HW 355157 TO: FROM: DATE: 9:54:03 SUBJECT: #3)Re: The Nosenko Papers CL BY: CL REASON: 1.5(c) DECL ON: X1 DRV FROM: HUM 4-82 Eileen: Let me introduce myself. | am ClC/Legal. C/CIC. asked'r me to touch t base with you- concerning any possible ARRB release of privacy information concerning Nosenko. While we are aware that such a decision to release is within the Board' s ‘discretion, we do believe that the Agency, when giving this information over to them, ‘should request that the Board- protect ‘such information to the maximum extent possible. If | can be of help in that, regard just let me, iknow. NOTE FOR: FROM: DATE: 07/31/97 10:44:28 SUBJECT: The Nosenko Papers CL REASON: 1. a) DECL ON: X1 = DRV FROM: HUM 4- 82 At about 1020 hrs on Tuesday, 31: July, / received a call from_____——__—i the Agency's External Support Group/Historical, Collection Staff regarding Michelle Combs's interest in reviewing the Nosenko papers for the upcoming meeting of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) on 5 August. | said Combs, an ARRB staffer, is planning on taking 20 pages of the Nosenko material with her. \wants to knaw whether we would like copies of the material Combs is taking. | said yes. ‘Said Combs appears understanding of our concerns in this case and to this end wanted the following questions answered so she could put a human touch on our concerns in explaining our position to the ARRB., 1. ts Nosenko married? (No one in CIC/AG knows.) 2. What part of the country is he living in? (This is known, but | can't see why she or the ARRB needs to know.) 4: 3. Did the Soviets actually sentence Nosenko to death? Or was this just his claim. (No one in CIC/AG know, but it appears reasonable to assume that the Soviets did sentence him to death.) 4. Nosenko's current age? {No one in CIC/AG knows off hand. Henry's observation was that Combs can find this out from open literature.) DoctId: 32404522 Page ?1
HW 55157 FK Act 6 (1) (A). JFK Act 6 (1) (B) According tol__] combs also wants to také to the ARRB two letters pertaining to the affair: the letter Nosenko wrote in 1994 objecting to the release of his material without ‘his being consulted or advised, and the letter Ted Price wrote to him in response assuring ‘him that everything possible would be done to prevent. further release of his papers. | don't see any problem with this since the papers would support our position--unless the ARRB starts thinking about releasing the letters also. aid she told Combs CIC would navel [rormer Chief, of AG/FIOB currently serving as Officer in Residence at the University of Kentucky, flown in-to address the ARRB if this appears necessary. Combs will pass this on to the ARRB. [ee Troted that Combs alluded to the possibility that that ARR B might want to talk with Nosenko himseff. CC: cc: Docld: 327404522 Page 22? '
MEMORANDUM _ August 5, 1997 | a CIA HAS NO OBJECTION TO . _-DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR To: T: Jeremy Gunn RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT From: ‘Michelle Combs Subject: Yuriy Ivanovich Nosenko I have prepared this memorandum at your request for the upcoming meeting ; where the Board will be briefed on issues related to the Soviet defector, Yuriy’Nosenko.. Summary and Recommendation The information on Yuriy Ivanovich Nosenko contained in the CIA Sequestered Collection microfilm consists of approximately 3500 pages of interviews, transcripts, memos, and reports. Of the total, approximately 1200 have been released to the public as open in full or with only minor redactions. Of the 1200 released pages, roughly 800 contain information directly relevant to Lee Flarvey Oswald and the Kennedy assassination. After my review of the Nosenko records and our discussion of the issues, it is our judgment that the remaining 2300 pages are unrelated to the assassination of President Kennedy and we recommend that they be processed as “NBR.” These NBR records consist of such items as general family and professional contact information, Soviet _intelligence methodology and operations, and Soviet navy information dating to Nosenko’s early career in Soviet Naval Intelligence. I suggest that we review carefully these 2300 records to ensure that there is no assassination-related material, and, to the extent this is correct, we should process them as “NBRs.” Background on Nosenko KGB Lieutenant Colonel Yuriy Ivanovich Nosenko first secretly contacted the CIA in _ Geneva in June 1962. One and a half years later on February 4, 1964, he defected to the United States for what he said were ideological reasons. His case became the single most difficult counterintelligence case in the Agency’s history to date. Nosenko’s information on the assassination of President Kennedy made his bona fides of more importance than simply a means to determine his true identity or whether he was the prototype of a KGB disinformation plot against Western intelligence agencies. The conflict over Nosenko began two and a half years prior to his actual defection, in HW 55157 DBocld:32404522 Page 23
