14-00000 Bey \ ‘SUBJECT: American Cell8 Aircraft Downed in Soviet “Azerbaijan 27 June 1958 by Soviet MIG-17'g On 27 Jons +758, a C118 cargo plane, assigned to the U.:8, Air Foree in Wiesbaden, waa fired on and foreed down near Gendarkh, Soviet Azerbaijan. The plane was carrying nine U.S. airman! i jassipned ta Whee ba ten, Germany. The nine man ‘struck at the crew members, One of the men I] Were én route from Wiesbaden to Teheran and Pakistan ona flight carry. ing cargo for CIA, 7 The plane, while en route to Teheran from Nicosia and as a result of bad weather and navigation error, went off its Plotted course and crossed into Soviet Armenia. There it was intercepted and fired on by three MI0-17!'8 and Caught fire in the left wing. Five of the crew bailed out and the other four rode the aircraft down to a safe landing on a small airstrip at Gendarkh in Soviet Azerbaijan, The crew menzers who had remained on the plane to its landing got out safely and the plang was burning fiercely when the crew last saw it. The part of the crey that parachuted was surrounded by Soviet peasants, some of whon teat and was taken by the mob:to a telephone pole and harruwly escaped hanging before being reacned by the. Soviet military, ; _ eee ‘the remainder of the crew were turned over to thé Sovie tary, and efter an overnight atay in a Soviet military garrison near Stepanakzert were: taken to a city believed to be Yevlakh,.. and then flown to Baku, Russia, There they underwent interrogation by Soviet intelligence officers, at least one of whom had served dn the United States, as a Soviet ‘Purchasing Commission smployas 1913645, and later in Canada in 19L9-55 as First Secretary of the Soviet. Embassy, This RIS officer, Vladimir Bourdine, later served in 1955 as a pergonal interpreter for Ehrushshey ta a meeting with Prime Hintoter Nehru of India, Bourding interrogated | Jat considerebdle length during the period 30 duhe"="3 July 1998, while the crew was im “prisoned in the MVD Headquarters building in Baku. Following their individual interrogations, the crew manters wero required to appear separately berore a Commission of Soviet. officials atthe Baku MVD Keadquarters who questioned them about the bordor vielation by the CellS atreraft, and requested then to sin statements attesting that they had been well-treated and received adequate medical care by the SECRET
SECRET Soviets, The inquiry by tho Commission wan perfunctery and did not — involve an interrogation in the intellircnce sense, The crew was then transported to Astara on the Soviot-lrantan border on 7 July 1958 and turned over to’ the Amorican Air Attaches Oa_?_ sly 1958. this Agency_roceived_information_indicating that — ‘bility of inpemling relonse,. _. an Air Maritime officer, and two represontativ ‘were dispatched to Wiesbaden from Headquarters - Of numerous CLA pe the Soviets micht be considoring releasing the nine fliers. Since no date or place of release wag Andicated, cables were sent to the various periphera: [|stations around the Soviet border indicating the poste The Air Force agreed to alort its Air Attaches in. the same arean of tha possibility of impending release, At the same time a team of Apency personnel, including a medi¢al officer, ea of the Security Office in anticipation of the release of the fliers, Three hours after tha team arrived in Germany, _ the place of release ‘was learned. from tho Soviats to be Astara on the Soviet-Iranian border, anil a USAFE plane waa ‘dispatched that Aight from Wiesbaden with the Air Maritimo team mombor aboard destined for Teheran to await the turnover of the American fliers at Astara. The fliers were turned over on 7 July.1958, were immediately flown to Wiesbaden, Germany where an initial joint CIA-aAF debriefing of them was begun, ard whore initdal press interviews were held, following careful briefing of the crew aa to tho text and limitations to be observed, Two days later, two mombera of the crew, one of whom wag i were permitted to give an interview to the aria representative of Time-Life. Members of the CIA team were pre- sent during these press Interviews » under appropriate cover arrangemontg, _ to Numish guidance to[_ ]porsonnel. Following the initial debriefing, the entire crew was flow to Washington, D. GC. on 18 July 1958, for a more extended debriefing, These debriefings were completed on 6 August 1958 and covered the various aspects of possible compromise of the security of CIA personnel, operational and cover unita activities, as well as various positive intslligonce and counter-intealligence matters, | men aboard the plane were extremely knowledreable of highly sensitive Agency operational activities es WES ANOWLGURSAGLS CL CIA operational & world-wide banis, with many of these project being extremely sensitive, each ; ' Carried briefcasse co a a CSFLal rannon carried es and telephono . an address book containing several hames, address numbers of CL4 personnel and cover units, The two briefcases are believed to have been destroyed by the fire in the aircraft after landing. The address book of was taken from hin by the Soviet SECRET
