13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT COLD WARRIOR: James Jesus Angleton: The CIA's Master Spy Hunter, by Tom Mangold; Simon and Schuster (New York, N.Y.), 1991--403 pages The only book that focuses solely on James Angleton as the central subject is Tom Mangold's Cold Warrior. All previous books have dealt with Angleton in a peripheral manner with the former CIA chief of counterintelligence as a secondary subject although he often was a primary source. The idea of a biography on Angleton had been around for some time. William Hood, a competent writer of spy stories, expressed an interest but was dissuaded when he became convinced the readers on the Publications Review Staff at Langley would hack his work to pieces, a la Admiral Turner's book. Paul Greengrass, who ghosted Peter Wright's Spycatcher also toyed with the idea, but was unable to find proper financing. In the summer of 1987, Mangold got the bug and began hunting for a publisher. He soon had two possibilities, Random House and Simon and Schuster. He chose the latter because they offered the largest advance ($300,000), which attracted Mangold because he knew he would be off pay from his regular employer, the BBC, for two years, he had a large family to support, the job would require considerable travel, and he would have to employ a competent research analyst. But in accepting Simon and Schuster's offer, he also got Alice Mayhew as his editor-- but more about that later. Mangold made a scouting trip to America in late 1987 to find a research assistant and settled upon a Washington free lancer named Jeffrey Goldberg, a spectacularly successful choice. Goldberg proved to be the kind of relentless researcher for factual detail and truth rarely found in modern journalism. He also was a good interviewer, although 38 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT Mangold handled personally the most important targets. Together they made a formidable team. One of their earliest successes was an interview with David Martin, the author of Wilderness of Mirrors. Martin welcomed Mangold's enterprise and gave him his list of retired CIA, FBI and other knowledgeable persons on the Agency and particularly on the Angleton debate. Shortly after, Goldberg went to New Haven to see Professor Robin Winks, author of Cloak and Gown, a successful book on espionage figures hailing from Yale University during World War II and a minor authority on Angleton. Winks wanted $2000 for a two hour interview, but Goldberg got him for $600, which proved a good buy as Winks had material left over from his book which in effect he turned over to Goldberg. Among this material was the name of Max Corvo, a successful Connecticut lawyer, who had served in OSS in Italy with Angleton and had concluded he was a fraud. They had become bitter enemies, a condition which passed into post-war life. Corvo, in particular, knew the details of the "Vessel" operation, a supposed penetration by Angleton of the Vatican (later codenamed "ZYGOMA") which Corvo claims was a disaster in which Angleton was swindled by a Soviet émigré and a Jesuit priest. Angleton's henchman in this operation was a Counterintelligence Center officer named Mario Brod, who continued to work for Angleton in New York after the war. Corvo told Goldberg to follow up this lead. Goldberg did and it ylelded eventually the story of Angleton's connection with Jay Lovestone, although they also got corroborating information on this affair from Tom Braden, a former CIA officer. Mangold is a professional writer who, quite understandably, wishes to realize a maximum financial reward for his labor, but he was also anxious that his book be an honest and accurate story fully sourced. However, he 39 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 “CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT realized that some of his sources (he was warned on this by Martin) would likely wish to remain anonymous (as Epstein's source had in Legend), but he insisted that otherwise every fact in the book be carefully sourced. When he explained this to his editor at Simon and Schuster, she exploded in disgust. It was the occasion of their first falling out, of which there would be many; she shouted at Mangold that what she wanted was a book full of sensational exposes of the CIA, she didn't care where they came from or how well documented, if at all! Her rule was, she admonished Mangold, “to produce a book that grabs a guy and he can read on the hour flight from L.A. to Vegas." It was clear Mangold and his editor were not on the same wave length. Additionally, Ms. Mayhew was at this time shepherding three other books toward publication: Kitty Kelly's book on Nancy Reagan, Robert Woodward's on General Powell, and Lou Cannon's work on President Reagan. It is little wonder ina field like this, Mangold's book about a little known and now dead CIA officer could hardly claim his editor's attention for long. Mangold suffered another setback early in his work on the book. He knew from Paul Greengrass and other British sources that Angleton had enjoyed a.close relation with British intelligence that had Gouréed adly on the London side toward the end of his career. Mangold was hoping to expand on this issue over what appeared in books like Wright's Spycatcher. He therefore made. a number of preliminary soundings, but very soo he was </siven to understand by a senior British off cid ah knew was connected with SIS (MI-6) that the British Government would view verf negatively any exhaustive inquiry of Angleton's association with either SIS or MI-5. At the time, Mangold had been given a specially important documentary involving the KGB defector Gordievsky to produce; the implication was that if Mangold transgressed the rule laid down to leave 40 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT British intelligence out of his book, this documentary and others in future on which official help might be required would be at hazard. Mangold had no recourse but to accept this ultimatum, consequently there is little about Angleton's influence on British intelligence, especially in the 1960s, in the book. When Cold Warrior appeared, some Agency officers expressed shock that Mangold explained in his foreward he had interviewed some 208 retired CIA offices (he did not-- curiously--mention he had also interviewed about 35 FBI retirees), apparently in the belief that never before had so many CIA retirees broken their secrecy oath. This is hardly the case. In 1986 a book appeared called The Agency: The “Rise and Decline of the cra by John Ranelagh, another British writer. Ranelagh admits to having interviewed “several hundred" ("over 350" he told the writer) CIA retirees, which makes Mangold a poor second. However, Ranelagh had a kind of laissez-passer from the Agency; he was guided and given dozens of introductions by the late John Bross and praises the assistance he got from the likes of R. Jack Smith, Larry Houston and others. The difference in attitude about these two exercises is that Ranelagh's book was largely regarded as a "benign" view of CIA, while Mangold's book, though not anti-CIA, is very critical of Angleton, his activities, and especially those superiors who should have known what he was doing and did not, or knew and quietly approved. None of this, of course, justifies a retired CIA officer breaking his secrecy oath whether he be R. Jack Smith or Leonard McCoy, and at any rate in neither case is thak proof they did. A far more serious charge against Mangold's work has been made concerning instances where CIA and/or FBI retirees revealed information about a sensitive source who had taken great risks to provide intelligence on the Soviet Union, the 41 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 yy Cy. CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT obvious case in Cold Warrior being the Soviet codenamed Nick Nack and later Morine. This instance parallels Epstein's revelations about Fedora and Top Hat, two FBI sources of the 1960s about whom Epstein disclosed considerable data, for which Mangold takes him to task. Epstein's revelations about them beginning in the late 1970s could have compromised them. Mangold argues that he understood the last pass from Nick Nack was c. 1972 and he had not been heard from since. At the time of writing that event was nearly twenty years past and it might be assumed the man was retired, but like Top Hat he was made vulnerable by Western revelations. Mangold knew Top Hat suffered the death penalty; both he and his informants should have been more responsible in restricting knowledge of Nick Nack. Retirees' revelations can be equally damaging to liaison relationships, although on some potentially explosive disclosures it seems Mangold's key sources were neither CIA nor FBI. For example, the story about Golitsyn and CAZAB in Australia came from retired General Sir Charles Spry, former head of ASIO. The story about the Tango case in Canada obviously came from Mangold's excellent journalistic sources in Ottawa to whom Sawatsky had directed him. The de Vosjoli story Mangold got partly from FBI sources, some from Walter Elder, former aide to Director John McCone (who asked Elder to speak for him), and from de Vosjoli himself, whom Mangold caught up with in Geneva, Switzerland. De Vosjoli threatened to sue Mangold's publisher for millions if the true story were told about him, thus the story in the book is considerably diluted to satisfy Simon and Schuster's legal experts. Some critics of Mangold's book complain that the work J is one long litany of Angleton's misjudgments and failures, . / / unrelieved by anything worthwhile professionally he might a have done. There is some merit in this charge. Before the 42 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT arrival of Golitsyn, Angleton and the CI Staff had done approximately what the original CI Staff charter required. That, however, was pretty unexciting stuff and would never have survived Ms. Mayhew's knife. The one story, which might have served to balance the rest slightly, would have been an account of Angleton's handling of the Israeli liaison. Accordingly, Mangold interviewed several Mossad officers, had Goldberg do the necessary research, and they produced a worthy account of the 26 years Angleton had ' guided the Agency's relations with Israeli intelligence. It had nothing new or particularly startling to reveal, although it presented a different version of how the famous "secret speech" by Khruschev was obtained (there are several variants). The Israeli chapter compared favorably (perhaps even was better) than the official CIA history (read by this writer) done by a professional Agency historian enjoying access to official records and such experts as Stephen Millett, then alive who was for twenty years head of the Israeli desk. It was the cause of much resentment on Mangold's part when Ms. Mayhew cut out the Israeli chapter entirely on the grounds it contained nothing new or sensational. One vigorous critic of the Mangold book declared that it failed to note Angleton's singular great accomplishment, namely, he had not allowed a penetration during his twenty- year stewardship. This is palpable nonsense. Some people both before Angleton became Chief of the CI Staff as well as afterward, were put out of CIA on security grounds (though not as discovered penetrations), but this was the work of the Office of Security, not Angleton although he was aware of such cases. When Golitsyn first arrived, he told Allen Dulles there was no Soviet penetration of CIA, although he later abruptly changed his story to say there was penetration, an alteration obviously intended to preserve his primacy as the CI Staff guru. Nosenko also told his 43 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT debriefers he knew of no penetration, but as this contradicted Golitsyn's claim, Nosenko was immediately subjected to hostile interrogation and subsequently jailed for three years. Long after Angleton was fired, it was discovered there were two penetrations of the Agency during the last period of his command--a Czech agent, whose product was passed on to the KGB, and a Chinese Communist agent who had entered on active duty as a staff officer in 1970. However, Angleton could hardly have been expected to uncover a Chinese Communist agent as he had no section devoted to the study of the Chinese Communist intelligence organs. Mangold's critics also make much of the mole hunts, some suggesting the doubtful proposition they prevented penetration. The mole hunt was actually a minor and for Angleton disappointing part of his activities; in reality only a handful of officers suffered career degradation although some endured considerable humiliation. Any fair-minded examination of the cases reveals there should have been neither; the four cases which were shown to the FBI were immediately dismissed as unworthy of further investigation. In short, Angleton's mole hunt was not what prevented penetration of CIA; partly it was due to the massive incompetence of the KGB itself, but an even more powerful reason was the faceless polygraph operators and their machines. In the end, the best thing that can be said for Mangold's book is that it is honest and reasonably (about 95 percent) accurate. True, there are errors, e.g., the official CI Staff history is 11 not 12 volumes in length, and it presents NO conclusions, although most observers would not quarrel with the conclusions Mangold assigns to the work. It is in fact surprising the book does not have more errors given the fact the author worked from limited 44 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 “CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT documentary material except for what was in the public domain via the Congressional Hearings. Mangold's FOIA requests to the Agency yielded virtually nothing. Much of the overt literature about Angleton is wildly in error or the author's interpretations have been tailored to fit Angleton's thus rendering them of minimal value. Despite this, Mangold uncovered as he progressed with his research an embarrassment of riches including many misdemeanors and egregious acts that would have been immensely humiliating to Angleton's adherents had they been included. They should cast a medal for Ms. Mayhew as her dictum the book could NOT exceed 400 pages meant that masses of material had to be cut out. Whether this emasculation improved the book's sales is much open to question (20,000 were printed in the United States and it has sold out; 10,000 printed in the United Kingdom but the book did not sell out there; there will be a paperback edition). But what Mangold was able to cram into the 400 pages is devastating. Forget the mole hunt and its victims, if one wishes, but look at the following cases: Nosenko, Loginov, Lygren, Bennett, Farmakovskaya~-the conclusion is inescapable: something was seriously wrong. That Mangold was able to mine such knowledgeable sources amongst the CIA and FBI retirees is likely a once-in-a-century event for it seems improbable that any single individual will ever stir as many people so deeply again. Something in Angleton's character, at once attractive but also repulsive, his intellectual arrogance perhaps, drove people to distraction. It was wrong,so many chose to ignore their oaths in speaking to Mangold and Goldberg, but it is human nature for people to wish to put the record straight. 