| <2 EXTENSION |; < ANITIALS USE PREVIOUS *, ; = ; : ~ INTERNAL “EDITIONS | ‘ a ae “USE-ORLY:
16 October 1978 MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD si-~— FROM : Leonard McCoy. 3 Loe a Deputy Chief, CI. Staff 7 os fe oe SUBJECT: | Chronology of an. Effort to Inspire. a Objective. Review of the. Nosenko. Case. BACKGROUND With the HSCA emphesis on the Nosenko| case in its review of the Kennedy assassination, and the prospect of a more con-. centrated review of the Nosenko case by: the House. or Senate. Committees, I. feel that the time has come to record in the ‘Nosenko file the effort which I made in 1965-67 to have the. -Nosenko case reviewed by a group of objective officers. This. chronology has not been recorded before, but a general statement concerning this effort was incorporated in J. Le Hart's: paper | on the "Monster - Plot". CHRONOLOGY . 1961- February 1964 By the time Nosenko defected and.arrived in the U.S. in February 1964, my evaluation of him was already prejudiced by. . information which the case officer for Nosenko's 1962 contact had provided me informally... This information. related to the bona fides of a Soviet agent called [i HCHITCHAT. ((AHWIRELESS) whom Nosenko identified June 1962 as a Soviet deception operation. When we met (A HITCHAT in London in August 1961 with the primary purpose of establishing his bona -fides, the. case officer and polygraph operator concluded that K HAT was bonafide; I took the position,with them and with and. later directly to the DDP, that [(ARCHITCHAT was not bonafide. ‘Therefore, when KISEVALTER Wes me in mid-1963 that a new KGB agent source had identified HITCHAT as a deception operation I-was predisposed to consider this new source. to be bonafide.. After his defection r learned that Nosenko had been this source. Summer 1964 When Nosenko defected it became my task to formulate re- ‘quirements to exploit him for positive intelligence and to draft reports to publish the information which he provided in | E2 IMPDET SECRET CL BY 012208
response to those réquirements. Most of the limited but ‘significant information which he provided was published in two CS disseminations. After the publication of these reports, C/SR Murphy directed that no further reports would be disseminated, and instructed that the drafts be held antil further notice. (It never came.) — oe wo ! As the Nosenko defection became public and known. in the. -intelligence community, there was pressure for information ~ from -Noséenko and access to him, particularly from DIA. DDP a me Helms visited DIA Director Carroll to inform him that So Nosenko's bona fides was in question and that therefore no... .. further information from him would be published and he would... © not be made available to DIA for debriefing. In accordance .~. © with regulations concerning CIA priority in intelligence. i officer defector cases, the Inter-Agency Defector Committee - was excluded from the Nosenko case. November 1965. _. In November 1965 a series of reports fronf JADE (SCOTCH,, CKKAYO)] was received from the FBI on various téchnical subjects. As,gthe responsible officer for evaluating and disseminating JADE] reports, I prepared evaluations for each of the reports which were drafted on the basis of this information. C/SR Murphy examined these evaluations and disputed each of them © with me, arguing generally that all of the information was "give-away" and part of a KGB deception operation. He directed that I reevaluate the reports and correct the eval- uations accordingly. Being still dissatisfied with the evaluations, he informed me that I needed to be educated about KGB deception operations and that to achieve this he directed that I read the notebooks on the Nosenko case. — Up to this point I was generally aware that Nosenko was judged by the Division to be a deception agent and that he was under interrogation to resolve his bona fides. _ Two note- books o ‘concerning Nosenko were delivered to me by c/SR/CI These. notebooks were each 3-4 inches thick and weré Conmpri of mostly Ton Secret memoranda signed by the DCI, DDCI, DDP, C/SR, DC/SR and C/SR/CI. After I had been reading these memoranda part-time for two days, C/SR/CI called to say that he needed the notebooks every day and had to have them back within two days. After I had the notebooks for four days he collected them from me. Upon reading the first few memoranda and noting various contradictions, inconsistencies, and inaccuracies I resolved to note these down and comment on them. As the volume of 2. SECRET
