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2025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992

SUBJECT: Sam Jaffe

DO NOT REP#UDUCË

RETURN TO CI

?. Sam Jaffe's relationship with the Agency predates his assignment

to Moscow as an ABC correspondent. During the period 1958-60 while in New

York Jaffe was a confidential informant of the FBI on his Soviet contacts

in New York.

In addition, he had several meetings with the New York office

of CIA's Domestic Contact Division.

While in Moscow with ABC Jaffe felt he

was the subject of a recruitment attempt by the KGB in 1962. He recounted

his story to the Regional Security Officer at the American Embassy in Moscow,

copies of which went to both CIA and FBI. Jaffe covered the Gary Powers'

trial for ABC and flew on the same plane from New York to Moscow with the

Barbara Powers' party. Prior to that trip he was briefed by a CIA psychologist

òn ways to observe Powers's behavior and demeanor. Jaffe was never "ordered"

to cover the Powers' trial, but simply acted as an enterprising newspaperman

befriending Barbara Powers while her party was enroute and in the Soviet Union.

2:

During the latter part of his time in Moscow Jaffe was in contact

with a KGB officer, Kuvkov, and this relationship is a matter of record with

the FBI. There is some evidence that Jaffe was given preferential treatment

by the Soviet authorities. Some western pressmen felt that Jaffe, as an

aggressive newspaperman, was giving a little to get a story. Jaffe has

given his version of his dealings with the KGB in a lengthy 1969 interview

with the FBI.

The defector Nosenko provided information on Jaffe's relationship

to the KGB in 1964. However as time went on, further debriefings of Nosenko

indicated that Nosenko was not as sure about Jaffe's relationship as he had

been originally. By 1968 Nosenko was positive only that Kuvkov had been in

touch with Jaffe, but Nosenko was not certain that Jaffe was a paid and

witting agent of

the KGB.

4.

During Jaffe's tour in Hong Kong, and subsequently in Washington,

he was in touch with cia officers.

He provided good information on a Chinesec

news officiall and he was helpful to the Agency in reporting on a Canadian] |

organization,

The Committee of New China Policy All official contact with

Jaffe ended in T971.

Central to Jaffe's charges about CIA, which he has made public many

timas, is Jaffe's belief that the CIA passed derogatory information about.

him to his employers. Attached is a 24 November 1975 letter from fir. Colby

to Jaffe which states categorically that no information in the CIA files had

ever been passed outside of official channels. In addition to this letter

Jaffe has been reassured on this point verbally on at least four other

occasions.. The CIA is positive that Jaffe's recall from Hong Kong in 1968

4/BR

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and subsequent dismissal by ABC, are not related to any action taken by the

In discussions with dafte he frequently recounts a conversation he

had with Mr. Ted Cowen, a British intelligence official in Hong Kong. 06/6%

According to Jaffe, Cowen told him that he had a "security problem"

this problem would clear up in due course. A close check of our files can

not ellucidate what Cowen was talking about. It is possible, of course, 06

that Cowen was alluding to the Nosenko allegations as the British

given much of the Nosenko debriefings. The record is unclear on this

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point..

However, based on information available to this Agency, we feel we

have tried to pacify Jaffe with the statement contained in the Colby letter

that we have no evidence he has ever been an agent of any foreign intelligence

service.

7. Jaffe has submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to CIA

which has resulted in the release of a large number of documents to him.

Jaffe can, of course,

appeal our withholding of certain documents through

appropriate administrative and judicial procedures under the FOIA.

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