14-00000 re “SECRET — - ; peasants on landing and wag later turned back to hin by the. Soviet——.- - ~ : a - ~Commisalon-members at Baku, Neither he nor other merbers of the crew wera questioned about either of the briefcases, their contenta, nor about the address book. anv ita contents, We assume that the Sovieta have or will process the naraa in the address book through their Moscow files. Soma of the other crew rambers carried personal notaticns in __ __.. “. thelr wallets Pelating to a few other CIA personnel, We have received no-indicetions that lor the ot crewmen were drugged or otherwise tampered with by the Soviets, eo and. some of the others did receive shote the first night and seco ay from the Soviet military for thelr wounds and burns; however, these shote are believed to have been for legitimate medical reasons. The substance of the questioning, treatment and techniques af interrogation has been exhauatively explored with all the crew memberg © in the course of the detriefinzs. In summation, the interrogations of the crew members were superficial and do not appear to have been backed up -by close coordination and communication with Moscow for intelligence research purposes, It 413 possible that tha quick ace knowledgment by the Soviet Poretgn Office of the landing of the C-118 in Soviet territory precluded the KID from fully exploiting the erey memberg. were ‘separated from the group and given preferred treatment, apparently with the intention of developing them for information Purposes. We are conviriced that both men handled themselves extremely well and did not disclose any infor mation concerning the Agency or its activities, To date we have no indication that the Soviets knew at the tine they interrogated the crew pen, that the flight of the C-118 Wad Coffe nected with CLA in any way, nor that they “Imew. were CIA personnel, We do believe that in time the oviets, through address book; which lista the open Agency telephone mumber EX 3-6115 below hia nase on the first page, will connect hin and possibly others in the address book with CIA, Since the Soviets questioned him atout the 7170th Support Group and the 705th Support Squadron in Wiesbeden, it 19 therefore presumed that they will asse- ctate those units with this Agancy. In addition to this report, debriefings of the creymen Were taped and typed, ‘which will total some 7,000 = 9,000 pegee when completed, sere being distributed to the CI Start and SECRET
SECRET ~ other interested components Of thio Agency as they are completed. Questions wore solicited by this Office of all interested components, in order to cover all matters in the debriefings of interest to the Agency. Careful arrangements have been made with the Air Forces _in_ oriér that Agency interests will be adequately protected and proper security will be maintained in the handling of information and reports derived from the debriefings, and 90 that no compromise of the Agency interest in the flight of the C-118 will be made to the press. CONCLUSIONS: A. It is our + opinton that the possible compromises arising out of this incident are relatively minor in nature and that no major \ compromises occurred, B. That the Soviets "missed" on the true nature of the flight and personnel of the C116. C. That the reasons the crew members wore given an early release were as follows: 1. 20 30 Primarily, the Soviet interrogators failed to usa all of the leads at their command, particularly address book, and failed to break the crewmen through | interrogation. The crew did not inadvertently disclose through in- terrogations, the purpose of their flight, its relation to the Agency and that of [— jof its crew to ClAs. The Soviets apparently failed to check out the names and other data in [~ laddress book through their filles prior to release of the crew. No incriminating information or material was immediately recovered from the burned aircraft. Several of the crew destroyed incriminating building passes and notations in thelr wallets while on their way down in their parachutes, or imnediately after landing in their chutes, There were either no leaks or insufficient leaks of incriminating information through any room conversa~ tions 4t Baku among the crew, which may have been moni- tored by the Soviets, or such conversations as there may have been were not properly interpreted, or inter- preted soon enough to tip the Soviets that there was something unusual , about the flight or the crew., e -h- SECRET
14-00000 7. The crew members were all in unifern and not in mixed civilian and Air force clothing, which proporiy entabe -- ~Lished-their cover,—-.— -.~. - wee ee ee _ 8. Sufficient pressurep were exercise: by Agency, State, _ _ Air Force, and Zzecutive action wer the Sovieta te — —"~""“"“e ffdet the’ releage-of the-crew-as-s-co-as-poosible,. owe 9. A factor that protably had an important bearing was the early acknowledgrent by the Sovies Foreign Office of the downing of the aircraft and the attempte by the Soviets in the early stares to mane this appear aa a deliberate violaticn of the Boviet air frontier. This tended to take te play" away fron the MVD and military ; intelligence. In addition, this Gvernmment waa stepping ne up the pressure Zur the release of the nine Army person- . 7 : nel who landed in East Germany in a helicopter, and the | - Se oe Soviets probably nad no desire to create a duplicata of ; “— this incident. ; 10. Safeguards taken ty the Agency ami the Air Force were such that there was no leak to the press, during the crew's interment, of the fact that there was an ine” telligence connection of the flight aml crew of the Gab, De That it ids not believed, based on the evidence at hand, that . the crew was drugged or otherwise tampered with medically. £, That there are valuable points of guidasce from a cover, opera- tions, policy and cede of conduct stanizoint which can be gathered irom experiences of these crewmen in the hands of the Soviets and can aid the Agency and its cersonnel in any future situation of a similar nature in which the Soviet military and RIS interrogatora are encountered . ETTION TAKEN TO SAFEGUARD AGZUITY INTERCST IN THIS MATTER: : &s All possible steps were taken during the veriod immediately preceding and ismediately after the rélease of the crew to effect the miniamm of publicity and to safeguard and limit ? such publicity as was given out, in omer to avoid disclos- oo Se ing the CIA connection of the flight anc.some of its crew. o -B, Throughout the entire debriefing process in Germany and in the U, 8., the maximum care has been taxen to safeguard the information taken by transcript ami classify it so that there would be accezes to the informatica therein on a neede- to-imow basis and by only properly cleared persona, 5 - SZCRET . ‘é