HW 55157 2 December 1961, when Anatoliy Golitsyn, a KGB defector, predicted that the KGB would dispatch false defectors after him to discredit him and confuse Western intelligence agencies as part of a massive disinformation campaign. Golitsyn, who had described a darkly intentioned monolithic Russian master deception plan and Soviet intelligence agencies of brutal efficiency, claimed that Nosenko was the most important of these fake defectors and that any Soviet sources who came later and supported Nosenko’s.__ bona fides would also be false. Golitsyn was wholly believed by Counterintelligence Chief James Angleton, who shared Golitsyn’s world view. Golitsyn argued that any CIA officers who believed Nosenko should be considered as moles themselves. ~ Nosenko’s first four meetings with the CIA in Geneva in June 1962 produced. an intelligence bonanza and the two CIA officers (George Kisevalter and Peter. Bagley). who met with Him believed he had conclusively proved his bona fides. During his — debriefings in 1964, Nosenko provided detailed information about Lee Harvey Oswald’s stay in the USSR which, he said; had come across his desk routinely as the deputy chief of the Second Chief Directorate (SCD) department responsible for watching American visitors in the USSR. With Golitsyn arguing against Nosenko’s bona fides, plans were made in March 1964, to imprison Nosenko and begin hostile interrogations to find any shifts in his information. On April 2, Deputy Director for Plans Richard Helms and Soviet Division Chief David Murphy met with the Deputy U.S. Attorney General and obtained legal approval from the Justice Department to imprison Nosenko so that he could not communicate with his supposed KGB controllers. On April 4, he was imprisoned in an attic room in a CIA safe house near Washington. Nosenko was kept in solitary confinement, subjected to physical and mental torture, and submitted to hostile interrogations from April 4, 1964 to October 27, 1967 first at the safe house and then ina specially built cement house in Virginia. Despite over three years of severe treatment, Nosenko’s original story remained unchanged, no “confession” was forthcoming, and no evidence was produced indicating he was, as Golitsyn still claimed, a fake defector. On August 8, 1968, Nosenko was polygraphed for the third time by an 1 Office of Security specialist. During the examination, Nosenko was asked whether he had told the truth about Oswald and the Kennedy assassination; the polygraph operator found ‘only positive responses to the questions. Security Officer Bruce Solie submitted a comprehensive report in October 1968 which evaluated all of Nosenko’s information, to date, and concluded that he was what and who he had claimed to be all along. After a review of his case by the Soviet Division, Nosenko was finally released from CIA custody on March 1, 1969 and employed as an independent consultant by the CIA. File 4.0.2 Nosenko Combs e:\nosenko.wpd DoclId: 39404599 Page 24
_ In the 35 years since Nosenko first approached the CIA in Geneva, no prima facie. evidence has ever emerged to prove that he was a KGB provocation and subsequent defectors have affirmed him as a bona fide defector. He has identified many hundreds of Soviet intelligence officers, provided a considerable quantity of useful information on the organization, doctrine and methods of the KGB, and conducted numerous special studies on Soviet subjects. Today, Nosenko is seventy years old, recently retired as a contractor from the CIA, an American citizen, married, and living quietly in the Sunbelt. - File 4.0.2 Nosenko Combs e:\nosenko.wpd HW 55157 DBocld:32404522 Page 25
Y HW 55157 ’ 4 Reel 46, Folder 2A This folder contains pages 603-835, parts VII, VIII, and IX of the 835 page study “The Case of Yuriy Ivanovich Nosenko” prepared by Peter Bagley of the Soviet Division (DC/SB) in 1967. a Reel 46, Folder 2B This folder contains a variety of documents, some of which have been released to the public. The NBR documents include: 14 reports of interrogations sessions with Peter Deryabin in July and August 1965, an unsigned May 1965 memo for Chief, SR/CI on the 3-13 May interrogation sessions with a psychologist, an unsigned May 1965 paper analyzing Nosenko’s sessions with the psychologist which refutes the reported conclusions of the psychologist, and a November 1968 Memorandum of Trangmittal to Chief, eens on the 15 Deryabin-Nosenko July-August 1965 transcripts. © 3: Reel 46 Folder 3 This folder contains most of the 