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CIA HAS NO OBJECTION TO

DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR

PREPARED TESTIMONY OF MR. TENNENT H. BAGLEY RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT

FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF OF THE SOVIET BLOC DIVISION,

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Before the HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS

November: 16, 1978

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

I have come before your Committee to reply to

the testimony of Mr. John L. Hart, who represented the

Central Intelligence Agency here on September 15, a testi-

mony which misled

you and misused me.

As the former deputy chief of the Soviet Bloc

Division of CIA and directly responsible for the case

of the KGB defector Yuri Nosenko from 1962 to 1967, I can

reply more accurately to your questions and can bring

you a better understanding of this matter.

worit

For one thing, I will not have to rely as did

Mr. Hart on archeological digs into those forty file

drawers of information. Mr. Hart's six-month expedition

obviously failed to understand what they dug up, and their

leader was highly selective in what he chose to exhibit

here.

For another, I will not disqualify myself, as he

did, from

talking about bee Harvey Oswald, one of the

most important aspects of the Nosenko case, nor about

the case of the earlier defector here called

"X," which

is a critical factor in understanding Nosenko.

CIA's selection of Mr. Hart to study the Nosenko

case, and later to present it to you, came to me as a great

surprise and mystery. He seemed to bring few qualifications

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to the study of the most sophisticated Soviet counter-

"intelligence operations of pur generation.

AS

far as

I know he never handled a single Soviet intelligence officer,

and spent his career, as he told you, remote from soviet

operations, in wars

and jungles, as he put it. As a result,

he was able to tick off sixty years of soviet deception

as a kind of paranoid fantasy, to make contemptuous remarks

about "historical research about a plot against the west,"

and to use the revealing phrase, "I don't happen to be

able to share this type of thing,"

4811) But "this type of

thing" is what the Nosenko case is

all about.

a number

to fart did not mention, and perrags never studiad.

the related cases bearing importantly on the question

of Nosenko's credibility. From his testimony you would

never guess at the existence of cases apart from but related

to the Nosenko case. Mr. Hart apparently did not bother

to talk with many of the best-qualified officers on these

cases during his six months of research. When he came to me

in 1976 he had not even read the basic papers of the case

and instead of talking substance he asked about an irrelevant

phrase from an eight-year-old dispatch I had written --

later

a phrase he taet brought up with you, the bit about "devasta-

ting consequences," in distorted form and out of context.

He was clearly concerned about something other than

facts.

His testimony here seems not designed to enlighten

your Committee, but to subject Nosenko's critics -- Mr. Hart's

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former colleagues - to vilification and ridicule.

left with

the

Committee a picture of a small group of

irresponsible half-wits, carried away by wild fantasies

about horrendous plots, failing even to ask questions,

neglecting

to check on what was said, and all the time

hiding

their vile misconduct and illegal thoughts from a

duped leadership.

Mr. Hart told you a lot about Nosenko's mistreat-

ment but very little about Nosenko's credibility as concerns

Lee Harvey Oswald. He called on you to make an act of

faith, as the CIA seems to have done, in the goodwill and

d

truth of a Soviet KGB man who had rendered false

ano

incred-

¡ble testimony about the assassin of an American president. I puate:

"You should believe these statements of Mr. Nosenko," Mr.

Hart said, "anything he has said has been said in good

faith." Then, avoiding the subject of Oswald, he led you

into a maze of

irrelevant detail about Nosenko's problems

and CIA's earlier misunderstanding and mistreatment of this

defector. By spattering mud on Nosenko's earlier handling,

and particularly on me, Mr. Hart threw up a cloud which

threatens to impede your attempts to get at the answer to

the true question before you.

focus

on

bet us here focus on that question, instead of the

irrelevancies.

That question, of course, is how and why a senior

KGB defector, directly responsible for important aspects

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of Lee Harvey Oswald's sojourn in the Soviet Union, could

deliver testimony to this Committee which even the CIA's

representative called "implausible" and "incredible."

Mr. Hart even said that if he were in your position,

he would simply disregard what MI. Nosenko said about Lee

Harvey Oswald. He seems to have done just that, himself.

But Mr. Helms rightly labeled that a copout, and it is not

clear to me how Mr. Hart thought you could or would just

pretend that the question isn't there.

Of course, you can't. For today you are in the

same position I was in back in 1964, trying to make sense

of Nosenko's reports. You are investigating and evaluating

Nosenko's reporting on Lee Harvey Oswald, I did not think,

in my time, that I could just shrug off Nosenko's bizarre

story of Oswald with some irrelevant and half-hearted

explanation, as Mr. Hart did here, and slide off onto

some other subject.

Mr. Hart did not explain what he thought you should

believe, or how this "incredible" testimony is compatible

with the claim that Nosenko has, by and large, told nothing

but the truth ever since 1962.

He said Nosenko's testimony to you was a unique

aberration; I quote: "I cannot offhand remember any state-

ments which (Nosenko) has been proven to have made which

were statements/of real substance other than the contradio-

tions which have been adduced today on the Lee Harvey

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Oswald matter, which have been proven to be incorrect."

13253) But the Committee only spoke to Nosenko about

this one matter, and even so, the Committee detected

at least six or seven contradictions from one telling

to another.

Could this, by coincidence, be the only

such case?

(I can tell you the answer is no; on the

contrary, this was typical Nosenko whenever he was

pinned down on details.)

while extolling Nosenko's truthfulness, Mr. Hart

spent. a

surprising amount of time giving you reasons

why Nosenko might have lied or seemed to lie, such as

drunken exaggeration, confusion, emotional stresses,

hallucinations, and the impact of mistreatment. But

that wasn't helpful to you, for none of these things

had anything to do with Nosenko's story about Oswald.

After all, Nosenko told the CIA and FBI his story about

Oswald before any mistreatment, and he told it to your

Committee after any mistreatment, and no one thought

he was drunk at any one of those times.

So I will go back to the question here and see

if I can help you find an answer.

There has

to be some

way to explain how this direct participant in the events

delivered incredible testimony about them. There must

be some explanation for the differences in Nosenko's

story at different times he told it, for his excuses

and evasions when confronted with these differences,

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and for his final refusal to talk any more about them

with your committee.