45 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT Molehunt: The Secret Search for Traitors That Shattered the CIA by David Wise; Random House (New York, N.Y.), 1992--325 pages David Wise, sometimes referred to as the dean of espionage reporters, has produced a very readable and quite accurate account of the molehunt in the CIA under James Angleton in the 1960s, but it is shameless hyperbole to title it as an event that "shattered the CIA." He says that at most there were fifty some cases and of those he discusses eight and only three of those in detail. They are Peter Karlow, Richard Kovich, and Paul Garbler. He also does a brief review of the Yankovskys and Edgar Snow, but these cases preceded Golitsyn and the 1960s mania. He also mentions briefly the attempts by Angleton to paint David Murphy as a Soviet agent, but Murphy's refusal to talk to Wise effectively limited the issue to a few paragraphs. He fails to mention that 99 percent of CIA personnel never knew of the mole hunt for the simple reason the investigations of the few targeted were kept so completely secret. Only in the decade after the 1960s did some DO officers learn that a ‘few of their colleagues had been under investigation, although then the gossip spread rapidly. Even then, except for a few Security officers, the vast majority of CIA people have learned of these bizarre events only in the last decade when the story was picked up by investigative journalists. When Wise began research for his book in 1989, it appeared he intended to write a biography of Angleton, but he soon learned an English writer named Tom Mangold had beat him off the mark by more than a year. Recognizing his handicap, especially when he discovered Mangold had gagged many of the best sources, Wise had to regroup. At this point he decided to concentrate on the mole hunt as the center piece of this book. He had more than his share of 46 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT problems in putting his book together, but in Karlow and Garbler he had two very voluble sources and their accounts, perhaps a bit gilded, make up a good part of the book. But Wise, as the consummate writer, has woven many other threads into his tapestry and in the end the work is a useful history and mostly accurate. He has, however, in the process lifted material shamelessly from Mangold's much more detailed story of Angleton and his time for which he gives little credit. On the whole, Wise has done his homework well and the book is full of interesting stories even if many are already known. There is, however, one major error which emerges in the part on Igor Orlov. Because Wise has depended strongly on his FBI sources and retired old CI Staff officers like N.S. Miler, he has produced a garbled version of the Igor Orlov and Sasha stories. If Wise's sources do not believe Kitty Hawk was genuine, then he was unlikely to give much importance to the American military person Kitty Hawk identified as a major KGB source of valuable intelligence (including volumes of CIA material). By contrast, this tends to make Igor Orlov seem not so unimportant, when in fact he was a low-level CIA agent (and never a CIA staff officer) in Germany whose career was finished by 1959. Nonetheless, he was considered important and his product was much valued in Moscow. Golitsyn, as he frequently did with other matters, probably got these two individuals confused. He likely thought Orlov, who Golitsyn claimed was in CIA, was the source for the massive amounts of material from the American who was for two separate periods stationed in Germany. Naturally, Miler does not wish to advertise the value of the military officer, whose identity could have been resolved had the CI Staff done a proper analysis of the leads they had separately from Golitsyn and Nosenko. The 47 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT case somewhat resembles that of Vassall in England. Each defector made a valuable contribution, but in this case Nosenko's lead was discounted as throwaway or deception, and so nothing serious was done to identify the real Sasha. It is by far the worst example of the CI Staff's failure to do a simple job of CI analysis. They could have been heroes but with their mind set, they failed completely. Wise has missed the significance of this point, but perhaps just as well. Things are bad enough as they are. The intelligence literature discussed below is by British authors and deals almost solely with British events. None of the books are anti-CIA in the usual sense. Several express some respect for James Angleton though this attitude . is in retreat by the end of the 1980s. A few of the books explore the Golitsyn-Nosenko controversy and some think Golitsyn helped British intelligence. At least three authors received help from Angleton although the amount of | information he imparted is difficult to measure as the books are poorly sourced. Most of the writing is critical of MI-5 in varying degrees with less attention given to SIS (MI-6) except where the Philby and Blake cases are discussed. Despite what appears to be a low Angleton profile, he in fact played an important role in igniting a series of events that proved embarrassing to the Thatcher government. Had she not enjoyed such strong majorities in the House of Commons, one or more of these affairs conceivably might have brought her government down. Angleton always took a keen interest in British intelligence affairs dating from his early experience with Philby. Later, partly on Angleton's recommendation, the defector Golitsyn spent nearly five months in Britain in 1963 and met with British security and intelligence people 48 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 1 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT / ne wo impression on two British officers in particular: Arthur oe _ times afterward. Golitsyn made a powerful Martin, the senior counterespionage officer in MI-5, and Stephen de Mowbray, a junior officer in MI-6 who served as second officer for MI-6 in Washington in the mid-1960s. Both men uncritically accepted Golitsyn's ideas about penetration and deception. Most of the earlier converts to Golitsyn's ideas dropped out, especially Sir Maurice Oldfield who became Chief of MI-6, as events began to cast doubt on the defector's credibility. Peter Wright, always sensitive to what the powerful believed, was at first a Golitsyn advocate, but later became a critic as the power barons in MI-5 turned against the Soviet defector. However, Martin and de Mowbray have remained faithful to Golitsyn and de Mowbray in particular became a source for Epstein. Angleton's influence in MI-5 and MI-6 also suffered a decline during the early 1970s. Both Martin and de Mowbray had retired, and Wright retired in 1976, leaving for Tasmania shortly after. Although Wright was out of touch, Martin and de Mowbray remained in contact with Angleton as well as Golitsyn. In the early 1980s Martin and de Mowbray assisted Golitsyn in the preparation of his book New Lies for Old. Like Wright, they were much frustrated by their inability to get the authorities to consider their case against Mitchell and, especially, against Hollis. De Mowbray fervently believed the West was not sufficiently alert to the threat of Soviet deception; and he was especially annoyed when a paper he had prepared on Soviet penetration with special reference to Hollis received no response from 10 Downing Street, where he had personally delivered it to the Prime Minister's secretary. In 1978 Andrew Boyle, an English writer, came to Washington to do research at the National Archives on a book he was preparing on the career of a notable Englishman 49 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT rumored to have been a Soviet agent during World War ITI. The subject in question was Sir Anthony Blunt, who had long been the subject of malicious gossip revolving around his homosexual Life style as well as his known close association with Guy Burgess and Kim Philby. Boyle had done lengthy research on Blunt's background at public school and university plus his well known role as Keeper of the Queen's Pictures. Boyle's intention was to make the strongest possible case his quarry was a Soviet agent without getting himself in legal difficulty. He therefore codenamed the subject of his book "Maurice" after a homosexual character in an E.M. Forster novel. During his research in Washington, Boyle met James Murphy, Angleton's wartime boss as head of X-2 in OSS, who in turn introduced him to Angleton. As a result there are many references in his book to Angleton, which are always respectful and usually heavily laden with metaphoric allusions to patient angling or the careful nurturing of orchids. The Boyle book, called The Climate of Treason, appeared on 5 November 1979 and within ten days forced Mrs. Thatcher to admit to Parliament Blunt's confession in 1964 to having been a Soviet agent while working for MI-5 and that to obtain full disclosure of his treachery he had been given a grant of immunity from prosecution. This agreement had been kept a secret for fifteen years during which time he worked for the Royal Household and had been given a knighthood by the Queen. The shock of the disclosure about Blunt was only the first and least damaging of several that were in store for Mrs. Thatcher. This was ironic, for even from her Opposition years and unlike her predecessors, she had taken a keen interest in the secret world. She made a point of getting to know her chiefs of the secret services, and she had a close and mutually admiring association with Sir Maurice Oldfield, Chief of SIS (MI-6) from 1973-79. 50 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT She also came to depend heavily upon Sir Robert Armstrong who was not only Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet but was also her principal security adviser. Usually this secret world would have remained part of her private work, but events beyond her control precipitated a number of disasters. After her long and revealing statement about Blunt, it sees d toe confirm her as an exponent of an unusual candor, as\sel]/as intending to demystify as far as possible the secret world. The question of how much penetration there had been of the foreign, secret and security services in the 1940's and 1950's seemed to have taken a large step toward closure. With Mrs. Thatcher's disclosure, the Boyle book became a best seller and earned its author a considerable reputation as well as much money. However, for some inexplicable reason, Boyle in chapter nine included a story which brought him much trouble and caused his enhanced reputation to take a serious tumble. In chapter nine, titled "Enter the Fifth Man," Boyle introduces a figure codenamed "Basil" who he suggests was a slightly homosexual nuclear scientist serving in the British Embassy in Washington with Donald Maclean. From this slender evidence he suggests this person as a likely candidate for "The Fifth Man." The press was immediately in hot pursuit, while Boyle dodged and hedged. Very soon they located an elderly British scientist in Washington named Wilfrid Basil Mann who was now an American citizen working at the National Bureau of Standards, but who in 1949-51 had served as a scientific liaison officer to CIA with Philby in the MI-6 office. Dr. Mann denied he was "The Fifth Man" and rather belatedly the American authorities came to his rescue with assurances he was not nor ever had been a Soviet agent. Both Boyle and Angleton remained silent on the case of Dr. Mann (Boyle had never interviewed Mann nor did he apologize 51 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 _ CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT after the affair was resolved) and it was left to Dr. Mann later to write his own rebuttal in which he set the record completely straight. | Dr. Mann, who had a personal friendship with Angleton in the Philby days, remains perplexed regarding the origins of the affair and as both Boyle and Angleton are dead, it is. likely the issue may never be fully resolved. However, we know that Angleton and Boyle had a close relationship during Boyle's stay in Washington. The likely result was that Angleton confirmed Boyle's suspicions of Blunt; it further seems likely that at some point Angleton, in his peculiarly circular and obscure way of speaking, provided the Mann . story because Mann had worked as an intelligence officer under Philby in Washington. For unexplained reasons, Boyle got the story wrong and foolishly included it in his otherwise quite admirable book. Dr. Allen Weinstein, reviewing the affair later, called it a "case of blatant McCarythism based on gossip from spook informants." That accurately sums it up, but it does not relieve the distress and embarrassment Dr. and Mrs. Mann suffered at the hands of the media during their brief moment of fame. The early 1980s were marked by more trouble for Mrs. Thatcher from the secret world. Aside from the union trouble at GCHQ, following the conviction of Geoffrey Prime for spying for the Soviets in 1982, the worst of the shocks came with the publication of a Their Trade is Treachery by the investigative journalist, Chapman Pincher, in 1981. Within a brief time after its appearance, Mrs. Thatcher was forced to make yet another admission to the House of Commons. The Pincher book, far more than the union and espionage problems at GCHQ, was to prove a major political difficulty because it triggered a series of events culminating in the famous Spycatcher trial in Australia in 1986. 52 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT The Pincher book and events surrounding it was to some ‘extent the result of a conversation between a Tory MP named Jonathan Aitken and James Angleton in Washington in December of 1979 just a few days after Mrs. Thatcher had made her admission regarding Blunt. For reasons best known to himself, Angleton hinted darkly to Aitken that the Blunt revelations were just the tip of a mammoth problem, which might well lead to an investigation of penetrations of MI-5 and MI-6. Aitken, fascinated, asked for more data, but Angleton demurred and said he would think how to proceed. Upon his return to England, Aitken found a letter from Angleton telling him to speak to Arthur Martin and ‘Christopher Phillpotts, both of whom had been deeply ‘involved in mole-hunting. Aitken contacted the two men and they told him exactly what Angleton intended he should hear: that in 1963 and after there had been prolonged investigations into Mitchell and Hollis as putative Soviet agents. An idea of what they were told is reflected in the letter Aitken subsequently sent Mrs. Thatcher, a copy of which is attached to the summary of the Pincher book. Angleton's revelations to Aitken, however, are minor compared to what was to happen next. Aitken told Pincher some or likely most of what he had learned from Martin and Phillpotts, but then in the early autumn of 1980 events took an even more bizarre turn. At that time Lord Rothschild brought Peter Wright from Australia and introduced him to Chapman Pincher. This led to a working partnership between Wright and Pincher resulting in the eventual publication of Their Trade is Treachery, which revealed the investigations within MI-5 of Hollis and Mitchell as possible Soviet agents as well as many other MI-5 secrets. It was this book which forced Mrs. Thatcher to confirm there had been such investigations but that subsequent reviews of the cases demonstrated there was no evidence to support such charges. 53 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT 5 coh Lan Ng It was not\ known when Pincher's book became a best - geller that the major source for his sensational book was Peter Wright, who was quietly tucked away in Australia on his stud farm. Nor was there common knowledge of the role Angleton had played in getting the project underway. There was, however, much speculation about the source for so much sensitive material, but in all the excitement about the public charges against Hollis and Mitchell attention was diverted from some basic issues. ‘In 1986 all the mystery was to be resolved because that year it was learned Peter Wright had completed a book and was moving to have it published. The book called Spycatcher was to be published by Heinemann's branch in Australia. Upon learning this, the British government immediately got an injunction to stop the book and the trial followed. It was then that the disturbing fact emerged that not only had Wright been the main source for Pincher's allegations against Hollis and Mitchell, but knowing this and having the opportunity to stop Pincher from publishing, a small group within the British government (including MI-5) had decided not to go to law. Pincher, in other words, had virtually published with government approval. This revelation fatally undermined the British government's position not only in Australia but elsewhere as well. It led to wholesale publications of Spycatcher in many countries so that when the case finally wended its passage to a final hearing in the House of Lords, the judges found themselves unable to uphold the obligation of confidentiality on which the government depended. As the affair unfolded, over a period of years between 1985 and 1988, the government's efforts to stop publication came to be seen as absurd as they were desperate. 54 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT ©