186 page report by John Hart commissioned by the CIA in June 1976. Chapter X, pages 159-176 inclusive are missing. The report is a reinvestigation of the Nosenko case in the context of reviewing the techniques of handling Soviet agents and defectors. It is highly critical of the Clandestine Services’ handling of the Nosenko case. The Hart report endorses the conclusions reached in October 1968 by the Office of Security (the Solie Report) that Nosenko is a bona fide defector. Reel 46, Folder 5 This folders contains documents pertaining principally to personalities in the Minsk area during Lee Harvey Oswald’s residence there. Some documents have been released to the public. The two NBR documents include: a nine page 1964 “homework assignment” prepared by Nosenko on KGB leadership in the provinces, and a four page memorandum on KGB personalities in the Minsk area in the mid 1970’s. Reel 62, Folder 2 This folder contains an 82 page verbatim transcript of an interrogation session by Peter Deryabin which covers Nosenko’s background, marriage, and divorce. Reel 62, Folder 3 This folder contains a 75 page verbatim transcript of two interrogation sessions by Peter Deryabin which detail Nosenko’s career progress, and a disciplinary problem and its impact on his promotion schedule in the KGB. DoclId: 324045232 Page 29
HW 55157 we Reel 62, Folder 5 _ This folder contains two verbatim transcripts (33 and 46 pages) of interrogation sessions by Peter Deryabin which cover specific KGB operations and a particular KGB operation targeted against an American tourist. . a Reel 62, Folder 6 This folder contains one 22 page verbatim transcript of two interrogation sessions by Peter Deryabin which cover a particular KGB operation targeted against an American tourist. Reel 62, Folder 7 “em rae This folder contains one 84 page verbatim transcript of two interrogation sessions by Peter Deryabin which cover Nosenko’s education, Navy career, ', and a particular KGB operation targeted against an American tourist. Reel 62, Folder 8 This folder contains an eight page verbatim transcript of an interrogation session by Peter Deryabin in which Deryabin encourages Nosenko to confess that he was sent under KGB control and to think about becoming a double agent. Nosenko says that he has been telling Deryabin the truth all along. Reel 62, Folder 9 This folder contains 51 pages of 12 Deryabin reports on his interrogation sessions with Nosenko in July and August 1965. The information in these reports summarizes information detailed in the actual interrogation transcripts. Reel 62, Folder 10 This folder contains a mix of intra and inter-Agency memoranda pertaining to the handling of Nosenko and is labeled “TS Material from Deryabin Safe.” This folder was not examined by the HSCA staff. Thirty-seven pages of documents have been released to the public. The 97 pages of NBR documents include: correspondence with various US Government agencies and the Attorney General, memoranda on Nosenko’s day to day handling, emergency procedures for Office of Security guards assigned to Nosenko, a report to the CIA Inspector General on the Nosenko case, Nosenko’s request for political asylum, copies of his subsequent contracts with the CIA as an independent contractor, and additional reports, memos, and briefings concerning the Nosenko case and his handling. DoclId: 327404522 Page 30
10/09/97 LH Lo>UU FAA ZUZ 424 Ua5T AKI HW 55157 WwjyUUud MEMORANDUM CIA HAS HO OBJECTION TO . DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR October 9, 1997 _ RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT — To: Jeremy Gunn Executive Director ce: Tom Samoluk Deputy Director From: Michelle Combs WE Subject: Files on Yuriy Ivanovich N osenko i in the CIA Sequestered Cillection . Microfilm Containing Information of No Believed Relevance to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy ; The information on Yuriy Ivanovich Nosenko contained in the CIA Sequestered Collection microfilm consists of approximately 3600 pages of interviews, transcripts, memos, and reports. Of the total, approximately 1200 pages have been released to the public as open in full or with redactions. Of the 1200 released pages, roughly 800 contain information directly relevant to Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Although all of these 800 pages have been released in redacted form, we have asked the Agency to re-review them under the standards of the JFK Act before we submit them to the Board. After my review of the Nosenko records and our discussion of the issues, it is my judgment that the remaining approximately 2400 pages are unrelated to the assassination of President Kennedy and should be processed as "NBR." These NBR records, which are described on the attached list, consist of such