As we seek an answer to these questions, I ask

you to keep three things in mind:

- First, that at the time he reviewed Oswald's

file for the KGB, Nosenko was already a willing

the

secret collaborator off cIA.

Therefore, he must

have been alert when dealing with this matter

of such obvious importance to the United States

and to his own country.

- Second, that Nosenko told us of some of these

events only ten weeks after they happened, so

there wasn't time for them to become dim in his

memory.

- Third, that no one has suggested that Nosenko

is mentally unfit. Mr. Hart brought in the .

• Wechsler test and other pyschological details

merely to show Nosenko's relative strengths

and weaknesses, not to prove him a mental

basket case.

On the contrary, Nosenko claims

to have risen

fast in the KGB, and he is

regarded by his current employers as "an

intelligent human being" who "reasons wellp."

I am

guoting Mr. Hart, of course, who also

called your attention to Nosenko's powers of

"logical thought" and his high score in "power

of abstract thinking."

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Aside from the irrelevant details about Nosenko's

stresses under mistreatment, and drunkenness, I found two

things in Mr. Hart's testimony which

might bear on the Oswald

story. First and foremost, he spoke about compartmentation,

bringing in his own experience to show how a person in any

organization working on the principle of "need to know" might

not be aware of everything going on, even in his own operations.

Now, I suppose Mr. Hart intended this as a contribution to

Mr. Nosenko's defense; certainly Mr. Nosenko had never mentioned

it. The trouble is, it doesn't apply to this story. Nosenko

had said repeatedly, to CIA and FBI and most recently swore

under oath to this Committee, that he was right there on the

inside of any "compartment." He personally reviewed the

application of Oswald to stay in the USSR in 1959 and he

personally participated in the recommendation that the KGB

should not let Oswald stay in the country and in the decision

not to notify the KGB sections which might normally be

interested in debriefing a man like Oswald. Nosenko knew

that the KGB leadership decided that they "didn't want to

be involved" with Oswald -- not to question him at all, not

even to screen him as a possible enemy plant. Nosenko

personally participated in the refusal of Oswald's visa

request from Mexico not long before the assassination of

President Kennedy. And after the assassination, Nosenko

himself was told to review Oswald's KGB file; and did so.

He has insisted that if anyone in the KGB ever talked to

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Oswald, he, Nosenko, would knownit. So "compartmentation"

explains

nothing.

Nosenko's story rests essentially on his

personal involvement and authority.

The second and last possible explanation which we

can find in Mr..

Hart's testimony is Nosenko's odd memory,

which Mr. Hart

ook such pains

to establish. After all,

Nosenko seems

to have changed details of seven or eight

aspects of the story at one time or another. The trouble with

this is, it doesn't touch the heart of the story, the truly

incredible part, Nosenko didn't forget whether or not the KGB

questioned Oswald; he remembers sharply and consistently -- and

insists, whatever other changes he makes in lie story -- that

Oswald was

never questioned by the KGB. He knows that and

remembers it, for he participated directly in the decision not

to.

Now that was all Mr. Hart offered. But I think we

should try every conceivable explanation. Here are a couple

I can think of.

Maybe Nosenko was merely boasting, exaggerating,

building things up a bit, especially his personal role.

Maybe,

for example, he only overheard some KGB officers

talking, didn't hear it right, and then passed on an incorrect

story to

us as his own experience, to make himself look impor-

tant in our eyes. Maybe, under this interpretation, he honestly

thinks his story is true.

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Another

explanation, going a bit further, might be

that he invented the whole story.

Perhaps, convinced that

the

the USSR wouldn't get involved in an

assassination of an

American

president (which is what we all tend to think), he

invented this story as a contribution to American peace of

mind and to international amity

Both of these explanations run into trouble. Nosenko,

while in detention, had plenty of time and incentive to back

off a mere exaggeration, and did, in fact, admit a few minor

lies. But about this story he is adamant. Just recently

MI. Hart tried to get Nosenko to come off it, but even in the

current climate of goodwill and trust, Nosenko refused. And

remember, too, that Nosenko volunteered to testify to his

incredible tale before the warren Commission, and he swore

to it under oath before your Committee.

And there are other problems too. If we begin to

play with the idea of fabrication we will have to ask just

what parts of the story were invented: did Nosenko also

invent the high KGB job

which gave him "knowledge" of the

Oswald case?

ayas, are wotat accept this live de spesulation.

They insist that Nosenko always talks in good faith, even if

his Oswald story isn't believable. They surely wouldn't want

you to think they had hired a fabricator as their advisor and

teacher.

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And there is yet another obstacle to this line of

thought, and not the least important.

We must not forget

that the Soviet Government itself has confirmed Nosenko's

authority to tell the whole story about Oswald. In Mr. Edward

Jay Epstein's book Legend he reports that an attache of the

Soviet Embassy in Washington, named Agu, told him that Nosenko

is the person who knows most about Oswald in Russia, even

more than the people in linsk whom Eostein applied vainly to go

see.

No, I think we can all agree: Mr. Hart, myself, your

Committee, Mr. Agu, and MI. Nosenko: Nosenko was neither

exaggerating nor inventing nor forgetting nor was he

compartmented away from the essential facts of this story.

So what is left to explain this incredible testimony?

I can think of only two other explanations.

Maybe Nosenko's story is true, after all. Let's over-

look for a moment the fact that everyone (except Mr. Nosenko)

believes the contrary, including Mr. Hart and today's CIA, including

Mr. Helms, Soviet specialists, and ex-KGB veterans in the

West. Let's also overlook the way Nosenko

contradicted

himself on points of detail from one telling to another. Let's

focus only on the essential elements of the story, the ones

which remain constant. There are two: first, that the KGB

never questioned Oswald, and second, that the KGB never found

out that Oswald had information to offer them about interesting

U.S. military matters.

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Here was this young American, Lee Harvey Oswald,

just out of the Marine Corps, already inside the USSR and

going to great lengths to stay there and become a citizen.

The KGB never bothered to talk to him, not even once, not

even to get an idea whether he might be a CIA plant (and

although even

Nosenko once said, I think, that the KGB

feared he might be).

