BRIEFING PAPER THE GOLENIEWSKI CASE

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 02864151
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: July 13, 2023
• Document Release Date: August 26, 2022
• Case Number: F-2020-00942

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Briefing Paper
The Goleniewski Case
Born in Poland in 1922, Goleniewski began his intelligence
career as a counterspy for that notorious Soviet service SMERSH,
recruited by his father, also a member of SMERSH, at the age of
eighteen to work for the Soviets against the Germans in Poland.
Demobilized by the Soviets in 1945, he received the Order of
the Red Banner for his services. Six months later, his Soviet
connections well-concealed, he entered the Polish security
service. Although never acknowledged openly, Soviet support
undoubtedly accounts for his relatively rapid rise. After
seven years in responsible provincial posts, Goleniewski was
called to Warsaw in 1952, where he was made chief of an im-
portant section in the Ministry of State Security. Simulta-
neously, he took up the post of senior counterintelligence
liaison officer with the Soviets who at the time directed both
the Polish military and internal security services. By 1954
GROUP I
Excluded from automatic
downgrading and
declascitication
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Goleniewski had become deputy director of the Ministry's counter-
espionage department, and in 1955, as Lieutenant Colonel at
thirty-three, he became deputy chief of military counterespionage.
Because of the peculiar admidstrative and political organization
of the Ministries of Defense and State Security, and the trust
placed in him by his superiors, this promotion made Goleniewski,
in effect, responsible
version in Poland.
After the Polish "October
for all
civil
and military countersub-
Revolution" of 1956, Goleniewski
was squeezed out of his position in the Defense Ministry, but,
owing largely to Soviet intervention, returned to the Ministry
of State Security in February, 1957, once more as chief of an
important section, that of foreign scientific and technical
intelligence, the post he held when he left Poland in January,
1961. From 1957 until mid-1960, Goleniewski was a clandestine
Soviet penetration of the Polish security services. As he him-
self has said, he went through the side door of the Soviet
Embassy after dark to keep his Soviet colleagues up to date.
The clandestine relationship was not required after the middle
of 1960, however, when overt liaison with the Soviets was resumed,
with Goleniewski once more acting as liaison officer.
It was during the period of his clandestine service with
the Soviets that Golenimski, in April, 1958, made contact with
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the Americans. He claims to have been motivated by disillusion-
ment with the Soviets growing out of a deeper knowledge of their
activities and intentions gained while they sponsored him in the
Ministry of Defense; and by the incurable mental illness of his
first wife, whom he was forced to divorce, driven insanfe, he
asserts, by Soviet persecution. In the one case, he wanted to
warn the West of Soviet plans and intentions; in the other he
wanted revenge. While we cannot be certain that Goleniewski
defected out of any great love for the West, our association
for the last four years has forced us to conclude that revenge
for imagined or real slights is one of his very noticeable
character traits.
Goleniewski's is a complex personality, and it is extremely
difficult to isolate factors underlying his actions. We do not
have time here to explore, scarcely even to sketch, his char-
acter; consequently, without any attempt at analysis, I am
going to ask you to accept a few statements about the man.
Restless, proud, energetic, and tenacious, Goleniewski has
always "fought the problem", another way of saying he has never
made peace with his environment and devotes himself to the
single end of controlling it and the people who inhabit it.
He sets his own goals and applies himself unflaggingly toward
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attaining them, using his not inconsiderable intelligence and
practical sense to suppress, distort, and embroider facts to
his own use, all the while giving the appearance of reasonable-
ness and a wish to cooperate. His mind is quick, allusive,
penetrating, and extraordinarily retentive. He can be eloquent,
emphatic, and convincing, yet, while conveying an impression of
going by the book with exactness, he does things in accord witkbX1)
(b)(3)
his own aims.
Nonetheless, he did send
detailed
reports from behind the Iron Curtain over a period of more than
eighteen months while he held a senior position in the Polish
security service and was in daily contact with senior Soviet
intelligence officers. Supplemented by his personal testimony
during two and a half years of cooperation after
the United States, Goleniewski's contribution to
rity has, indeed, been worthwhile, and deserving
his arrival in
national secu-
of the rewards
which we have given him -- support and resettlement for his wife's
family,
tection
self in the United States for as
give it;
erty he and
forced to leave East Berlin after his defection; pro-
and support for his wife (then his mistress) and him-
long as he would allow us to (W(1)
(b)(3)
restitution for personal prop-
his current wife were forced to leave behind; a
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contract as a consultant to the United States Government
and, finally, a pension
he reaches age sixty-two. In addition to all this, the
(b)(1)
(b)(3)
(b)(1)
(b)(3)
(b)(1)
until
(b)(3)
Congress
of the United States, on Agency recommendation, passed a special
bill, unique as far as we know, waiving all residence and other
requirements, enabling Goleniewski to apply immediately for
American citizenship.