items as general family. and professional contact information, Soviet inteJJigence methodology, personalities, and specific operations, and Soviet Navy information dating to Nosenko’s early career ~ in Soviet Naval Intelligence. Much of the information consists of various attempts by the Agency in the 1960's to establish Nosenko’s bona fides. The October 1968 Solie Report, which has been released in redacted form and will be re-reviewed under the JFK Act, establishes Nosenko’s bona fides. The conclusions of the Solie report were reaffirmed in a 1976 report by John Hart. A brief summary of the conclusions of the Hart Report will also be processed for release. The approximately 2400 pages of proposed Nosenko NBR records have been reviewed carefully to confirm that they contain no material helpful to a deeper understanding of the assassination. During the review some additional material, not previously released, which may add to an understanding of the Nosenko story, was marked relevant and. identified for processing and review. Docld: 32404522 Page 31
HW 355157 @ F] 16 October 1997 MEMORANDUM FOR: Fredrick C. Wickham @ DO DO JFK Board Focal Point FROM: J. Barry Harrelson JFK Project Officer OFFICE: CSI/HRG SUBJECT: . Agenda for ARRB meeting 17 November 1997" REFERENCE: The following i issues are tentatively scheduled fora action at the next JFK Board meeting: 1. Date of release of Vosenko mat material; see memo on results of Oct. nesting f * If you or CIC have any comments on the proposal to change the lease date subject of Agency review and appeal) from 2017 to 2010, please provide them to me ne by 23 October. - / : This issue originally surfaced in April and was scheduled but not addressed at the September meeting. | recommend that you review the material we sent the ARRB staff for the September meeting to determine if you want to provide additional "evidence". Are there other components that should be consulted on this a involved in discussions in April. 3. DRE Monthly Reports. This‘is a long standing request from the Board staff. Please provide a status of the request by October 21. a DO Sent on 16 October 1997 at 04:57:17 PM DoclId:327404527> Page 32
7 FAL Ree! JN 28 October 1997 PAULUS SUBJECT: Disclosure of Information on Yuriy Ivanovich Nosenko 1. The Board intends to deefassity and release for public consumption, approximately 2400’pages of counterintelligence staff studies, interrogation reports, file reviews, and bona fides studies on Yuriy Ivanovich Nosenko. These studies contain sensitive personal and operational material completely unrelated and irrelevant to Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of” President Kennedy. It has been officially stated and documented that the remaining Nosenko records have been carefully reviewed to confirm that they contain no material helpful to a deéper . understanding of the assassination. Mr. Nosenko*has adhered time and time again to the stipulations of his Memorandum of ; Understanding not to divulge his relationship with this Agency, even in view of the less than satisfactory conditions this Agency - forced upon him during his early resettlement. -Public disclosure — of the remaining documents would constitute an unwarranted invasion of his personal and professional privacy not to mention the breech of trust on the part of this Agency to protect his right of privacy and above all, his security. This trust was reconfirmed in a personal letter from the former DDO, Ted Price, in September 1994, stating that we would take special steps to protect any sensitive information touching on Mr. Nosenko’s private life or on operational information pertaining to his debriefings. The letter further states that this Agency valued the sacrifices he made for our country, and every effort would be made to protect information that could affect his privacy and security. The question has been asked before. Should we not show the same integrity that we expect from those who put their. lives on the line in defense of our national interests? 2, Furthermore, the recruitment of sources of high intelligence value has always been this Agency’s top priority. Public disclosure of this information could do irreparable damage to our ability to attract individuals who admire the US and might be disposed to collaboration. Disclosure of cooperation with the USG would cause any potential source to think twice before placing his life in the hands of an organization who cannot protect his information. For those individuals such as Mr. Nosenko, who placed their trust in this country in the past, entered our resettlement program, and are now US citizens, the indiscriminate release of information, some of it very personal CL BY 0489514 REASON 1.5(c) DECL X1 DRV DEF 2-82 55157 Docld: 32404522 Page 33