13-00000 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT As the problem developed, Mrs. Thatcher pushed a proxy defender forward. Sir Robert Armstrong was assigned to carry the British government's case in the Australian court. In this forum he did not do well; he was a reluctant witness, harried by a disrespectful young Australian lawyer, Malcolm Turnbull, but he did what duty demanded and put himself on the rack. He was as he ruefully admitted, the government's “fall guy” in the desperate effort to exhaust every remedy against Wright's book. He will always be. remembered for his memorable locution during the trial that it was necessary sometimes in his job "to be economical with the truth." 4 ad La a A +udh aphem Wi The book that ignited Mrs. Thatcher's futile effort was the work of Peter Wright, but ghost written by Paul Greengrass. Wright was a discontented former MI-5 officer who had two major grievances against his former employer: (1) their failure to give him his full pension to which by any standard of decency he was entitled and for which under secrecy regulations he possessed no redress; and (2) his former service's determination that it could not be proved Hollis had been a Soviet agent, a position much reinforced by a year long study by Lord Trend, a former Cabinet Secretary. To this was added a whiff of the good life resulting from money he had received for his share in Their Trade is Treachery. Wright could have had no idea his own book by an accident of fate would be propelled onto the best seller lists and thus make him a fortune. As regards the culminating event, the great Spycatcher trial in Australia, there are three books worth reading, each in its own way very different from the others. There is also a chapter in David Hooper's Official Secrets: called "The Wright Case: A Tale of Perversity," which is an excellent summary by a British solicitor who participated in the case as a member of Turnbull's team. The most spirited 55 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 “CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT book though a bit prejudiced is Turnbull's account of the trial in Sydney titled The Spycatcher Trial. The second book is by called The Spycatcher Affair and although /self-exculpatory,)is a good account of what transpired from 1980 e trial in Australia. The final book is Molehunt by Nigel West and although only the last part of the book covers the Spycatcher trial, it gives a good summary of events leading up to it, albeit from a pro- Thatcher point of view. In the end, a cartoon that appeared in a London daily perhaps most accurately summed it all up; it shows a group of bewigged barristers in the office of Her Majesty's Attorney General and one is commenting: "So far the legal fees come to approximately ten million pounds-- wouldn't it have been cheaper to have increased the old codger's pension in the first place?" Just a bit of common sense. 56 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 “CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT The Climate of Treason by Andrew Boyle; Hodder and Stoughton (New York, N.¥.), 1979; revised edition, 1980--574 pages Andrew Boyle's book (published in England under the title The Fourth Man) is recommended, despite its numerous errors both of fact and interpretation, because on the whole it is a good read on the Cambridge spies. It also has some slight historical significance: its publication on 5 November 1979 forced Mrs. Thatcher, then Prime Minister of Great Britain, only ten days later to confirm that Sir Anthony Blunt, a wartime officer with MI-5 and later Keeper of the Queen's Pictures, had been a Soviet agent. In the original edition, Boyle used the code name "Maurice" (taken from an E.M. Forster novel about a homosexual) for sound legal reasons to disguise the identity of Blunt. But there had been hints and much pub gossip for years that there was a senior British person usually described as homosexual who was a member of the Cambridge group of spies who had yet to be publicly identified. But it was impossible in the United Kingdom to confirm these rumors absolutely because the Official Secrets Act was a powerful force preventing disclosure by intelligence officers, serving or retired, of the true facts. However, the Official Secrets Act has no force in the United States and it was there in 1978 Boyle went to continue his research, where he spent much time with James Angleton. However, neither in his book nor at any time before his death from cancer in 1988 did Boyle ever admit to having received classified information from Angleton. Despite this, there are many indicators in the book, especially in the chapters on Philby and "the Fifth Man," of Angleton's influence on Boyle and it seems likely Angleton provided some conclusive evidence about Blunt to Boyle. Angleton knew about Blunt's confession from his past position as CIA Chief of Counterintelligence where he was privy to much highly classified information passed to him by 57 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT the British services. However, senior FBI counterintelligence officers also held such knowledge, thus it is possible Boyle may have received sensitive information from more than one American source. In addition to exposing Blunt the Boyle book is very good social history and is packed with solid information on the political climate of the times as well as providing a detailed review of the Cambridge spies from Burgess through Blunt and Philby. Despite its drawbacks noted above as well as below, the book is the best account of this unusual group. Only Cairncross, now positively identified as "the Fifth Man," remains to be presented in a detailed biography and that is almost certainly being worked on at this moment. It is recommended over John Costello's long-winded Mask of Treachery (William Morrow and Company; New York, N.Y., 1988), which runs off the rails with its conclusion that “the Fifth Man" was Guy Liddell, a distinguished MI-5 officer whose career extended from the early 1920's until 1958. This allegation has been denounced by authorities on every hand and much degrades the credibility of Costello's work overall. The Boyle work, however, suffers form a grotesque and inexplicable error, which may serve to validate Angelton's close association with Boyle and his contribution to the book in terms other than the revelation about Blunt. Chapter Nine is titled "Enter The Fifth Man" and rambles on for 40 pages describing in elliptical terms an atomic scientist somehow controlled by James Angleton (invariably referred to as "brilliant" and "penetrating") who was played as a double agent informant. The scientist was British, had been in the British Embassy around the time of Maclean's tour in Washington, and was code-named "Basil," the second codename Boyle employed in the book. In later editions, while Boyle abandoned his code name for Blunt (there no 58 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT longer being any need to continue the fiction), he maintained the mysterious "Basil" but provided no further elucidation. Because of the fascinating implications, the press searched frantically for "Basil's" identity while Boyle refused to supply it, claiming it was the responsibility of the Americans, who knew who he was. Finally, it.was determined there had been a Dr. Wilfrid Basil Mann in the British Embassy, and more interestingly,/ during the period Philby and Burgess were there. Dr. Mann had remained in America after that tour and became an American citizen in 1959, being employed by the National Bureau of Standards. The press quickly ran him down at his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, but Dr. Mann denied emphatically that he was "Basil" and, rather tardily, the American authorities allowed that Dr. Mann was a loyal American citizen. But most reporters missed the essential ingredient of the story, i.e., that James Angleton and Dr. Mann had been friends for some years, or at least from the time of Philby's and Dr. Mann's arrival in Washington, which nearly coincided. Grudgingly and puzzled, the press backed down from the Dr. Mann issue. In 1982 Dr. Mann produced his own brief book on the issue titled Was There a Fifth Man? in which he details his career as a scientist and proves convincingly that Boyle's allegations were careless nonsense. We now know that The Fifth Man (if we can really believe Golitsyn's assertion about a "Ring of Five") was John Cairncross, who definitely was NOT an atomic scientist. So where did Boyle get his idea for "Basil" as "the Fifth Man"? As neither Boyle nor Angleton, perhaps understandably, ever divulg anything further on the issue t¢-is.uniikely the full truth will pul J and as both are now dead, Never be known. If Dr. Man suspicions he has kept them to himself. Because Angleton was a family friend of some standing, it is unlikely Dr. Mann will speculate ina Q fashion that would (be degradjsig $> Angleton's memory. 59 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT p te i uw’ Whatever the case, ‘thd Berton iste We the "Basil" story is that dt unsubstantiated claims provided in a careless and obscure manner, tendg to downgrade the dyara jz credibility of Boyle's work by introducing an issue }hét/Was proven untrue and in any case jiaé peripheral to the main story. As a footnote to the above, the writer in February 1992 interviewed Dr. Mann regarding the Boyle story. Dr. Mann stated Boyle had never contacted him about the story nor had he, after the story had been proven false, apologized to Dr. Mann for the distress and embarrassment it had caused. Dr. Mann now has read Cold Warrior and other things about Angleton and has formed a judgment of the man different from that he held in 1980 when the trouble erupted. It is a complex story too intricate to be analyzed here, but there is strong evidence that Angleton for some unknown reason likely told Boyle various stories about Dr. Mann never completing the details and leaving a false impression on this gullible journalist. Boyle should have checked his facts further but did not. As a result a bogus story was included in what otherwise was largely an accurate book based on what Dr. Allen Weinstein, the competent author of Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, calls dubious information from “informant spooks," a reference obviously aimed at James Angleton. Their Trade is Treachery by Chapman Pincher; Sidgwick and Jackson (London), 1981--240 pages The importance of this book is now historical in the sense that, like Boyle's disclosures about Sir Anthony Blunt, it was the instrument that forced Mrs. Thatcher to admit to Parliament that Sir Roger Hollis, former Director General of MI~5, had been under investigation some years previous as a possible Soviet agent. The author of the book, Chapman Pincher, had been a gadfly of the British 60 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 “CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT government for years on intelligence and defense matters in his position as a senior reporter for Lord Beaverbrook's Daily Express. As for the book's very detailed exposition of the case against Hollis and his deputy, Graham Mitchell, while interesting as an example of how "mole mania" had gripped senior persons in the American and British intelligence and security services, it is fully accepted now that the case against the two men was entirely circumstantial and that they were innocent of the charges. The West also now has the word of Oleg Gordievsky, the important KGB defector, for this. Other supporting data on this matter may be forthcoming from now unemployed KGB officers in Moscow, and even the KGB files. At the time Pincher's book appeared there was some reason to believe James Angleton was responsible for the massive leakage to Pincher about the Hollis and Mitchell cases (he had known about them in his capacity as Chief, CI Staff) although Pincher denied this. Pincher does, however, lend credence to this theory on page 2 by noting a warning had been given Mrs. Thatcher about the explosive nature of the Hollis case by Jonathan Aitken, A Troy MP and son of the late Lord Beaverbrook. Aitken clainea td have learned about Hollis from “former members of MI-5, SIS and the CIA". on page 3 Pincher continues with the following (which sounds very familiar to those acquainted with Angleton's practice of calculated leakage): “The view of the loyal MI-5 officers who uncovered the evidence is that the Russians penetrated both the Security and Intelligence Services so deeply, and for so long, that they not only neutralized them but effectively ran them. I have established that this is also the view of senior officers of the CIA, who had been alerted to the facts." All of the foregoing is, of course, wildly in error. No senior CIA officer (except Angleton) had accepted the case against Hollis nor was the CIA about to press Mrs. Thatcher for an investigation of the matter as 61 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT Pincher implies. On the contrary, the view of CIA counterintelligence in 1980 was sturdily that the case against Hollis was the work of a small group of British officers, namely Arthur Martin, Peter Wright, and Stephen de Mowbray, all of whom were retired from their services. The CIA elements to whom Pincher refers were Angleton and a few adherents all of whom had been in retirement since 1974 or before and had ever since been leading a vendetta against the new counterintelligence people at CIA. They regarded the three British officers noted above as allies in their battle