge that it seemed to me that the Oswald story became even more unusual.I think I mentioned the other day it seems to me almost to have been tacked on or to have been added as though it didn't seem to be part of the real body of