these problems grew it became apparent that it would not be possible to simply state these orally to C/SR/CI but that they raised a fundamental question which affected the entire. issue of Nosenko's bona fides. With this realization I decided to put as much information as possible together in*the _very short. time available so that an alternative position on Nosenko' s bona fides could be considered. - ‘ December 1965 Upon completion of | this paper I asked C/SR/RR, ‘Katharine ‘Colvin, to review it and advise me as to whether it was sufficiently substantial to be presented to C/SR. She agreed - that it was, and pointed out that it would: probably cause some - difficulties with the Division Chief, but that it should go . forward. The memorandum was then typed by the SR/RR secretary and I delivered it to C/SR personally. (A true copy typed from “the original ‘draft is attached as Attachment A.) C/SR had barely glanced at the Introduction to this. memorandum when. he became highly emotional, shouting and pounding on his desk. He said that he knew I felt very. strongly about the Nosenko matter and that he would call DDCI Helms immediately - and we would go together to settle the issue in his presence. I asked that he first read the memorandum. He asked who else _ had read it and I named C/SR/RR, DC/RR Ops Group Stolz, and. DC/SR/RR Lubbehusen. He then asked that I collect all copies of the memorandum and bring them to his office immediately. (I did so, but some days later the secretary came in to say that she had as usual retained one copy for her files.) The next day. C/SR called C/SR/RR, DC/SR/RR and me to. his -office. He pointed out that my memorandum was an. extremely serious matter and that it was not possible for us to have a _ valid position on the Nosenko case because we were not privy to a number of sensitive cases which he was not permitted to in- form us about. He said that the memorandum should not be dis- cussed with anyone, implying that if any of us violated this injunction, we would be fired. (C/SR/RR did a memorandum of conversation of this meeting.) “Two weeks later I was on Saturday duty in the SR Division front office and C/SR came in to argue the Nosenko case briefly. He pointed out that Nosenko's claimed access was equivalent to that of an OSI nuclear physicist who was simultaneously deputy chief of CI Staff and SR Division. I attempted to express disagreement with this characterization, but. C/SR's manner and tone of vdice did not permit anything like a sensible exchange of views on the topic. 3. SECRET
Spring 1966 From personal contact with psychiatrist Dr. Bohrer and. . psychologist Gittinger in the winter or spring of 1966, I» learned that they had independently arrived at the professional judgment that Nosenko was sociopathic, and therefore could not. z _ be reliably evaluated on the basis of substantive information analysis such. as was used against him in the two notebooks. . It seemed to me that these conclusions would now bring the case. to a close, placing the bona fides evaluation in permanent = _ suspended animation, leaving us with the job of sorting Nosenko's information for CI and PI use according to the . degree to which it was substantiated by collateral reporting. When I heard that these two officers were scheduled to meet with C/SR to present their findings, I waited for the word to ieak out that the Division had given up its case against Nosenko. - To my surprise, I learned instead that when Bohrer and Gittinger ~ met with C/SR, the latter advised them that if they insisted on their conclusion he would have to take the position that their ._ Support of an identified Soviet deception agent raised serious questions about their own bona fides! At about this time friend Breitweiser returned from over- seas to take the position of Special Assistant to ADDP Karamessines. I asked him to lunch and described to him what . ‘I knew to date of the Nosenko case, encouraging him to raise ‘the matter with the ADDP, hopefully to result in objective review of the case. April 1966 - Being convinced that there had been no progress on the Nosenko case, I called DDCI Helms secretary Dunlevy and asked her. agree- ment for me to bring a matter to Helms' attention privately. I ‘then took the surviving copy of the memorandum to the DDCI's office and left it with Mrs. Dunlevy for him. A day or two. later he called to say that he had read it, that he was con- cerned about the Nosenko case, and he asked my permission to show it to John Gittinger, whom he intended to ask to look into the case! I of course agreed to his doing so. (Months later I received this document back, but the cover sheet was exactly as I had prepared it, with no.mark to show that anyone had seen it.) Gittinger told me a few days later that Helms had called him in and given him my paper, asking him to review the case and return to him with some advice. Helms then called C/CI Angleton and. told him that he was sending Gittinger down to Angleton to be briefed on all sensitive matters which were essential to under- standing the Nosenko case. Gittinger then went to Angleton's 4. SECRET