to prove Golitsyn's charges of massive penetration of the Western services. For reasons best known to himself, Angleton alone decided in late 1979 and likely in the euphoria inspired by the revelations which Mrs. Thatcher had been forced to make about Blunt, to thrust himself into the center of the Hollis controversy by leaking information on the Hollis case to Jonathan Aitken who was then visiting Washington. In 1981 Pincher was reluctant to reveal any close connection to Angleton or anything about the Aitken matter more specific than that noted above, but later in his book he makes clear that he and Angleton were in frequent correspondence, the nature of which he does not specify. The truth about the extent of Angleton's contribution to the Hollis problem was not revealed until the famous "Spycatcher" trial in Australia in 1986 when a copy of Aitken's letter was submitted to the court as evidence. It emerged that Aitken had visited Washington in December 1979 where he had a long talk with Angleton who declared he believed there would be a major investigation of MI-5 and MI-6. When a startled Aitken asked why, Angleton replied he would think of some way of answering the question. When Aitken returned to London he found a letter from Angleton awaiting him at the house of Commons. The letter told 62 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 “CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT Aitken to talk with Arthur Martin, formerly of MI-5, and Christopher Phillpotts, formerly of MI-6 (he had been chief of counterintelligence). It is now known that Angleton had written Martin about his talk with Aitken and he likely wrote Phillpotts as well. Aitken had known Martin well from his days after leaving MI-6 (he had been transferred out of MI-5 over to MI-6) when he worked for several years as a clerk to the House of Commons. It now appears that Martin told Aitken the entire story about the Hollis and Mitchell investigations; Aitken in turn used this information in his famous "warning" letter to Mrs. Thatcher. Later Aitken, who was very close to Pincher, told him the story including the fact he had sent a personal warning to Mrs. Thatcher via a “confidential and personal" letter. Angleton's role, though not mentioned to Mrs. Thatcher, was made clear to Pincher, which is why Pincher makes frequent reference to hin. Thus Pincher knew a great deal but he did not have the whole story. The massive amount of inside information in his book came from another source. In September 1980 Pincher received a telephone message from Lord Rothschild to come as soon as possible to his home in Cambridge. When Pincher noted it was a late Sunday afternoon with crowded roads, Rothschild said he would send his Rolls with driver from London to pick him up and bring him directly to Rothschild's home. Pincher agreed and when he arrived, Rothschild introduced him to a person he did not know but soon discovered was Peter Wright. Rothschild after dinner withdrew and Pincher spent the evening debriefing Wright on a number of intelligence issues, chief amongst them being the Hollis and Mitchell cases. Later a financial agreement was reached between the two parties, and to acquire further details, Pincher with his wife flew to Australia where he could debrief Wright at his leisure. It was an astonishing lode. Pincher could hardly grasp his good fortune. Ina later book, Pincher exclaimed, "To someone as obsessively 63 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT curious as I am about the secret services, it was like being led into Aladdin's cave with nuggets and jewels sparkling everywhere!" This book sold well and eventually made him not only the most famous journalist in Britain but also a very wealthy man. However, its major claim to fame, as noted earlier, is that its publication jolted the Thatcher government into a forced admission that there has been an investigation of Hollis, but that no evidence was found to support the charge of his having been a Soviet agent. Pincher in the course of these developments became wholly convinced that Hollis had been a spy and two years later produced a second book on the subject called Too Secret Too Long which sold well (it added what Pincher called further hard evidence), but whose premise was not proven. Then two years later Wright took center stage himself with the publication of his own book Spycatcher. It was banned in Britain but the incredible circus trial in Australia prevented its being banned there. The result, however, was to send sales of this otherwise ordinary book skyrocketing to best-seller levels all around the world and overnight made Wright an multi-millionaire. It is clear that Angleton's role in supplying information to Pincher was much less than was first thought when it was unknown that Wright was actually Pincher's secret source. But he was certainly the instrument by which Aitken became informed of the whole Hollis affair and Pincher got that much information second hand from Aitken. But the real informant we know was Wright who provided his information to Pincher for monetary reward. What was the reason for Lord Rothschild's bizarre action in bringing Wright to England to meet Pincher? That he kept to himself and it is unlikely the truth will ever be fully known. 64 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT I. A Matter of Trust: MI-5, 1945-72 by Nigel West; Weidenfeld and Nicholson (London), 1982--196 pages II. Molehunt; The Full Story of the Soviet Spy in MI-5 by Nigel West; Weidenfeld and Nicholson (London), 1987--208 pages Nigel West (true name Rupert Alason, a Conservative Member of Parliament) is the pseudonym of a writer of spy books, of which two are considered here. The first book to be considered A Matter Of Trust published in 1982 is a history of MI-5 in the post-World War II period. It contains a good deal of largely accurate information on MI- 5, also called the Security Service more commonly in recent times, and is a good overview of operations against the Soviet intelligence offensive in Britain. It contains, therefore, some information about CIA sources, especially defectors such as Golitsyn and Goleniewski. It is well written and researched and, despite the Official Secrets Act, it is the most reliable story about MI-5 after World War II that has appeared in print. At the time of writing, West had the advantage of the revelations that had appeared just a year earlier in Pincher's book Their Trade is Treachery with its allegations that Sir Roger Hollis, former Director General of MI-5 and his deputy, Graham Mitchell, had been investigated as possible Soviet agents; and just two years earlier Mrs. Thatcher had confirmed that Sir Anthony Blunt had been a Soviet spy, but because of his confession and agreement to tell what he knew about the Soviet spy activities in Britain, he had been secretly granted imnunity. However, in writing A Matter of Trust Nigel West had a secret advantage, which he has never divulged. West knew that the key figure in the investigation of the Philby case 65 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT as well as other spy cases of major importance had been Arthur Martin. Martin had been the eminent counterespionage expert in MI-5 as a result of his investigation of Philby after 1951. He had been sent abroad on assignment in Malaysia for a time, but upon his return in 1960 to the MI-5 Head Office he was put in command of the Soviet section in D Branch (counterespionage). In 1963 he had made such a strong case Philby was a Soviet agent that Philby was finally confronted in Beirut and fearing the net was closing in, fled to safety in Moscow. But that same summer, the defector Golitsyn visited England and was under Martin's control during his debriefing. Martin had even before the defector's arrival concluded there had been or still was a Soviet penetration of his service. This eventually led to his deduction that it was at a high level, i.e., possibly the Director General or his deputy. The result was an investigation of Graham Mitchell but no case could be proved against him and it was dropped. Then Martin challenged the Director General himself. Sir Roger Hollis was about to retire but in the face of what amounted to almost persistent insubordination by Martin in his pursuit of the ephemeral spy in the service, Hollis as one of his last acts before leaving at the end of 1965 had Martin transferred to MI-6. Martin remained there for the remainder of his career. After he retired, MI-6 got him a position as clerk of the House of Commons for several years. When he left his Commons job, he retired into the Cotswolds where he lives today. The Boyle book which exposed Blunt as a spy, led to several writers investigating security matters about which there were rumors but little hard fact. One of these was Nigel West and his research led him eventually to Martin. Although fully aware of the restrictions of the Official Secrets Act, Martin was taken by the engaging personality of the young writer who pledged he would use Martin's © ; 66 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT information for background only. Martin admits he told West much more than his secrecy oath or common sense allowed. Sometime later, Martin learned his former service had obtained a copy of West's manuscript and were shocked at the voluminous detail that could only have come from someone who had been in the service. At about the same time, Martin feeling nervous about West's calls to check some facts, went to his former employers and told them of his conversation with West. Martin was let off on this occasion, but was given a warning there would be severe retribution if it happened again. Martin's information probably assisted West in only about a fifth of the book, mainly on the FLUENCY investigations (as the mole hunt in MI-5 and MI-6 was known), the Hollis and Mitchell cases, the Philby case, and such matters. Much of the remainder of the book is drawn from overt sources or a small number of people once associated with MI-5 but retired yet willing to give out bits and pieces of information. Taken together, West had enough to make an impressive book, mostly accurate and it stands as a sound account of the MI~-5 organization and activities in post-war Britain. MI-5 at first considered legal action against the West book, but in the end did nothing. | The second of West's books considered here is Molehunt, which appeared in 1987 and, as its name implies, covers the investigations by MI-5 into the Hollis and Mitchell cases as well as the work of the FLUENCY committee (on which Angleton fashioned his HONETOL). The work of the FLUENCY committee, like its CIA imitator, covered much ground but with few results--certainly no penetration was found although several MI-6 officers were forced to resign their service on grounds of having concealed certain data on their applications and/or vetting forms. As West does not know the ow facts 67 Lyth on 1 ge CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT yk ks
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT about FLUENCY he y ch exaggerates its effectiveness. The book also, in addition to examining at great length the cases against Hollis and Mitchell, looks at the career of Guy Liddell, a distinguished MI-5 officer who retired in 1953. Unlike John Costello (The Climate of Treason), West concludes Liddell could not have been "the Fifth Man," this being written before the Andrew-Gordievsky book correctly identified John Cairncross as the Englishman on whom that dubious title should be bestowed. The most interesting part of Molehunt is the latter portion which West devotes to his commentary on the spycatcher trial in Sydney. rt /te| Dbvious"ftest/ took great Gelight in observing the miserable situation in which his competitor, Chapman Pincher, found himself as bit by bit the embarrassing story emerged of Wright's collusion with Pincher. All the clever devices Pincher had created to protect the identity of his true source for the vast amount ef beans spilled in Their Trade is Treachery, all his false stories and cover-ups, were suddenly exposed to the delight not just of the public but especially to all the journalists who had suffered Pincher's scoops and inside stories. Now he was revealed as having concocted a sordid deal to pay the old spycatcher a paltry sum for his information which, converted into a book, had paid off for Pincher in the amount of several hundred thousand pounds. In terms of ignominy and embarrassment, Pincher ran second only to Sir Robert Armstrong. Two of the most informative chapters in this book (chapters 6 and 7) cover the background to Pincher's relations with Wright and Lord Rothschild and provide vital information not revealed in either Pincher's or Turnbull's books. In particular, West Demonstrates the degree of knowledge senior officials, particularly MI-5 and the Cabinet Secretary, possessed regarding Pincher's manuscript 68 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 “GONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT of Their Trade is Treachery. He also demonstrates that because of the illegal means by which they had acquired the manuscript their hands were tied legally as regards bringing action to prevent publication. It was this conundrum that allowed Pincher's book to appear even though the top people in the British government know its contents violated the Official Secrets Act. Beyond this, West also reports that soon after the book's appearance the British intelligence authorities had by analyzing the book's contents line by line deduced the source had to intervie Martin de Mowbray, both of whom denied honestly they ha noCcontact with Pincher on the book). They fur confirme ering Pincher's air tickets for his trip to Tasmania. BY this information was grudgingly revealed during the Sydney trial, which much degraded the British government's case in trying to force an injunction against Wright's book when Pincher's earlier work had been allowed to go into print with no objection. These two chapters are among the best in this well-researched and {/ [/— written book. In his last chapter West again considers the issue of Soviet penetration of MI-5, emphasizing the belief (strongly held by Martin and Wright) that there had been a mole in MI- 5 from the wartime period up to perhaps the early or mid 1960's. After a cursory examination of the most prominent suspects, West finally settles on Mitchell as the most likely candidate. He makes a general case, but his major effort is to emphasize the paper Mitchell wrote for Prime Minister Macmillan that in effect cleared Philby. Admittedly the paper is replete with errors and slanted toward «aoiprenioa/#b maimy role in the case of the "missing diplomats" (Burgess and Maclean), but this alone hardly makes the case against Mitchell. Surely on such a momentous issue, Mitchell's paper must have been reviewed by other superiors before being signed off by Sir Dick White. 