Can this be true? Could we all be wrong in what

we"ve heard about rigia soviet securley Precautions ana

about their strict procedures and disciplines, and about

how dangerous

it is in the USSR for someone to take a

risky decision (like failing to screen an applicant for

permanent residence in

the USSR)?

Of course not. Let me give you one small case

history which illustrates just how wrong Nosenko's story

is. This is an actual event which shows how the real KGB,

in the real USSR, reacts to situations like this. It was

told by a former KGB man named Kaarlo Tuomi, and can be

found on page 286 of John Barron's book, KGB. The story

concerns (and from here on I quote) "a young Finnish couple

who illegally crossed the Soviet border in 1953. The couple

walked into a militia station and requested Soviet citizen-

ship, but the KGB jailed them. Continuous questioning during

the next eleven months indicated only that the couple

believed communist propaganda and sincerely sought to enjoy

the life it promised. Nevertheless the KGB consigned them

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to an exile camp for suspects in Kirov province. Because

Tuomi spoke Finnish, the KGB sent him into the camp as a

"prisoner" with instructions to become friends with the

w.as

couple. Hardened as he was

to privation, he still was aghast

at what he saw in the camp. Whole families subsisted

in

five-by-eight wooden

stalls or cells in communal barracks.

Each morning at six, trucks hauled all the men away to peat

bogs where they labored until dark. Small children, Tuomi

observed, regularly died of ordinary maladies because of

inadequate medical care." Worse still, the camp inmates, who

had committed no crime, had no idea when, if ever, they might

be released. After only three days Tuomi persuaded himself

that the forlorn Finns were concealing nothing, and he signaled

the camp administrator to remove him. 'That place is just

hell,' he later told Serafim, his KGB supervisor. 'Those people

are

living like slaves.'

'I understand,' Serafim said, 'but

don't get so

excited. There's nothing you or I can do about

That's

it.'" This is the end of the quotation.

So on the one hand we have a young ex-Marine, Lee

Harvey Oswald, from the United States; on the other hand we

have a simple Finnish family. Both say they want to live in

Russia. The Finns are questioned for eleven months by the

KGB, then consigned indefinitely to a hellish camp for

suspects. The American is not even talked to once by the

KGB. The Finn's experience fits all we now about the true

Soviet Union, from

Aleksander Solzhenitsyn and so many

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others, unanimously. Oswald's experience, as Nosenko

tells it, cannot have happened.

The second main point of Nosenko's story about Oswald

was that the KGB did not find out that Oswald had information

to offer about interesting military matters. Nosenko specifi-

cally told your Committee this. To demonstrate its falsity, I

need only quote from page 262 of the Warren Commission report,

concerning Oswald's interview with the American Consul Snyder

in Moscow on October 31, 1959, when Oswald declared that he

wishegia rendince his u.s. citizenship. I quote: "Oswald alsa

informed Snyder that he had been a radar operator in the Marine

Corps, intimating that he might know of something of special

interest, and that he had informed a Soviet official that he

would give the Soviets any information concerning the Marine

Corps and radar operation which he possessed."

Nosenko didn't mention this. Apparently he didn't

know it.

So I think we can safely agree with Mr. Hart that

Nosenko's story about Oswald is not credible, not true.

Up to this point we've tried five explanations and

still haven't found any acceptable one for Nosenko's story,

its contradictions, or his evasive manner when confronted

with these contradictions. But because you have to find

an explanation, just as I had to in 1964, I will propose

here the only other explanation I can think of -- one which

might explain all the facts before us, including Nosenko's

performance before this Committee.

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This sixth explanation is, of course, that Nosenko's

story, in its essence, is a message from the Soviet leadership,

carried to the United States by a KGB-controlled agent

provocateur who had already established a clandestine relation-

ship of trust with CIA for other purposes a year earlier.

The

core of the Soviet message is simple: that the KGB, or Soviet

Intelligence, had nothing to do with President Kennedy's

assassin, nothing at all.

Why they might have sent such a crude message, why

they selected this channel to send it, and what truth may lie

behind the story given to us, can only be guessed at. If you

like, I am prepared to go into such speculation. But even

without. the answers to these questions, this sixth explanation

would make it clear why Nosenko adhered so rigidly to his

story. However incredible we might find a message from the

Soviet leadership, learned and recited by Nosenko, we would

find it difficult to get him to back off it: discipline is

discipline, especially in the KGB.

Now,

I'm

ready to believe that Nosenko may have

genuinely forgotten some details of this learned story. I

can also accept that, on his own, he may have embroidered

on it and got caught when he forgot his own embroidery;

this seems to fit the facts we have, including Mr. Hart's

MR.

description of Nosenko's memory. This could explain

Nosenko's differing descriptions of the KGB file, and his

accounts of whether there was or wasn't careful surveillance

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of Oswald which would detect his relations with Marina, and

his change of the name of the KGB officer who worked with

him on the Oswald case - that sort of detail. It would

also explain why he told your Committee repeatedly that he

didn't remember what he'd said previously. This wouldn't

have mattered if he'd really lived through the experiences

he described; his stories of them at different times should

come out straight, all by themselves. When, in fact, they

didn't,

Nosenko resorted to this strange statement, which

made his story appear more memorized than experienced.

NOW,

recognize that this is an unpleasant and

troubling supposition, a hot potato indeed. But please

remember that before coming to it, we had dismissed all

the other explanations possible.

So we cannot simply

slide over this as easily as CIA does. It is a serious

possibility, not a sick fantasy. In fact, it is hard

to

avoid.

What is more, Nosenko's story of Oswald is only

that

one of scores of things Nosenko said which make him

appear

to be a KGB plant. If the Oswald story were alone,

as Mr. Hart said it was, a strange aberration in an other-

wise normal performance, perhaps one could just shrug and

forget it. It is not. We got the same evasions, contra-

dictions, excuses, whenever we pinned Nosenko down, the way

on

ThoSE

you did about the Oswald story.

ne other matters, while

not of direct concern to this Committee, included Nosenko's

accounts of his career, of his travels, of the way he

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learned the various

items of information he reported, and

even

his accounts of his private life.

