CHRONOLOGY OF AN EFFORT TO INSPIRE OBJECTIVE REVIEW OF THE NOSENKO CASE.
Originator: CIA
From: MCCOY, LEONARD
To: MEMO FOR THE RECORD.
Document date: 10/16/1978
Document type: PAPER - TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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16 October 1978

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

FROM :

Leonard McCoy

Deputy Chief, CI Staff

SUBJECT:

Chronology of an Effort to Inspire

Objective Review of the Nosenko Case

BACKGROUND

With the HSCA emphasis 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.

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. L. 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 ACHITCHAT (AEWIRELESS)

whom Nosenko identified in June 1962 as a Soviet deception

operation.

When we met (AECHITCHAT in London in August 1961

with the primary purpose of establishing his bona -fides, the

case officer and polygraph operator concluded that AFCHCHA1

feas source had identified AFCHITCHAT as a deception operation

predisposed to consider this new source to be bonafide.

After his defection I 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

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response to those requirements. 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 until

further notice.

(It never came.)

As the Nosenko defection became public and known in the

intelligence community, there was pressure for information

from Nosenko and access to him, particularly from DIA. DDP

Helms visited DIA Director. Carroll to inform him that

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

officer defector cases, the Inter-Agency Detector Committee

was excluded from the Nosenko case.

November 1965

In November 1965 a series.

24

of reports from JADE (SCOTCH,

CKKAYO) was received from the FBI on various technical subjects.

Asthe 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.

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 of memoranda concerning Nosenko were delivered to me by

C/SR/CI Gardiner.

These notebooks were each 3-4 inches thick

and were comprised of mostly Top 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 tew memoranda and noting various

contradictions,

inconsistencies, and inaccuracies I resolved

to note these down and comment on them. As the volume of

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fai.

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

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,

• 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 vöice did not permit anything like a sensible exchange

of views on the topic.

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Spring 1966

from personal contact with psychiatrist Dr. Bohrer and

psychologist Gittinger in the winter or spring of 1966, 1°

learned that they had independently arrived at the professional

judgment that Nosenko was sociopathic, and therefore could not

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 Cl 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

leak out that the Division had given up its case against Nosenko.

To my surprise, I learned instead that when Bohrer and Gittinger

the latter advised them that if they insisted on

the ir 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

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office for the briefing, but Angleton told him nothing, saying

that Gittinger knew everything that was pertinent to the case.

December 1966

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 him. 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

1967 case

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.)

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CRE

June 1967

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 of

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

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 saic

that he and the DDP 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

In addition, he said that my promotion

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-

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.

finacht

Leonard McCoy

Attachments

A/S

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