69 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT Most agree the paper is an abomination, but how do the others explain how it got through the screening process before it went to Downing Street for the Prime Minister. West passes over this lightly and goes on to note other minimal points about Mitchell such as his alleged dislike of defectors. But taken together, West's efforts do not make a strong case against Mitchell--especially it does not explain how Blake was allowed by the KGB to return to London, nor does it explain the wrapping up of the entire Molody~-Gee- Houghton-Kroger network, not does it provide any answer how Penkovskiy was allowed to return to London on his second visit if a spy had told the KGB about him. These points do not make Mitchell innocent of the charge against him, but they much weaken West's case. Gordievsky cleared Hollis; did he not at the same time clear Mitchell? And if not, why not? Perhaps someday the KGB archives will yield the truth. Meantime Mitchell was spared this last indignity from West: he had died in 1985. | 70 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT t 3 e to i a of a Senior Intelligence Officer by Peter Wright; Viking Penguin, Inc. (New York, N.Y¥.), 1987--390 pages Although filled with error, exaggeration, bogus ideas, and much self inflation, Peter Wright's book Spycatcher is one of the outstanding works in the field of intelligence literature to appear in the last three decades. It covers matters that have been explored before and repeats much that is known to the well informed intelligence officer, but it is nevertheless so full of bombast, the joy of the hunt, English eccentricities, and factual data that it must be accounted as required reading. Its publication also drove the British government to such a degree of irrational distraction that it embarked upon a series of foolhardy and disastrously hopeless measures that resulted in (a) it not stopping the book's publication, (b) ensured their own embarrassment, and (c) made the author, whom they hoped to punish, a wealthy man. Tom Mangold reports that Wright told him the book in 1989 had brought him some two million dollars Australian (about three million in US dollars). Recently to add insult to injury, the European Community High Court ordered the British government to pay damages to two London newspapers whose editions carrying excerpts of the book had been prevented from publishing the material. By any standard, Peter Wright is a genuine character who could only have flourished in England. In its now non- imperial status, integrated into Europe and without the menace of the Nazis or Bolsheviks, it seems unlikely these kind of eccentrics will flourish again. But anyone who ever heard Wright in full flight delivering a lecture on the pre- World War II Comintern apparat in the United Kingdom or dilating on his interrogation of Blunt and his comintern/Communist friends will never forget the 721 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT experience. His appearance alone with his patriarchal countenance, his bald pate with its crown of wispy white hair, the curious defect of speech between a lisp and stammer, and his astonishing memory for arcane fact was impressive to the most jaded observer. There are two parts to the Wright story, both of equal importance in understanding what transpired from peddling his information to Pincher through the infamous Granada television show in which he first spilled his secrets to millions of viewers to finally writing, with the help of Paul Greengrass, his book Spycatcher. The first is Wright's obsession, which began with Golitsyn's 1963 visit to England, that the British services, and in particular MI-5, were penetrated by the RIS. In this belief he was supported and encouraged within his own service by his mentor, Arthur Martin, who at that time was held in the utmost respect. Later in the sixties he began an association with Angleton, who also encouraged him in his obsessive ideas of penetration. After Martin's removal in 1965, the leadership of the mole hunters fell upon Wright, a mantle he willingly accepted. The role he played in CAZAB heightened his view of himself as the chosen voice to sound the warning. But then other views began to be heard; the Mitchell case sputtered out, Hollis retired and with his departure the immediacy of action tended to decline, Golitsyn's stock within the British services began to fall, mole hunt fever began to recede, and Wright suddenly found himself alone with his convictions. He tried everything to make the new leadership listen, but they turned a deaf ear. The old man and his obsession became an embarrassment. The problem now was to ease him out of the service. The second aspect of Wright's story is the man himself. He was never a popular figure in MI-5, especially with senior management. He was a scientist (actually he had 72 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT studied agriculture at Oxford) whose application of his special discipline to intelligence work did not always win acceptance by his colleagues. When he became allied with Martin, another non-establishment outsider, and the two began pressing for a more aggressive approach against Soviet intelligence in the United Kingdom, they were hailed by the young junior officers as heroes and the two were held in the highest regard, but in the process they antagonized many of the conservative old-timers, and especially the top management, Hollis and Mitchell. After Golitsyn's visit and the investigation of Mitchell began, the division between the followers of Martin and Wright and those who questioned the penetration idea became more pronounced. Wright was even more isolated after Martin's departure, but the new Director General, Furnival Jones, continued to allow Wright considerable leeway. But toward the time of Wright's retirement, he was virtually isolated. Many felt Wright's obsessive mole hunt was distracting the service from its primary tasks as well as threatening the cohesion and morale of the service. All this had shaken Wright's confidence and he began to feel an outcast. A prudent observer, noting so many skeletons in the closet (Blunt, Mitchell, Hollis, etc.) and a retiree of such mercurial temperament and precarious financial status, would have advised some effort to assure so far as possible that Wright left the service ina favorable state of mind. Instead the old man was denied a Sizable portion of his retirement annuity to which he was clearly entitled, thus making certain Wright left with a burning grievance.* His foolhardy attempt to establish a stud farm further endangered his already precarious *Before entering MI-5, Wright had worked some dozen years as a research scientist for the Royal Navy. It was agreed that this service would count as time in establishing the amount of his pension. However, upon his retirement, Wright was told that for some arcane bureaucratic reason MI- 5 could not incorporate the earlier service in determining his final pension sum and when he complained this was a violation of trust, he was waved off. The actual sum he received was unbelieveably small. 73 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 “CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT financial situation. In desperation, he finally was forced to move to Tasmania where he hoped his stud-farm endeavors might prosper and conditions were better for his health, which had been worsening. Now he was beyond the reach of the Official Secrets Act. At about this time, when his financial condition had become truly serious, the call came from Lord Rothschild precipitating events that were to wound him, Wright, and the British government. It will be argued, on the one hand, that the rigid rule is that an officer does not break an oath to which he has solemnly given his word and that therefore what Wright did was both morally repugnant and a criminal action. On the other hand, the British government and his service by denying him his legitimate pension rights had done Wright a wrong, for which under the secrecy arrangements obtaining in Britain there was no recourse. In this whole matter, it should also be borne in mind that Wright was no left-wing agitator nor fuzzy liberal; on the contrary he was a far right, rock-hard Tory. That his own kind and his service would so mutilate him was a shock to Wright spiritually from which he never recovered. His actions from that time forward are out of character. They are probably best summarized by his remark at the conclusion of his testimony at the Australian trial; as he descended from the witness box, Wright was heard to mutter "That will fix the bastards." It does not take a mighty imagination to visualize how the MI-5 management could have prevented the disaster into which they had carelessly maneuvered themselves. First, they should have given Wright his full pension; second, maintained contact with him seeking his "advice" from time to time, thus keeping him in a mood where he felt he was still a part of the service even if retired; and finally 74 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 “CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT tried to deflect any attempt to publicize his beliefs. Not every retiree wants or needs such attention, but Wright should have been seen as a special case on the grounds of his pension denial if no other. True, the MI-5 minder would have had to suffer a lot of hot air about penetration and the guilt of Hollis, but as time went on this would have wound down. As Wright concedes on the penultimate page of Spycatcher: “One man's view, as I now realize, is in the end worthless. Only facts will ever clear up the eternal mystery." 75 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 Nw CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT The Spycatcher Trial by Malcolm Turnbull; William Heinemann Australia (Richmond, Victoria), 1988--227 pages This book is a useful antidote to Chapman Pincher's The Spycatcher Affair and while not required reading is recommended as an entertaining and reasonably truthful account of how a brash young Australian barrister destroyed the British government's case, which in truth was never very strong. The author, Malcolm Turnbull, was thirty-two years old at the time of the trial, a legal circus that attracted worldwide attention. Turnbull was educated in Australia and ' afterward won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford for two years during which time he was employed by the “London Times." He married well socially in Australia and had excellent political connections, which proved of immense help during the case. A shrewd observer of human foibles and the fickleness of the media, Turnbull employed a number of stratagems to outwith’ the British legal team, even to the outfitting of Peter Wright with a drover's hat in order to give him an Australian character (he also prudently got him Australian citizenship before the trial began). | Additionally he employed a shrewd English solicitor from Heinemann's London staff to give him special insight into the British legal thicket. He also took on Paul Greengrass, Wright's ghost writer, so that he would possess an inside view of what had propelled Wright to his activities of the past few years. Greengrass's role was especially important because Wright's memory was failing and he was also inclined to change his story or embroider on occasion. Peter Wright's Spycatcher received more legal attention than almost any other book of its kind in history. The trial involving its author in Sydney, Australia, in the winter of 1986 represented an extraordinary nexus between the secret security and intelligence services, the law, and 76. CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT the media. What began as an attempt by MI-5 to muzzle one of their former officers ended up with the British government on trial in Australia. In 1985, frustrated by his failure to persuade the British government to act against what he considered continued Soviet penetration of the British intelligence and security services, Wright signed a contract with Heinemann's (publishers) of Australia to publish his dossier of "facts." He was motivated largely by a desire for vengeance against his former employers for what he considered their malicious refusal to give him his proper pension, but he was also hopeful of making enough money to keep his stud farm afloat. (Wright had sampled the largess that came as his share of Pincher's book Their Trade is Treachery and he likely found it good.) However, his incapacity to write anything but the worst beauracratic style led to his hiring Greengrass, whom he had met during the filming of the related Granada television show, to be his ghost writer. Within weeks, news of the book leaked out and the legal battle was begun. The British Prime Minister, Mrs. Thatcher, presumably on the advice of MI-5, pursued Wright through the courts in Australia, Britain, and other parts of the world. Wright, equally dogged, with the support of his publisher, remained determined that his book should appear in print. When Turnbull took up the case in early 1986 the betting odds were he had a 1 percent chance of winning. The ensuing three-week trial in Sydney and, in particular, Turnbull's brilliant cross-examination of British cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, is the centerpiece of the book. The trial turned the case in favor Wright and the attendant publicity made Spycatcher an international best seller. It is known to have made Wright into a millionaire several times over. 77 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT For intelligence officers there is an especially compelling story told (pages 53-55) concerning the use of the “old boy” network in a backdoor attempt to make the injunction watertight. Turnbull learned from an English friend of the British government's intention to request the help of the Australian government to stop publication of Wright's book. This was to be done via intelligence links between the two countries. Turnbull immediately through his excellent political connections determined that this story (which originated from a conversation between two senior British officials overheard in the pissoir of the Garrick Club in London) was true. Furthermore, it appeared that ASIO and the Department of Defense were very keen to demonstrate their loyalty to Britain and the Western intelligence "club." Turnbull immediately fired off a letter to the Prime Minister, then Bob Hawke, and the Minister for External Affairs, Bill Hayden, and others emphasizing that “Australia should not run to Mrs. Thatcher's whistle; it should not protect Britain from the consequences of its past crimes; and so forth." It had the desired effect. Although Australia externally appeared to side with Britain in its policy of trying to stop the publication of Wright's book, its intervention was to be as innocuous as possible. Turnbull's book provides a full and often amusing account of this celebrated legal event. He explains Wright's motives in publishing and those of the British government in relentlessly pursuing the case. Turnbull's story could easily be the plot for a successful thriller film as he recreates the drama of the trial that caught the imagination of the world. 78 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT The Spycatcher Affair by Chapman Pincher; St. Martin's Press (New York, N.