More important, there

were things outside his own reporting and his own performance,

which could not be explained away by any part of CIA's litany

of excuses

for Nosenko

(which so strangely resemble Nosenko's

own).

All of those

irregularities point to the same conclusion:

that Nosenko was sent by the KGB to deceive us. That is,

they point

to the same conclusion as our sixth possible

explanation of Nosenko's story about Oswala.

The CIA's manner of dealing with these points of

doubt about Nosenko's good faith (at least since 1967) has been

to take them one by one, each out of context of the others, and

dismiss them with a variety of excuses, or rationalizations:

confusion, drunkenness, language problems, denial that ne ever

said it, bad

memory, exaggeration, boasting, and coincidence --

hundreds and hundreds of coincidences. With any other defector,

a small fraction of this number of things would have caused

and perpetuated the gravest doubts. For the KGB does send

false defectors to the West, and has been doing so for sixty

years. And the doubts about this one defector were persuasive

to the CIA leadership of an earlier time.

Today, a later CIA leadership chooses

to dismiss them.

If they only pretended to do so, to justify the release and

that

rehabilitation of Nosenko, this would be understandable. But

they must really believe in Nosenko, for they are using him

in current counterintelligence work and exposing their

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clandestine officers to him, and bringing him into their

secret premises to help train their counterintelligence

personnel.

They go much further to demonstrate the depth of

their commitment to Nosenko. They vilify their earlier

colleagues

who disapproved of him. The intensity of Mr. Hart's

attack on me, and the fact that it was done in public,

must

have surprised you, as it did others with whom I've spoken over

the past weeks.) As Nosenko's principal opponent, I am made out

in public as a miserable incompetent and given credit, falsely,

for murderous thoughts, illegal designs, torture, and malfeasance.

The CIA had to

go far out to invent these charges,

which

are not true. Mr. Hart had to bend some facts, invent

others, and gloss over

a lot more, in order to cover me with

mud.

In fact, I have detected no less than thirty errors

in his testimony, twenty other misleading statements, and ten

major omissions. They seem aimed to destroy the opposition

to Nosenko, and they have the effect of misleading your

Committee on the significance of Nosenko's testimony about

Oswald.

I will cite only a few of these points here. Others

are to be found in my letter to this Committee dated October 11,

1978, which I introduce as an annex to my testimony. I can,

of course, go into further detail if you wish. But I discuss

below some of the points most relevant to your appraisal of

Mr. Nosenko's credibility as concerns Lee Harvey Oswald.

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First, Mr. Hart misled you badly on the question

of Nosenko's general credibility. It was stunning to hear

nim say, after reviewing every detail of the case for six

months with the aid of four assistants, (I quote) "I see

no reason" -- here I repeat, "I see no reason"-- "to think

that (Nosenko) has ever told an untruth, except because he

didn't remember it or didn't know or during those times when

he was under the influence of alcohol he exaggerated." (3352)

Even ten years away from this case,

Ilean remember at least

twenty clear cases of Nosenko's untruths about KGB activity and

about the career which gave him authority to tell of it, and

a dozen examples of his ignorance of matters within his claimea

area of responsibility, for which there is no innocent

explanation.

The "influence of alcohol" cannot be much of a factor,

for as Mr. Hart reminds us, Nosenko was questioned for 292

days while in detention - when he had no alcohol at all. But

MI. Hart jumbled together the conditions of the 1962 meetings

(alleged drunkenness) with those of confinement, leading

Congressman

Dodd to lay importance on Nosenko's drinking.

(3243-4) He even got over to MI. Dodd, by a subtle turn of

phrase (2870-3) the idea that hallucinations "probably"

(3241) influenced Nosenko's performance under interrogation.

Yet Mr. Hart must have known that

hallucinations were never

a factor in the question-and-answer

sessions.

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Then, too, Mr. Hart misstated the early roots of

our

suspicions of Nosenko. Mr. Hart said that they arose

from

the

paranoid imaginings and jealousy of a previous

defector, whom

he calls

"X." Mr. Hart told you, and I

quote, that "Mr. X's views were immediately taken to be the

definitive views of Nosenko and from that point on, the

treatment of MI. Nosenko was never,

until 1967, devoted to

learning what Mr. Nosenko said." (2404-9, 2488-97) This

is not true, as a document in the files, which I wrote in

1962, will make clear. It was not X's theories which caused

my initial suspicion of Nosenko in 1962. It was the overlap

of Nosenko's reports -- at first glance entirely convincing

and important -- with those given six months earlier by

"X." Alone, Nosenko looked good to me, as Mr. Hart said (2375=9,

2397T; seen alongside"

x" whose reporting I had not seen before

coming to Headquarters after the 1962 meetings with Nosenko,

Nosenko looked very odd indeed. The matters which overlapped

were serious ones, including a specific lead to penetration of

CIA -- not a general allegation, as Mr. Hart misleadingly

suggested 12419-214.

There were at least a dozen

such points

of overlap, of which I can still remember at least eight.

Nosenko's information tended to negate or deflect leads from

"X':

And this bringsme to Mr. Hart's efforts to make you

think that the suspicions of Nosenko were based on foolish

fancies about "horrendous plots." Let me try to restore

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the balance here. A KGB paper of this period described

the need for disinformation (deception) in KGB counter-

intelligence work. It stated that just catching American

spies isn't enough, for the enemy can always start again

with new ones. Therefore, said this KGB document, disin-

formation operations are essential. And among their

purposes was "to negate and discredit authentic informa-

SOmE

tion which

the enemy has obtained." There is sole reason

to believe that Nosenko was on just such a mission in 1962:

to cover and protect KGB sources threatend by X's defection.

Does this sound like a "horrendous plot" conjured up by

paranoids?

It is known counterespionage technique, perfectly

understandable to laymen. But as I have said, Mr. Hart's

purpose was not enlightenment, but ridicule.

Io prove Mr. Nosenko's credibility, Mr. Hart made a

breathtaking misstatement about the defector"

X: "Quantita-

tively and qualitatively," said Mr. Hart, "the information

given by Mr. 'X"was much smaller than that given by Nosenko."