office for the briefing, but. Angleton told him nothing, saying that Gittinger knew everything that was pertinent to the case. _ December 1966 _— | DO, Having heard nothing encouraging about the Nosenko case, . and becoming more and more pessimistic about. the Soviet opera- _ tions program, I. prepared and personally typed another memorandum, _ Summarizing the situation as it appeared to me, and delivered it. _ _to Mrs. Dunlevy for DCI Helms about the middle of December 1966; (This memorandum is attached as Attachment B.) Helms then asked me to come up and discuss the matter with hin. In this meeting he stated that he appreciated the situation, encouraged my con- tinued attention to the problem, and. insisted that I stay in the job I had, coming straight. to him if I ran into any trouble as a | result of my dealings with him. By this time, C/SR had directed - all SR/CI officers not to discuss the Nosenko case with me, > March/April 1967 ‘ Sometime during this period DCI called to ask that my Nosenko memorandum be brought up to him so he could give it to DDCI Taylor. He said that he had asked Taylor to take charge of the Nosenko case,-and that Taylor was turning it over to | Security Director Osborn for independent review. In April I prepared and personally typed a paper with some proposals for disposition of the Nosenko case, called Taylor, and met with him on those proposals. Aside from a Keystone Cops. episode of Support Chief White running in and out of the office, apparently trying to get a tape recorder to operate, I can re- - 'call only that Taylor asked how C/SR could have fooled so many people about Nosenko: I replied that C/SR was the supreme confidence man. (Memorandum attached as Attachment C.) In early April 1967, as a result of a pro-Nosenko briefing I gave BOURBON (CKBEEP) case officer Flint, -home on TDY, C/SR . learned that I had been to see Taylor about Nosenko. After investigating within the Division to determine the sources of information I had told Flint, C/SR called me in to advise me that he knew of my meeting with DDCI Taylor. After asking if . there was anything personal in my opposition to his Nosenko stand, C/SR made a plea for better cooperation and understanding ' between us. (A memorandum of this unpleasant incident is attached as Attachment D.) , , 5; SECRET
June 1967 . a Having heard that I had been promoted, then discovering. that I had not, I asked for a meeting with ADDP Karamessines.: When we met I expressed concern about this strange turn éf . events. The ADDP said that he and the DDP were disturbed that I did not come to them with the Nosenko memorandum. . - He said | '. that my going to the DDCI made them wonder what. their jobs really .Were, and that he would not think of taking a matter straight to - . the Director even though he had known him for many years (which. Caused me-to wonder if he knew of my visit to Helms). He said = ' that he and‘the ppp were fully aware of C/SR's position on. the Nosenko case and. fully agreed with it. He then directed me to. _ leave CI to those who were responsible for it and to concentrate: on doing my own job. In addition, he said that my promotion - would go through, and that I should inform C/SR of this decision, (It did, One pay period later than others promoted at the time, ) Since I was on leave at the time, no memorandum. of the conversa- ' tion was written. September 1967 Because of my concern that there might be unfortunate con- sequences as a result of management learning that I had circum- vented the chain-of~-command, I prepared and personally typed. a chronology of events and took it to Taylor so that he would be informed enough to assure that his Nosenko review did not . become complicated by an element of personal Or Organizational: revenge. (Attachment E.) Late 1967 It became apparent that the Nosenko review was under way and the Division case was coming apart. —_ NB UY. eonard McCoy Attachments A/S 6. SECRET