¥.), 1988--305 pages This book was first published in England under the title The Web of Deception in 1987, and is one of three major works dealing with the famous "Spycatcher" trial, the other two being Molehunt by Nigel West and The Spycatcher Trial by Malcolm Turnbull. All three are of considerable interest, but only the Pincher book is required reading for understanding the whole hodgepodge of events that began with James Angleton's leakage to the Tory MP Jonathan Aitken in December 1979. As Pincher was intimately involved with Wright in an earlier book called Their Trade is Treachery, he was obviously a major figure in the Australian trial, particularly when Turnbull, the Australian lawyer, attempted to prove that Pincher had corrupted Wright with money to obtain the first bits of information on the Hollis case and then allegedly cheated Wright of his monetary rewards. On both of these points, good as Turnbull was, he failed to make a watertight case; yet the charges were vastly embarrassing to Pincher. The real issue, however, in the Australian trial was the legitimacy of the British government's case together with the veracity of its major representative, the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, who had been sent from London to speak to the court, or--as Sir Robert himself admitted in an unguarded moment--"to be the fall guy." In the end both suffered much embarrassment and, worse still, they ended up losing the case. Meantime, the trial had generated unprecedented international interest, so much in fact that an American publisher decided to produce Wright's book in the United States, which ensured it a spectacular financial success thus making Wright a rich man. 79 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT To understand this very complicated story, it is necessary to start at the beginning, which is with James Angleton. In December 1979 Jonathan Aitken, a Tory MP and son of Lord Beaverbrook, was in Washington on a private visit during which he saw Angleton. The Blunt affair had just broken with Mrs. Thatcher's confirmation of his role as a Soviet agent. In a conversation with Angleton, the retired CIA veteran warned Aitken there was more to come and he believed there must be a full inquiry into both MI-5 and MI-6. Aitken was astonished and asked why. According to his story, Angleton said he would think of a way of answering the question and that perhaps Mrs. Thatcher should be warned. When Aitken returned to London he found a letter to him in which Angleton provided the names of Arthur Martin and Christopher Phillpotts, retired from MI-5 and MI-6, respectively. Aitken asked them to the House of Commons for a drink and learned from them about the Hollis and Mitchell cases. On the basis of this information, Aitken then delivered a warning letter marked "confidential and personal" to the Prime Minister at Downing Street. Aitken later contacted Pincher, whom he had known for years, and revealed what he had learned of the Hollis and Mitchell cases, even going so far as to show Pincher the confidential letter he had delivered to Mrs. Thatcher. Pincher states that the letter was detailed and included the —e ‘ charge "that our Security Services were penetrated by Soviet ,at a far more secret level than at which Philby, Burges, MacLean, and Blunt were operating." Last it went on to mame as the principal secret agents, Sir Roger Hollis and » Graham Mitchell. (A copy of this letter is attached to this Summary.) Pincher was deeply involved in the basics of the Spycatcher trial from the start because of his association with Peter Wright, which began with a meeting at Lord 80 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT Rothschild's home in Cambridge on 4 September 1980. Lord Rothschild had invited Pincher to come to his home in order to meet Peter Wright, although at the time Pincher had no idea who Wright was. Wright at this meeting explained to Pincher his past employment with MI-5, his move to Tasmania, his precarious financial position, and his raging belief MI- 5 had been and still was penetrated by Soviet agents. He noted Andrew Boyle's success with his book on Blunt, which had flushed out the old spy. Wright said he wanted to do the same thing and was writing a book on Soviet penetration of MI-5, but his bad health and lack of financial resources endangered its completion. To get Pincher's attention, Wright spilled some of his secrets before him. Pincher quickly agreed, after digesting these initial nuggets of information, he would assist Wright on his book. A financial agreement was made and Pincher went to Tasmania where over three weeks he debriefed Wright thoroughly. He then returned to England where he did further research and, writing furiously, had a completed manuscript in hand by the end of 1980. | The role of the late Lord Rothschild, who paid for Wright's air ticket from Australia to England and return, remains clouded to this day. Lord Rothschild was in 1980 a pillar of respectability in English life. He had served in MI-5 through World War II and earned the George Cross for heroism, had headed one of the largest merchant banks in the United Kingdom, and had served as the head of a brain trust for Prime Minister Heath. What then had prompted him to bring Wright to England and pass him along to Pincher? Several explanations have been made, which need not be examined here, but none offer a sensible answer. Whatever the case, these bizarre events tarnished the reputation of Lord Rothschild in his last years. 81 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT But if the Rothschild role appears peculiar, the developments that followed.Pincher's selection of a publisher and their subsequent actions are genuinely mind- boggling. The publisher selected by Pincher was Sidgwick and Jackson. After reading the synopsis provided them, they immediately said the book would breach the Official Secrets Act and the risk of publishing such material was very high. Because of the sensitive content of the manuscript, every precaution had to be taken so that MI-5 would not learn of Pincher's text for fear of immediate retributive action by the authorities. Eventually, the publisher sought advice from a distinguished person who occasionally served in confidence as an arbiter of taste and prudence concerning new book projects. The publisher and Pincher agreed to accept this person's advice and abide by his decision. Pincher keeps the identity of this person, whom he titles the "Arbiter," a secret. Within a few days the "Arbiter" called for more information on the book from Pincher, which he provided. Throughout these negotiations, Pincher kept Wright's role secret and very complicated arrangements were made to pay Wright his share of money from the book via an offshore bank in the Netherlands Antilles. The "Arbiter" was never informed of Wright's role in the book and Lord Rothschild distanced himself from the entire project. A further curious development occurred when the "Arbiter" introduced a friend upon whose advice he much relied, namely, Sir Arthur ("Dickie") Franks, then Chief of MI-6. The role of Franks in this affair is equally 4 mysterious te that of the "Arbiter" but his identity became known at the Sydney trial. In the trial, evidence was produced that Franks told MI-5 that Pincher was producing a book about the Security Service in March 1981. About this time, Sir Robert Armstrong was advised (probably by MI-5) of 82 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT the book's contents. Meantime, Pincher was pushing things forward as rapidly as possible: the book was being edited and arrangements were being made to sell portions to the daily press. So Pincher was vastly relieved when it appeared in the book shops in late spring 1981. It was an immediate sensation, particularly because within days it forced Mrs. Thatcher to again admit, as in the case of Blunt, a very sensitive matter of great security importance had been kept secret. She announced that both the Director General of MI-5 and his deputy had been investigated as possible Soviet agents, but in neither case had proof been found as possible Soviet agents, but in neither case had proof been found to substantiate these charges. Sir Roger Hollis was dead, but Graham Mitchell was alive living in retirement in Surrey. While the announcement was embarrassing to the British government, it was devastating to Mitchell and his family. These repercussions are brushed aside by Pincher who claims that such personal tragedies are merely the inevitable result of investigative journalism and part of the price people must pay for freedom of the press. Much of this book is devoted to assailing his erstwhile colleague, Peter Wright, for what he contends were Wright's false statements to the court. He also denounces the > Australian legal system, Justice Powell (the judge in the case), and especially Malcolm Turnbull, the brash, aggressive young Australian lawyer who handled the case for Heinemann's. This is entirely understandable because the evidence Turnbull brought forward was damaging to Pincher's already suspect reputation. Pincher is also offended by the manner in which the main British government representative, Sir Robert Armstrong, was treated, but he also has to admit that Armstrong's performance, which largely resulted from a weak British government case, left something to be desired, 83 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 “CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT especially after his famous admission to the judge, on one occasion, that "perhaps I was being economical with the truth." Despite the wounds Pincher claims to have suffered, the pain is much reduced by the considerable bounty he enjoyed from a huge revival in sales of his original book on Hollis-- e_is ery--which as a result of the trial publicity went into five editions. Wright was not the only person to profit vastly from the Spycatcher trial; it also made Pincher a very rich man. Meantime MI-5 was hauled over the coals by the media, left and right, for being incompetent, allegedly penetrated _ by hordes of Soviet agents, for numerous illegal activities, and for a lack of responsibility to the Prime Minister. Although the whole affair embarrassed the Thatcher government, it did not damage her politically, especially since she had a very safe majority in the Commons. Her position was also improved when it was found the Labor Party leader, Neil Kinnock, had covertly tried to make political profit through his contacts with Turnbull in Australia, which exposed by the press left Kinnock very red-faced. As noted earlier one whose reputation suffered considerably was Lord Rothschild, who emerged from the affair with his prestige much lowered. However, the public person who suffered most was clearly Sir Robert Armstrong whose long career ended on this inglorious note. Before the trial, he was considered a sure bet upon retirement to become Provost of Eton College, one of England's most prestigious posts. The trial in Australia demolished that possibility. Mrs. Thatcher tried to ease the pain by making him a life peer the following year, but the public image of him will always be one of the supercilious "Pom" trussed up and being barbecued over a hot fire under the direction of a sneering Malcolm Turnbull. 84 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT Pincher's book is a transparent attempt to put himself and his various literary activities in the best light and. exonerate himself from any association with illegal or shady dealings. In this he hardly succeeds, particularly as he fails to cast a critical eye upon the machinations of Whitehall, which in the end permitted his book Their Trade is Treachery to be published while Wright's later effort brought down the weight of the entire British government against publishing Spycatcher. Pincher offers no explanation for Lord Rothschild's crucial role nor does he explain how and why Sir Arthur Franks became involved. He does not identify the "Arbiter" who clearly foresaw storm clouds on the horizon, but did not recommend killing the book. All these mysteries and many more remain unanswered. Although not intended, perhaps the Australian trial was a fitting conclusion to this mess. All in all, it isa cautionary tale. 85 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT Postscript ; Two books concerned with counterintelligence history have been added to the group reviewed here. They are Robert Lamphere's The FBI/KGB War: A Special Agent's Story, published in 1986, and Gordon Brook-Shepherd's The Storm Birds: Soviet Post-War Defectors, published in 1988. Although they appeared in the period when many books dealing with CIA and British counterintelligence issues focused on the Golitsyn-Nosenko controversy, these two works concern themselves entirely with providing an historical account of the counterintelligence benefits flowing from defectors and from such other exceptional events as a break into the KGB cyphers achieved at the end of World War II. Lamphere's book concentrates on the FBI's work against the Soviet intelligence services' operations in the United States, which although suspected for some time was proven beyond doubt with the defection in Canada of Igor Gouzenko and in America of Elizabeth Bentley and others who had been involved in the Soviet spy apparatus. Their astounding revelations were in turn supplemented by an unusual accomplishment in the cryptographic field. Lamphere arrived in the Washington field office around the time the cryptographic wizard, Meredith Gardner, had achieved a break into the KGB cypher system and had the good fortune to be assigned to the National Security Agency (NSA) as Gardner's principal FBI liaison. Using the fragmentary but very valuable information from this breakthrough, Lamphere participated in uncovering some of the major Soviet espionage rings then in operation. His work included dealing with Philby, the ace spy for the Soviets, as well “1 interrogating the atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs, pursuing Harry Gold, assisting in the Judith Coplon trial, and many other memorable cases of the immediate post-war period. A . 86 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT series of conflicts with J. Edgar Hoover led to Lamphere's early resignation from the ,Bureau. His excellent memory was supplemented by access to FBI records, and NSA, after considerable pressure was brought to bear, gave Lamphere permission to describe in elementary detail Gardner's magnificent achievement against the KGB cypher system. It is altogether a gripping story well and accurately told. Brook~-Shepherd's excellent history of the post-war Soviet defectors also benefited from assistance given the author by the British intelligence and security services and the CIA. As a result, he has produced a highly accurate and complete story about most of the major Soviet defectors all of whom but one (Shevchenko) had served with either the KGB or GRU. He has eschewed the controversial issues upon which many of the other books in this collection are concerned, although he devotes a chapter each to Anatole Golitsyn and Yuri Nosenko. Each of these men is given objective and fair consideration. Brook-Shephard's two summaries are probably the most accurate evaluation available to the public and go far to make the two men and the issues connected with them comprehensible. These two histories are largely accurate and together constitute a mine of important information on the early defectors, both American and Soviet, as well as detail on later defectors such as Gordievsky, who provided inside information at critical periods in history. The two books also illustrate how important the defectors were not only in helping the Western intelligence and security services but also in alerting the public to the Soviet threat. Both books deserve reading by counterintelligence officers. 