(2470) Could Mr. Hart really have meant that? Mr.'X,"

paranoid or not, provided in the first months after his

defection information which led to the final uncovering

of Kim Philby, to the first detection of several important

penetrations of Western European governments, proof (not

general allegations) of penetration at the heart of French

Intelligence, and pointers to serious penetrations of the

united states

"X"

U.S. Government.

Before Nosenko uncovered the current

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organization and methods of the KGB, and very large numbers

of its personnel active in its foreign operations.

And listen

to this: It was Mr. X who first revealed

both of the two KGB operations which Mr. Hart adduced as of

Nosenko's good faith!

They concerned microphones in the

American Embassy in Moscow and a penetration of one of our

NATO allies.

As for the microphones, Mr. Hart stated that "Mr. NosenkO)

was responsible for the discovery of a system of microphones

within the U.S. Embassy in Moscow which had hitherto been sus-

pected but nobody had enough information on it to actually

detect it." (2328-32) But Mr. "X"had given approximate locations

of some of the microphones six months earlier. Like Nosenko, he

did not know the precise locations, but he knew the mikes were

there and could indicate some specific offices where they could

be found. The actual tearing out of walls, which mir. Hart

mentions,

would have been done, and the microphone "system"

found, without Nosenko's information. Contrary to Mr. Hart's

statement (2350=3T the KGB would "throw away" already-compromised

information to build up a source of theirs. Mr. Hart simply

hid from you the fact that this information was already

compromised when Nosenko delivered

it.

Mr. Hart's other proof of Nosenko's credibility was

as follows. Mr. Hart said, "A very high level KGB penetration

in a very sensitive position in a western European government

was, on the basis of Mr. Nosenko's lead, arrested, tried, and

convicted of espionage. There is no reason to believe that

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the soviets

would have given

this information away." End

of quote.

Now, MI. Hart was presumably referring to a man

we can here call "y" although his case is very well known

to the public. Did Mr. Hart really not know, or did he

choose to hide from you, the fact that'

Y's reports to the

KGB were known to Mr. X, the earlier defector? The KGB,

knowing this, cut off contact with'y immediately after "x''s

defection. "Y's uncovering was therefore inevitable, even

though "X'had not known Y's name. Nosenko added one item

of information which permitted'y"to be caught sooner, and

that is all. How, then, could Mr. Hart have said "There is

no reason to believe that the soviets would have given this

information away?" The reason, that"Y"was already compromised,

was perfectly clear in the files which Mr. Hart's team studied.

Mr. Hart also told you that Mr.'X'had confirmed

Nosenko's claimed positions in the KGB. (2431) This is not

true. Mr. "X"

said, on the contrary, that he had personally

visited the American Embassy section of the KGB during the

Claims

1960-61 period when Nosenko elatmed to have been its deputy

chief, and knew definitely that Nosenko was not serving

there.

So these are some of the matters affecting Nosenko's

general credibility, which may be important to you when

you assess the

meaning of Nosenko's incredible testimony

on Oswald.

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Now, Mr. Hart also distorted the CIA's performance

in getting the facts about Oswald from

Nosenko.

Committee Staff Report had it right, before MI. Hart came

forth. Referring to

the Agency's questioning of Nosenko

on July 3 and 27, 1964, the report says that the CIA's

questions "were detailed and specific about Nosenko's know-

ledge of Oswald.

The questions were chronological and an

attempt was made to touch all aspects of Oswald's stay in the

ClOSE

soviet Union." End of quote. Moreover, the report noted, t

ClA gave Nosenko a transcript of his own remarks so he could

This is

From your

add any more he knew, or correct any errors. MStaff Report,

pp. 7-9.)

But then came Mr. Hart with his sweeping denunciations

of CIA's "miserable" and "dismal" and "zero" performance,

and stating flatly that "There was no effort being made to get

at more information (Nosenko) might have." (2848-9) Mr. Hart

thus led Congressman Fithian to suggest that the CIA had not

even

taken "the logical first step" of getting Nosenko's

information (3622-8) and led the Chairman to conclude that no

investigation of Oswald's activities as known to Nosenko had

been made. (4095-8) In this Mr. Hart concurred. (4100)

In

truth, of course, there was nothing more to be

got from Nosenko, unless it would be later changes of earlier

details, as happened when your committee questioned Nosenko.

If there had been more, we would have gone doggedly after it,

of course. We were not the incompetents Mr. Hart made us out

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to be. Your Staff Report said that Nosenko "recited" the

same story in each of his three sessions

with the Committee.

The word is apt: Nosenko had "recited" that story before,

to CIA and FBI, each of which questioned him systematically

about it. So why did Mr. Hart give his own Agency a "zero"

on all phases of the handling of Nosenko?

Surely he was

seeking to fling mud, not to give serious answers to serious

questions. His effect was confusion.

Mr. Hart also suggested to you that CIA just didn't

investigate the validity of what Nosenko had said about

Oswald. That is equally false. What else, for example,

was the purpose of our subjecting Nosenko to hostile inter-

rogation and subjecting his information to meticulous

inves-

tigation wherever we could? Those forty file drawers are

full of the results.

But of course we were not able to check inside the

USSR, as the Warren Commission report noted. We didn't

have other sources in the KGB who were connected with this

Oswald case. But think how lucky we were to have even one

inside

inside source on Oswald

it the KGB. Of the many thousands

of KGB men around the world, CIA had secret relations with

only one, and this one turned out to have participated

directly in the Oswald case.

Not only once, but on three

separate occasions: when Oswald came to Russia in 1959;

when he applied for a visa from

Mexico to return to

Russia,

and again

after the assassination when the Kremlin

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leadership caused a definitive review of the whole KGB file

on Oswald. How many KGB men could say as much? CIA was thus

unbelievably lucky to be able to contribute

to the Warren

Report.

In view of other suspicions of Nosenko, the key word

in that last sentence is "unbelievably."

Gentlemen, I hesitated before replying publicly to

Mr. Hart's false

charges, for a number of reasons:

- For one thing, I found it hard to imagine myself

in the position of defending myself against the

CIA beforegthe congress. My record shoula have

been ample protection against that.

- Then, too, I'm comfortable in the knowledge that

my honor and integrity, although torn to shreds by

the CIA before this Committee and the public,

remain intact with those who know the truth.

- And of course, my embarassment, my public dis-

honor, count for little compared with the repu-

tation of a Government agency which must uphold

an image of integrity. To call public attention

to the way the CIA misinformed you might cause it

embarrassment. I do not want to harm the CIA,

which has enough real enemies.

For, without the CIA who would remain to oppose the

relentless work of subversion and deception and penetration

being directed abroad by the KGB against our country? Who would

oppose that arrogant and brutal instrument of repression

in

the secret, dark places where it works?

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Finally, it was this thought, of the KGB, which

decided me to come before you. Some of the mud the CIA spattered

on me might have clouded your view of the KGB's relations with

Lee Harvey Oswald, as given

you by Yuri Nosenko of the KGB. The

flying mud may have screened important aspects of the case. By

wiping some of it away I thought I might help you to restore what

seemed to ne a clear presentation of the facts in your committee

Staff Report -- written before Mr. Hart's testimony.

What I seek is to let the

facts carry the day, to wipe

them

clean again for your inspection. You need not accept either

the beseechings of Mr. Hart, or any counterargument from me.

But

my hope is that you will not let the facts get obscured by emotional

distortions, or irrelevancies.

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REMARKS CONCERNING DETENTION OF YURI NOSENKE

The detention of Nosenko has been described in sensa-

tionalist terms by Mr. Hart and, as he clearly intended, has

caused some outrage on the part of the Committee.

I want to

deal with it because the Committee has been led to consider it,

not because it is truly pertinent to your concerns.

Mr. Hart

and Mr. Nosenko use it, falsely, as an excuse for discrepancies

in Nosenko's reporting. But this is a distraction, filling Mr.

Hart's testimony in place of discussion of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Mr. Hart's bias must have been evident to all. He

expressed his personal view that the treatment of Nosenko was

"absolutely unacceptable" and he introduced terms like "bank

vault" to imply inhuman treatment. He led Mr. Sawyer to talk

of a "torture vault" and "partial starvation" and gave the idea

that Nosenko was subjected to unbearable heat, or left shuddering

in the wintry cold. He portrayed the conditions in terms

leading Committee members to use words like "shocking" and

"horrible." Yet at the same time Mr. Hart was describing himself

as a "historian" bound by known fact. In fact, he misled you

about almost every aspect of the detention.

Had he in fact bothered to collect

facts from all

concerned, id would have gotten a quite difterent and more

rational point of view, one which deserved at least some respect

that

if for no other reasons thanhit prevailed within Mr. Hart's

own

organization for three years.

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In fact, one overriding flaw in Mr. Hart's version

of these "horrible"

matters is that the Agency leadership--

serious and responsible people-- had approved Nosenko's

detention

and

at least the broad outlines of his treatment.

Mr. Hart's way around this was to suggest that Mr. Helms

was not aware of what was going on. Mr. Helms has belied

that

and indeed has called into question some of the

impressions conveyed by Mr. Hart to the Committee concerning

Nosenko's treatment.

I participated in most of the discussions about the

detention

and

remember the circumstances pretty well. Let

"propose to you the explanation I would have given you had

I been the Agency's representative. What I knew may be more

valid than what Mr. Hart has selected from Agency records and

colored in senationalist hues.

In the first place, let me remind you of the reasons

for the detention. Mr. Helms described a few of them, but

Mr. Hart did not give you the picture at all. This is

important, for if Mr. Hart succeeds in dismissing and deriding

the case against Nosenko and all its implications, he robs the

detention of its context and purpose and truly makes it, as

Mr. Dodd put it, "outrageous." Here is why Nosenko was

confined:

- First, during the initial period of freedom after

his defection, when his handling

was identical to that of any

normal defector, Nosenko resisted any serious questioning. It

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was not that he was "drunk around the clock" as Mr. Hart

put

it; he was usually sober when he deflected questions,

changed the subject, and invented excuses not to talk.

- Second, his conduct and lack of discipline threatened

embarrassment to the Agency during his parole in the United

States.

Remember, he had not been formally admitted

to this

country.

- Third, there was a documented body of evidence,

not "supposed evidence," beyond any explanations of bad

memory or misunderstandings, which made it likely that Nosenko

had been

sent by the KGB to mislead us. It was not juridicial

proof, but it was taken very seriously by the Agency's pro-

fessional leadership, who were neither fools nor paranoids.

- Fourth, the implications underlying this very

real

possibility were too serious to ignore. Among them

were these two: that Lee Harvey Oswald may have been a

KGB

agent, and that there was KGB penetration of sensitive

elements of the United States Government.

- Fifth, if we were to confront Nosenko with the

contradictions and doubts while he was still free, he would

be able to take steps to evade further questioning indefinitely.

- Sixth, there was a special urgency to get at the

truth of Nosenko's reports about Lee Harvey Oswald because

of the time limits imposed on the warren Commission.

The legal basis for the detention has been explained

to you by Mr. Helms. It had, as we understood clearly at

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the time, the approval of the Department of Justice and

other Government agencies.

We did not think we were doing

anything illegal, at least not until the time had stretched

out beyond reasonable limits, at which time we began to

prepare for his release. Nosenko himself didn't seem

to

consider

it "illegal" at the time; it doubtless seemed a

logical intensification of the severity of the screening

process which he knew he had to go through. He did not

complain of violation of any constitutional rights nor ask

for a lawyer. An innocent man might have protested and

resisted, but Nosenko was engaged in a contest, and knew

that he was failing to convince us -- as indeed he freely

admitted (he said he was "looking bad" even to himself,

but had no way to explain the many contradictions, ignorances,

and

and errors). He complained about cold or heat, but not,

as far as I remember, about the fact of detention and interroga-

tion.

There were two basic requirements for the detention:

that it be secure and that Nosenko not be able to communicate

with the outside (with the KGB or

with unwitting nelpers).

Therefore, we needed a separate, isolated house in a rural or

thinly populated area, as far as possible from other houses,

with discreet access for the comings and goings which an

interrogation would require. The Office of Security found

a place, but as I remember it was not easy and the rent was

high.

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thin

W.'