87 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 “CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT The FBI/KGB-War: A Special Agent's Story by Robert J. Lamphere and Tom Shachtman; Random House (New York, N.Y.), 1986--320 pages Reading Robert Lamphere's book one gains the impression he is a stubborn and determined man who fights to win. This trait is amply demonstrated by his battle with the National Security Agency (NSA) to obtain permission to tell part of the story about the American break into the KGB cyphers during World War II and the consequences which flowed from this event in the fight against Soviet espionage and subversion. Lamphere obviously has an excellent memory (supplemented perhaps by his diaries and notes): but to describe some events in this story of his work for the FBI he required the permission of NSA. Although the break into the KGB cyphers for a brief period in wartime had been described in some detail in Chapman Pincher's Their Trade is Treachery (1981), which was based upon the detailed knowledge of the event possessed by Peter Wright, who was Pincher's informant, NSA with strong support of its British counterpart, GCHQ, steadfastly refused permission for Lamphere to reveal from his personal experience how effective the material derived from the break had been. In retrospect it seems foolish for NSA and GCHQ to have refused Lamphere's initial request for permission to chronicle the events flowing from the cypher break, especially as it was essential to the rest of his story about FBI operations, but the whole story had been so Closely held that it was difficult to alter an attitude strongly held over four decades. Lamphere understood this and in his narrative reveals only the barest details, being so circumspect he does not even mention the codenames by which the project was known (BRIDE, DRUG and VENONA in that order over the years). It seems probable the FBI played a 88 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ‘GONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT role in pressuring NSA to yield on the issue as it is clear the FBI gave Lamphere assistance themselves by allowing him access to some of his memoranda, special reports, and so forth. Lamphere is to be commended for his having persisted in his effort to include the VENONA story as it is central to much of the book. The author entered the FBI fresh from law school in 1941 and was in due course assigned to the New York field office where he was put to work on the Soviet espionage squad. It was in the New York field office that Lamphere, obviously a disciplined, intelligent, and hard working FBI officer, got his baptism into the intricacies of Soviet espionage and subversion in the United States. Here he experienced at first hand the results flowing from the information obtained from the first two defectors, Igor Gouzenko in Canada and Elizabeth Bentley in America. From the older, more experienced hands he learned how to conduct an investigation, do surveillance, consider the legal aspects, and all the many details of a special agent's responsibilities. By the end of the war, Lamphere was fully occupied with Soviet cases and well on his way to becoming an expert in that field. Especially interesting are his accounts of meetings with such old time Communist luminaries as Ruth Fischer and Hede Massing, both of whom provided vital background information on Gerhard Eisler in whose trial Lamphere played an important role as assistant to William Hitz, the prosecuting attorney. Lamphere's autobiography is such good history one wishes for more detail on many of the cases he describes, although it can usually be obtained from other accounts that have been published. In the fall of 1947 at the special request of William K. Harvey, then a major figure in the Soviet section of the Washington field office, Lamphere transferred from New York 89 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT to the nation's capital, only to find that Harvey in the meantime had been pushed oyt of the FBI and gone to work for CIA. What Lamphere does not say, but is important in the VENONA story, is that it was this development which gave the CIA its first knowledge of the NSA break into the Soviet cyphers. Prior to this time, the FBI had carefully restricted knowledge of the BRIDE material (as VENONA was known in those days) to their British counterpart, MI-5, who had been brought into the closed group by GCHQ after having gotten agreement from NSA. Not long after, MI-6 was brought in largely because of the ongoing investigation into an espionage lead relating to someone in the Foreign Office. | As coordination was required on occasion in Washington, it was necessary to consult with Peter Dwyer then the MI-6 representative who was acting for both MI-5 and MI-6 in the British Embassy as no MI-5 officer had yet been assigned. This is how it happened that Dwyer's successor, H.A.R. "Kim" Philby, was indoctrinated into the system although by the time Philby got to Washington, an MI-5 officer was en poste. Lamphere states that Philby immediately gave the precious secret to his Soviet masters (which is true) but then goes on to say it had been given much earlier by Sir Roger Hollis (which is not proven). This is the one egregious error in Lamphere's book as he uncritically accepts the judgment of Chapman Pincher in his book Their Trade is Treachery, whose message is that Hollis was a Soviet agent but provides no substantial proof. He apparently did not when writing the book have the benefit of Gordievsky's knowledge on the subject, but he ought to have given some value to the word of Prime Minister Thatcher who stated to the British Parliament that the official investigation had found no evidence to support the spy allegation against Hollis. He even gets wrong the period when Hollis was Director General, giving it as 1952-56 when it actually was 1953-65. As Lamphere gives credit to James Angleton for having critically read the book, it is astonishing that this major 90 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT error went uncorrected. In fact, although Lamphere cannot be blamed for being ignorant of the event, knowledge of BRIDE reached the Soviets in 1948 from an ASA officer named William Weisband, about two years before they had this information confirmed by Philby. One of the most fascinating parts of this excellent history is Lamphere's story of how BRIDE was developed. Without going into detail here, the person who made the breakthrough was a brilliant American named Meredith Gardner, then working at Arlington Hall, the headquarters of the Army Security Agency (ASA), the forerunner of NSA. When Lamphere arrived from New York, the breakouts were few and not well understood. However, Lamphere asked permission to work on them and in this way met Gardner, whose genius was immediately apparent to the FBI officer. They began working together and became a formidable team. From this beginning flowed information that was of the utmost help to the FBI in its effort to understand and run to ground the myriad of Soviet agent networks then in existence in America. Lamphere had the intelligence to see the potential of this product and developed it in a manner by which it could be used without endangering the source, although the Soviets by this time were aware their communications had been compromised for a certain period. His superiors had the good sense to comprehend this development and even Hoover seems to have allowed this section to operate without his making the usual unhelpful intrusions. At the same time that Gardner and Lamphere were trying to make the BRIDE breakthrough a viable tool against the Soviet networks, the CIA was just getting established. Lamphere pulls no punches in describing how Hoover did his best to hamper its development, even to the point of playing up to the British services against the Agency. Lamphere's whole approach to Hoover is refreshing. He is, on the one 91 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT hand, frank in describing Hoover's faults of playing politics endlessly as well,as his tyrannical and often irrational administrative practices. On the other hand, he respects the manner in which Hoover guarded the Bureau's rights and managed to keep it on an even keel despite fire from many quarters. But Lamphere recognized the need for an intelligence service that must operate abroad and saw that the Bureau and the Agency were working toward the same goal. High on Lamphere's list of Hoover's vengeful actions was the manner in which he directed the liaison with CIA. He put it entirely in the hands of a devoted sycophant, Zeke de Loach, with the objective to obstruct the Agency wherever possible. c ‘De Loach from the start tried to make everything as v difficult as he could, which created many problems-- / particularly as his Agency opposite number was a young = woman. Eventually de Loach was replaced by the widely respected and revered Sam Papich, but de Loach continued to create difficulties for the liaison. Lamphere makes no secret of his feeling that this was one of the most shameful and damaging of Hoover's many transgressions, particularly because it was perpetuated at a time when the closest counterintelligence cooperation was required to meet the increasing demands placed on both FBI and CIA by the burgeoning cold war. Reading Lamphere's stories about how the Bureau operated, one wonders if the men in it were really mature adults or were slightly psychotic. An example is Hoover's handling of relations with MI-5 on the Fuchs case. MI-5's William Skardon had broken Fuchs and obtained his confession of having worked for the Soviets, but many aspects of his American communist associations remained unanswered. Hoover wanted Fuchs questioned by one of his officers, but MI-5 replied the Attorney General of Great Britain could not permit this while Fuchs' appeal was being considered. At word of this, Hoover flew into a rage but he could not budge 92 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 “CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT London. Eventually, Fuchs! appeal was denied and MI-5 indicated the way was clear. Lamphere's superior selected him to do the debriefing, but Hoover intervened at the last moment with instructions that Hugh Clegg, a Bureau officer who had done liaison with MI-5 during the war, should accompany Lamphere to be watchdog over the British, Lamphere, and the London FBI representative, John Cimperman. This was an unhappy situation as the British disliked Clegg from their wartime experience with the man and Lamphere resented this watchdog tagging along. In the end, cool heads carried the day, Skardon and Cimperman letting Lamphere do the questioning and keeping Clegg in the background. It was during this debriefing that Lamphere got Fuchs to identify Harry Gold as his major contact in the atom spy ring. But Hoover's intervention had produced a great deal of needless acrimony. It is a testimony to Lamphere's skill that he brought the trip to a successful conclusion. Lamphere continued to manage the exploitation of the VENONA material, including the clues that led to the eventual arrest of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. The cypher material was supplemented by immensely valuable information which was coming from defector sources such as Gouzenko and especially former American communists Bentley, Budenz, Chambers, and so on. It is gratifying to note that during this time, Lamphere was allowed on occasion to lecture to CIA training courses (perhaps without Hoover's knowledge). This must have been of immense help to the young CIA, then only beginning to learn the arcane art of counterintelligence. Another example of what was likely a behind-the~scenes cooperative effort was Lamphere's plan formulated with James Angleton to kidnap Joseph Katz, a much vaunted Soviet spy, from Israel. The plan was discovered by Hoover who put an immediate end to it. Later the CIA and FBI cooperated in London, when Katz.came to reside in 93 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 “GONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT Britain, on a scheme to debrief him (with MI-5 knowledge and help) but Katz remained ungooperative and took his secrets with him to the grave. Although this book has a few errors and the story has perhaps been gilded a bit by Lamphere, it nevertheless remains one of the best histories of counterintelligence in America. It is especially valuable because it covers a period when there was intense activity flowing from the VENONA breakthrough and the defectors! information that revealed to the American authorities rock-hard evidence that their wartime ally had been spying on them for two decades and had in fact accelerated this activity during the war when the Soviet Union and America were allies. Despite the excitement and satisfaction deriving from such important work, Lamphere eventually became fed up with Hoover's irrational management and in 1955 left the Bureau for a successful career with the Veterans Administration. Later he retired to have yet another successful business career with a major insurance company. A man of many parts and obvious ability, Lamphere's book should be required reading for counterintelligence officers. 94 CONPIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT The Storm Birds: Soviet Post-War Defectors by Gordon Brook- Shepherd; Weidenfeld and Nicolson (London), 1988--303 pages Gordon Brook-Shepherd, a British foreign correspondent turned historian, has with publication of this book done the best work of his long career. As intelligence history dealing with Soviet post-war defectors, it is not only an exciting read but is factually accurate in almost every respect. Compressed within its 303 pages is the story of how the Western intelligence services, largely denied the possibility of obtaining information from within the Soviet Union, came to realize the enormous intelligence value of those Soviets who riskec 7 éir lives to make the leap to freedom. More importa uf, the author has immersed himself thoroughly in the voluminous detail about the defectors so that he comprehends the events which influenced the secret world of intelligence, with the result his judgments are objective and fair. The author likely achieved this kind of professional knowledge partly from work on his earlier book, The Storm Petrels, which recounted the story of pre-war defectors from the Soviet Union. With this experience plus generous help from CIA and the British intelligence services, Brook-Shepherd has written a fascinating account of how and why so many senior Soviet intelligence officials defected and their impact on the West. The author deals with his complex subject in chronological fashion starting with the first post-war defector, Igor Gouzenko, in Canada. It is difficult today to comprehend how little knowledge the West, governments as well as people, possessed about Soviet espionage and subversive activity prior to Gouzenko's defection in September 1945. This event and the revelations that flowed from it stunned both statesmen and the public. It had an _enormous effect in America where it was coupled with defections of Americans such as Elizabeth Bentley, Louis 95 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT Budenz, Whittaker Chambers, etc. from communism, all of whom made a contribution to the growing mass of evidence about Soviet illegal activities. In Canada where Prime Minister Mackenzie King seemed almost unable to grasp the enormity of Soviet transgressions, it had the salutary effect of establishing the groundwork for a security service in the Royal Canadian Mounted. Police. In Britain the Gouzenko information also had an electric affect, but agents such as Philby were often able behind the scenes to blunt its force. (For example, it is known that Philby managed single- handedly, without drawing attention to himself, to prevent a major position paper urging stronger action against the Soviets from reaching the Prime Minister.) Although Gouzenko was the first Soviet intelligence officer to defect post-war and the impact of his disclosures are almost beyond measure, the author does not include hin amongst the post-war defectors he describes as "giants." He defines a giant as one who dominated the scene in the sense that his contribution went far beyond his normal professional assets to play a certain strategic role in post-war history. The three he places in this category are Penkovsky, "Farewell", and Gordievsky. All the defectors he examines were intelligence officers of either the KGB or GRU with but one exception: Arkady Shevchenko, the one-time Under Secretary-General at the United Nations. He was included because of his personal and political significance. Brook-Shepherd also examines the reasons for Soviet defections and, as might be expected, he concludes there were several, some of which are repeated many times. A primary and nearly constant reason was fear--often sheer terror at what fate awaited them upon their return to Moscow. 