The actual conditions of detention with the

house were not designed to cause him discomfort -- or,

for that matter, comfort either. They were to be healthy

and clean. He was never touched or threatened and he

always knew he wouldn't be; he could always resist a line

of questioning by simply clamming up, with a shrug; there

was nothing we could do about it.

Nosenko complained about the heat in summer. His

window was blocked, not to cause him discomfort but to avoid

contact with the outside. A top-floor room was chosen in

preference to a basement because it would be dry and healthy,

while the basement would be damp. When it became stuffy,

Nosenko rightly Complained and as I remember, an effort

was made to improve the situation; I think a blower was

installed to keep the air moving, but pernaps this can be

checked in the files.

don't

I do not remember any complaint about cold in the

winter. If there had been, I cannot imagine why he would

not have been given extra blankets, and I do not believe

the complaint is justified.

His diet was planned always in consultation with a

medical doctor. To accuse the Agency of trying to subject

him to "partial starvation" is unjust; to imply that

Nosenko's handlers wanted to, but a medical doctor "inter-

vened" (as Mr. Hart said) is to distort the facts. The

doctor was consulted in advance, at every phase of the

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6

detention, and checked Nosenko regularly.

The diet was

made more or less austere depending on the situation at any

given phase of the interrogation, but it was always a healthy

one.

HETEX

The time frame has been much distorted,

We did

not

foresee a long detention -- as both Mr. Helms and Mr. Hart

have said. The first step, and perhaps the only one which

required detention, was to be the confrontation, the hostile

interrogation. I do not remember how long we thought it

would last; perhaps somewhere between two weeks and two

months. From then on the detention became extended, phase

by phase.

First, the hostile interrogation. The results

surprised

us. Before, we suspected Nosenko mignt be a plant;

afterwards, we had come to think moreover that he might never

have been a true KGB officer and that he surely had not hela

certain of the positions in the KGB which he claimed. (This

view was reinforced in later questionings.)

At the conclusion of the hostile interrogation, in

which Nosenko himself admitted that he 'looked bad' even to

himself.

Nosenko was entirely willing to submit to a

systematic debriefing. He said that we had been right to

separate him

from drink and

women and make

him work

seriously.

He did not complain then of the conditions of

detention.

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began the second phase, a systematic

questioning of the sort which we would have done with any

normal defector under conditions of freedom. Nosenko ate

quite good food, got books to read, and cooperated without

complaint (except when it got too hot).

The third phase

was a second hostile interrogation

using the new

information derived from his questioning and

from outside investigations in the meantime. It deepened

our suspicions, gave us more insight into what might lie

behind him, and produced some confessions of minor lies --

which did not remove the doubts, for the new version contra-

dicted other things he had said. But he did not confess

to Soviet control. During this period his diet was made

more Spartan, and he was not given reading material

Nothing was harmful to Nosenko, however. You have

only to listen to his complaints (lack of reading material, an

eP other diversions, being about the worst) to realize that

this was not "torture" whatever Nosenko's advantage in making

it appear so.

After the second hostile

interrogation (I do not

remember the dates) Nosenko was moved to the second nolding

area.

This we can call the fourth phase.

Much has been made of CIA's constructing a house to

nold Nosenko. But the true explanation is far less lurid

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than Mr. Hart would make it seem. A new safehouse was

needed because time erodes the

security of any safe area;

it was time to move. There was no thought

about how much

longer the detention had to last; Nosenko was still in the

United States on parole to the CIA; we would not, under

any circumstances, have certified to the immigration

authorities that we considered him a bona fide immigrant.

On the contrary, we had a mass of reasons to believe that

he was a KGB agent sent to harm the interests of the this

country. So what could we do about him?

The first thing,

in view of the serious implications underlying this

suspicion, was to clarify the doubts to the best of our

ability. And at that point we still thought there were

ways to learn more, enough to justify continuing the effort.

Suitable rural houses near Washington were, of course,

hard to find, expensive to rent, and involved leases for

minimumperiod, security hazards, and the threat that breaches

of security might make us move again and again. And such

holding areas required a large guard force.

So the Office of Security considered it not only

safer and better for our purposes, but also cheaper, to build

a place on Government-owned land, than to lease a new house,

pay the guards, make the alterations, etc. for a period we

could not control.

As to the design of that house. Mr. Hart invented

the term "bank vault" which is a catchy phrase but a purposeful

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misrepresentation, a misrepresentation of his own Agency's

motives.

The facts were these.

The house was to be separate,

but to hold down costs it should be as small as possible. There

were certain minimum requirements: an interview room, a room

for Nosenko, and a room for the guard or guards. It shoula

require as few guards as possible. It should have an open-air

exercise

area, but not such as to let him see where he was.

And as in the earlier safehouse, he should not be able to

communicate with the outsidé, hence no windows. To prevent

Now,

tunneling, his room should be of stronger construction." To

go from these last

two criteria, as Mr. Hart did, and say that

"in addition to the vault it consisted of a house which

disguised the vault, which surrounded it," (Line 3949-50)

is to misstate the truth.

The house was designed by the Office of Security,

which was

responsible for all the physical aspects of holding

Nosenko. At no time did any representative of the Office of

Security express any dissatisfaction with the manner of

Nosenko's handling, nor disagreement with the suspicions

of Nosenko which underlay the detention.

It has been said that Nosenko was kept in

"solitary

confinement" and unoccupied, with a special view to

influencing him to confess. In fact, there was no alter-

Confinement

native to "solitary" detention (could we have found him a

companion?) and it was physically impossible to arrange to

question him constantly. One day of interrogation requires

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at least a day and perhaps more of report writing, and a day

more

or, to of investigation, and later sessions take time to

prepare. And for almost all the people involved, there were

other

responsibilities, other tasks; the work went on even

outside the Nosenko case. How Mr. Hart could imagine

that the Agency leadership (professionals with experience

in interrogation)

thought Nosenko was under constant question-

ing is incomprehensible to me. Mr. Hart says we interrogated

Nosenko for 292 days out of 1277. That makes about one

day in four, if you let us off for weekends, and that sounds

about right and normal. If I once wrote that the time

between questionings would make Nosenko "ponder," then I was

rationalizing inevitable gaps, not planning an unbearable

isolation for the man.

The detention had positive results. We got, as we

never could have otherwise, the bulk of what Nosenko had to

report, pure and free of any outside coaching.

We were

able to detectfjust now ignorant he was, and in just what

areas. We could probe the limits of his knowledge, and they

were rigid, even in connection with things he had claimed to

ot

have lived through. (Much like his recited story about Lee

Harvey Oswald). We were able to apply test questions to

refine or test our

hypotheses, in the absence of a confession.

But, limited by morality and the law, we were not able to

get a confession. In retrospect, with the benefit of hindsight,

I suppose that we would have done just as well to give him

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better food, more books, music, a big bed, games, and occasional

informal conversations.

But that was not clear

at the

time.

But we could hardly, in good conscience under our

responsibility under the parole, sponsor him for U.S. immi-

gration.

It took a whitewash and pretended belief in his

tales to accomplish that. (

The questian off "disposal"

Here the extent of CIA's irrational involvement

with Nosenko becomes blatant. Mr. Hart read (with relish,

according to my friends who watched on TV) selected items

from some penciled jottings in my handwriting which left

with you the impression that I had contemplated or considered

(even "suggested" as more than one newpaperman understood him)

such measures as liquidation, drugging, or confinement in mental

institutions.

state unequivocally, under oath, that:

IT No such measures were ever seriously colnsidered.

Second 24 No such measures were ever studied.

(What "loony bin"? How "make him nuts"? What

drugs to induce forgetfulness? I know of none

now and never did, nor did I ever try to find out

if such exist.

The whole subject of "ligui-

dation" was taboo in the CIA for reasons with

which I wholeheartedly agreed then and still do.)

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• *

Third:

-38-

3X

No such measures were ever suggested as a

course of action, even in intimate personal

Jathe, conversations.

No such measures were ever proposed at any

level of the Agency. (9

I do not remember making any such notes.

- However,

I can imagine how I might have.

Responsible as I was for this

"abominable" case, I was called upon to help find the best way

to release Nosenko -- without a confession but sure that he

was an enemy agent. In an effort to find something meriting

seroius consideration, I suppose that I jotted down, one day, every

theoretically conceivable action. Some of them might have been

mentioned in one form or another by others; I doubt they all

sprang from my mind. (I cannot even guess what "points one through

four" might have been, the ones

Mr. Hart declined to read because

they

"unimportant." I guess that means they weren't damning

to me.)

But the fact that the notes were penciled reveals that

they were intended to be transient; the fact that "liquidation"

was included reveals that they were theoretical; and their loose,

undignified language reveals that they were entirely personai, for

my fleeting

use only. In fact, none of these courses of action

could have been morally acceptable to me nor conceivable

as a practical suggestion to higher authority.

Mr. Hart admitted, or proudly claimed, that he

himself discovered these notes in the files. (Hard Although

he recognized their purely personal nature, that they were not

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addressed nor intended for any other person, nor had any

practical

intent, he chose to bring them to show-and-tell

to the Committee and

the American public. Did he feel this

a moral duty? Or was it simply part of his evident intent

to deride and destroy any opposition to Nosenko?

Could

he have done it for reasons of personal spite?

Whatever the

answer, the cost seems too high: he was discrediting his own

Agency for a matter without substance.

I cannot remember any concrete proposal for "disposal"

being made during my tenure. You understand, of course, that

"disposal"

is merely professional jargon

ending a

relationship which began with "acquisition."

The course

the Agency eventually adopted seems, in retrospect, the only)

practical one. I think the Agency did well to rehabilitate

Nosenko and, as I thought, put him out to pasture.

However, I cannot understand why they then employed

him as an aâvisor, as a teacher of their staff trainees in

counterintelligence. The concrete suspicions of Nosenko

have never been resolved, and because they are well founded,

they never will "be cleared

up and go away." Mr. Hart and

Admiral Turner may frivolously dismiss them, as they have

done before your Committee,

but the doubts are still there

and it is irresponsible to expose

clandestine personnel to

this individual. 12

Mr. Hart's testimony was a curious performance. One

wonders what could drive a government agency into the position of:

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- trying to discredit and bury under a pile of

irrelevancies

the reasons to suspect that the

Soviet Union sent to America a provocateur to

mislead us about the assassin of President

Kennedy;

- pleading irrationally and misleadingly in favor

of a

KGB

man about whom serous doubts persist;

- misrepresenting , invidiously, its own prior

action;

- denigrating publicly the competence and performance

of duty of its own officers;

- dredging up unsubstantial personal notes, lett

carelessly in a highly secret file folder, to

falsely suggest in public the planning by its

own people of the vilest forms of misconduct.

As the Congress is conspicuously aware, the veil of

secrecy can hide irresponsibility and incompetence. But

behind that veil the CIA used to maintain unusually high

standards of honor and decency and responsibility, and did a

pretty competent job, often in the face of impossible demands.

The decline of these qualities is laid bare by Mr. Hart's testimony --

to the Agency's discredit, to my own dismay, and to the detriment

of future recruitment of good men, who will not want to make

careers

in an environment without integrity.

The Agency need not have gone so far. After all,

Nosenko's bona fides had been officially certified. Those who

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disagreed were judged at its highest level to have "besmirched

the Agency's escutcheon." Not only are they out of the way,

but "everything possible" is being done to see that no one

challenges Nosenko or his ilk, ever again. (4048) The Agency

need only have said this much, and no more.

That Admiral Turner's personal emissary went so much

further

suggests

that the Agency may not, after all, be quite

so sure of its position. Perhaps it fears that the committee,

wondering about this defector's strange reporting and uncon-

strained by CIA's official line, might innocently cry out,

"But the emperor has no clothes!" This might explain the

spray of-mud, to cloud your view.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to appear

before this Committee. My only regret is that I have not

had the opportunity to answer publicly charges that have been

made in public. And I should also like to point out in closing

that in making this presentation and in responding to your

questions today I may be limited by the fact that the Agency

has denied me access to certain documents which I requested

be made available. With that

in mind, I will be happy to

adrress any questions you may have.

(notes

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