96 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT They also shared a common reaction to their experience when they visited the outsjde world: shock at the grey misery of the Soviet Union in contrast to the freedom and affluence of the West (even in the old days, the Soviet- occupied zone of Austria seemed like Heaven compared to what they left behind in the USSR). This contrast with the Soviet homeland shook the faith of many in the Soviet system despite the fact they belonged to a very privileged class that enjoyed lavish privileges denied the ordinary Soviet citizen. Thus the seed was often planted early for defection, but it often took some other more immediate event to trigger the act itself. These sometimes were marital problems, petty disputes or jealousies within the Soviet community (always a very isolated group), or simply the hope for a better life in the free world. Whatever the case, all the reasons taken together reveal at bottom a disgust with and hatred for the oppressive regime, which boils down to the fact the basic reason for defection was ideological. Gouzenko's difficulty in finding any person or agency who would listen to his story spotlighted a gaping deficiency in Western governments, especially in the intelligence and security services. During the war when the Soviet Union was adulated as an heroic ally, there were very few defectors. One who attempted defection, Victor Kravchenko (not an intelligence officer), had a difficult time escaping from the Soviet Purchasing Mission in Washington in 1944 and was lucky to have survived. His defection was little publicized and only after the war when attitudes changed toward the USSR was his story published. Other attempted defections had a less happy ending. The most famous of these, of course, is that of Konstantin Volkov, which is described in some detail. It was almost certainly Philby's most desperate and successful coup. Volkov had approached the British consulate in 97 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 “CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT Istanbul shortly after the cessation of hostilities with an offer of information which,, had he not been neutralized by Philby's quick action, undoubtedly would have lead to the exposure of all the Soviet agents in Britain. Another case in which Philby succeeded in derailing the information if not the informant was that of Ishmael Akhmedov, a GRU officer who defected to the Turks during war-time. Philby later during his tour as MI-6 chief in Istanbul prevented Akhmedov's information from reaching the West except in very truncated form. The episode highlights a much neglected aspect of the damage Philby inflicted on the West. CIA eventually got access to Akhmedov, but it was not until ten years after his defection! The last example of Philby's murderous activity on the KGB's behalf concerns a young English-speaking GRU officer named Vladimir Skripkin. This little known case began in Tokyo in early 1946 when the young officer made overtures to both the English and the Americans. For some reason he received no encouragement from the American side, and as he was soon to be posted back to Moscow, he made another pass at the British leaving with them an address in Moscow where he asked to be contacted. Upon his return, he was seized by the KGB and never heard of again. Two KGB defectors (Rastvorov and Deriabin) told CIA later that Skripkin had been given away by a British intelligence source, who almost certainly was Philby. The book then turns to a series of defections in 1954 touched off in part by the news of the execution of Lavrenti Beriya (who had been head of Stalin's secret police). By this time, the Western services--CIA in particular--were on keen alert for defectors and had improved the system for receiving and expeditiously handling them. The first in this wave of defectors was Yuri Rastvorov, a KGB officer who first made overtures to the British but changed his mind and 98 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 ower CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT chose CIA. This event was followed by the defection of KGB officer Peter Deriabin in Vienna in which his escape from the Soviets was skillfully managed by CIA. The author provides a detailed account of Deriabin's KGB background that demonstrates how valuable his information was to the West. This is followed by the account of Nikolai Kokhlov's defection. Kokhlov had been dispatched by the KGB to West Germany for the purpose of assassinating the leader of the NTS, an anti-Soviet organization. Kokhlov instead turned himself over to the CIA, which then launched a series of operations too complicated to be recounted here, some of which worked and some failed. The CIA made no secret of the defector's assassination mission, developing much anti- Soviet propaganda from it. Kokhlov wrote a book about the affair after which he was resettled in America where he made a successful career in academe. Finally, there is the harrowing story of Vladimir and Evdokia Petrov, the KGB husband and wife team in the Soviet Embassy in Canberra, Australia, who with the assistance of the Australian security service (ASIO) managed to escape to freedom although the wife was nearly kidnapped back to the USSR. The clumsy intervention of the KGB security goons was captured by photographers and the picture of Mrs. Petrov being dragged shoeless across the airport tarmac to a waiting plane gave the Soviets a very black eye. From their long service, mostly as cypher clerks, they were able to provide the West with valuable information including the first knowledge the "missing diplomats" Burgess and Maclean were in Moscow. Like Gouzenko in Canada, they also revealed a number of KGB agents in the Australian government and trade unions. The successful management of the defection, though a close thing, gave the fledgling ASIO a special boost and put it in the league of major security services. There then follow two chapters devoted to the Penkovsky case. This is a well done summary but is now overtaken by 99 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT the recently published (1992) and more exhaustive study called The Spy Who Saved the World by Jerrold Schecter and Peter Deriabin. Next follow the stories of the two most controversial defectors in history: Anatole Golitsyn and Yuri Nosenko. This is a true test of the author's ability to analyze a vast amount of information and testimony. Despite the complexity of this affair, he has done a good job of sorting out the facts and arriving at fair judgments. He obviously had help on the Golitsyn chapter from MI-5 and MI-6 and perhaps some guidance from CIA. He puts Golitsyn in proper perspective both as to the value of his product and his later career as troublemaker, especially for the Agency. He does the same with Nosenko, dealing fairly with the false charges made by Edward J. Epstein and others about the Oswald part of Nosenko's testimony. It would have been helpful perhaps had someone in the Agency told the author that Admiral Turner in 1978 had given Nosenko a completely clean bill of health and every Director since has accepted that conclusion including William Casey. However, Brook-~ Shepherd's account of the Nosenko case, brief and to the point, should leave no doubt but that the defector was and is genuine. Under a chapter titled "Pluses and Minuses" the case of Oleg Lyalin in Britain takes first place, particularly as this KGB officer's defection triggered the famous deportation of 105 Soviet diplomats from the United Kingdon. The Minuses are the several Soviet intelligence officers who within a time frame of one year (1971-72) defected to the Americans and then in varying periods redefected to Russia. The cases are not worthy of detailed consideration except for one, a young KGB lieutenant named Artush Oganesyan, who brought with him when he defected by crossing the Soviet border into Turkey the latest issue of the KGB's "Watch List". This was the annually revised catalogue of Soviet citizens of all sorts--ballet dancers, opera singers, 100 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT scientists, athletes, as well as officials and intelligence personnel--who had failed to return from visits to the West. Additionally, Oganesyan had much other valuable information which he provided, but in the eyes of James Angelton it was the "Watch List" which subjected him to suspicion because there in the "Watch List" was the name of Yuri Nosenko. Angleton thought his suspicions confirmed when Oganesyan with his young wife suddenly re-defected to the Soviets, but this view is not held by other Agency officials nor by Brook~Shepherd. A special case of interest is Arkady Shevchenko, who held an exalted position at the United Nations in New York. When his interest in defecting became known, the CIA managed to convince him to work for it in place as long as possible. This turned out to be something over two years, but in 1978 the order came for his return to Moscow. He then put the re-arranged plan into effect; his defection went smoothly, he wrote a bestseller about his experiences as a senior Soviet diplomat, married an American woman, and quietly settled into American life. The final cases summarized are all of special interest. They are all of rather recent vintage, falling within a time frame of the decade roughly 1975-1985. The first of these cases concerns a GRU officer, Vladimir Rezun, who defected to the British in Switzerland in 1978. He brought with him considerable valuable information, the most alarming of which was specifics about the Red Army's Spetnatz units or “Special Purpose Forces", These special units were present in every part of the Soviet military and employed sabotage, terror, and other extreme action in the event of war. Rezun under British direction, and using the pseudonym "Victor Suvorov", wrote several books relating his experiences in the Soviet military and emphasizing the role of Spetnatz units. As CIA made several of their defectors available to 101 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 “CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT Brook-Shepherd for interviews, so the British also turned Rezun over to the author far consultation. Victor Levchenko, a KGB officer stationed in Tokyo and engaged in active measures, defected to the CIA in 1979. He had been active with the Soviet Mission there since 1975 and was able to reveal not only the order of battle of Soviet intelligence in Japan but also much about the extent of Soviet penetration and collaboration within the Japanese government and the media. His defection provided much inside information on KGB active measures worldwide as well as its place in the KGB. As there was mounting interest in the subject at this time, Levchenko's defection was specially valuable. He subsequently wrote a book about his experiences and lectured widely about Soviet Special Measures. The penultimate defector case is that of Vladimir I. Vetrov, known as "Farewell", a case which began in France but ended in Moscow, with his execution in the early 1980s. The case, even aside from its lurid aspects (which involved a murder and a mistress), is of special interest because it revealed in excruciating detail the highly sophisticated efforts of the Soviet government to obtain every possible bit of scientific and technical information from the West. Even more alarming, Farewell's reporting disclosed how successful this massive endeavor, spearheaded by the KGB, had been. Farewell early in his career had been stationed in Paris where he had made many contacts. After Farewell returned to Moscow from a successive overseas assignment in Ottawa, he signalled he wished to contact the French, and arragements were made for meetings in the Soviet capital. The case because of its origins in Paris had been under the jurisdiction of the DST (Direction de la Surveillance Territoire) and it was continued by the internal service even though the operation was being conducted abroad. It 102° CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT
13-00000 a Mee, a) ‘CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT may be surmised that security considerations were prominent in this decision. a The Farewell product was of such enormous significance, particularly because so much of the Soviet operational effort was directed at American industry, that President Mitterand instructed the French intelligence service to share this vital material with the United States. Although the operation was of relatively short duration--less than two years--the voluminous product and the insight it provided into the intricate and highly secret Soviet system for collecting and utilizing the scientific and technical intelligence was of inestimable value to the US Intelligence Community. Within the constraints of the limited amount of information released by the French about the case, the author has done a remarkable job in presenting this important story, which without question places Farewell as one of the most important agents ever to work for the West. Meantime, Farewell had moved steadily upward in the KGB's Department T, which was concerned with technical and scientific espionage abroad and occupied a key position from which he could monitor the soviet efforts and their requirements in this area. Brook-Shepherd concludes his book with a brief chapter on Oleg Gordievsky, who needs no introduction to counterintelligence officers. His story in general terms is well known and recounted in this book. However, now that Gordievsky's family has been allowed to join him in England, the defector is busy writing his own autobiography, with--of course--careful British guidance. Undoubtedly for this reason as well as because his family in 1987 was still held in Moscow, Brook-Shepherd got only the minimum amount of information sufficient to make a good ending for this remarkable book. 103 CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN NOCONTRACT