From the first, however, Goleniewski has insisted that he
has been mishandled, mistreated, and persecuted, or, as the mood
has moved him, ignored by the United States Government in gen-
eral and by CIA in particular. For months, we, or the FBI
agents cooperating with us, investigated his every complaint,
and made every reasonable effort to comply with his wishes.
Our officers - one of whom he accused of an attempt to poison
him - on occasion did the most menial household chores for him
and his wife in an effort to placate him. We cancelled his
original contract and negotiated a new one on more favorable
terms to him. The DCI interested himself in the case, and
appointed senior officers, especially designated as his personal
representatives, to listen to Goleniewski, to investigate what
he had to say, and to correct any deficiencies. With such
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persons, Goleniewski either would not, or could not, substanti-
ate any of his wandering and abusive charges, insisting always
that he could not accept the competence of any one but the DCI
in person. From his delusions during this period, we select
one instance from among many: Goleniewski insisted that his
appearance before this House's Immigration and Naturalization
Subcommittee for a hearing on his special bill for citizenship
was a CIA subterfuge to reveal his presence in the United States
and was a mortal blow to his personal security; at the same time,
he refused to cooperate with Agency officers in the slightest
degree with respect to that security. By January, 1964, it
became obvious, and I say this in all seriousness, that we could
not, short of running CIA under Goleniewski's personal direction,
gain his further cooperation. This we were not prepared to do,
He continues to receive
(b)(1)
(b)(3)
his restitution pay
(b)(1)
(b)(3)
Among the crises in our relationship with Goleniewski, two
stand out -- the press campaign which began in March, 1964, and
which has continued fitfully since; and the development of his
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claim to be the last of the direct line of the Romanoffs, the
Tsarevitch Aleksei Nicholaevich who, history tells us, perished
with the rest of the family at Ekaterinburg in July, 1918. These
developments have recently become so intertwined that it is
scarcely any longer possible to keep them separate. We shall,
however, give some background for each, since they did begin as
individual items in Goleniewskits campaign against the Agency,
and, at the conclusion of this talk, bring them together to show
where we stand today.
Reviewing Goleniewskils letters from behind the Iron Curtain
in the cold light of hindsight, we can see that he has always
resented his association with CIA. His first letter to the
Americans in April, 1958, was addressed to J. Edgar Hoover, and,
although the Agency, with the cooperation and knowledge of the
FBI, has maintained the contact ever since it began, Goleniewski
persisted in the fiction that he was cooperating with the FBI
and with Mr. Hoover personally, to whom he gave the pseudonym
Hercules. He made his approach to the FBI because, he told us
later, it was the only American intelligence agency not pene-
trated by Soviet state security organs. At the time of his
surrender, he insisted that he had been forced to leave Poland
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because his superiors had discovered the leak in his depart-
ment, a discovery he could attribute only to the fact that his
correspondence with the Americans had been discovered through
a leak in American intelligence, and specifically in CIA. We,
on the other hand, in the absence of specific allegations on
Goleniewski's part, feel it is at least possible to document
a case to the effect that his imminent discovery -- if indeed
it was imminent -- could be attributed to his own sloppy
security and certain careless habits about which we warned him.
Goleniewski has been asked repeatedly to
give more information, to clarify his charges, to give specific
leads. This he has been unable to do; his charges have become
more general and vaguer as time has passed.
This is not to deny that certain of his specific allega-
tions about intelligence and security personnel, American and
Allied, have proven out. All we can say is that none of his
allegations concerning CIA have been founded in truth, so far
as we, or the FBI, have been able to discover.
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4,171,,v
tin
GOLENIEWSKI did not keep these charges to himself. In
the winter and spring of 1963-1964, they came to the atten-
tion of the House Judiciary Committee and to the Senate
Internal Security Subcommittee. This latter body issued
three subpoenas, citing GOLENIEWSKI to appear before them
on 11 March, 13 April, and 10 August 1964. He never took
advantage of these opportunities to testify, and was finally
excused altogether on grounds of poor health.
GOLENIEWSKIfs charges of neglect and ill treatment came
to the ears of Guy RICHARDS, a correspondent for the New York
Journal-American doubtless known to some of you here.
RICHARDS did not interview GOLENIEWSKI, but from one source
and another put together six articles on security in the
Executive Branch of the Government which were published in
March 1964, as a front-page series. This series maligned
the Agency in several ways: it repeated as true GOLENIEWSKI's
charges that the Agency was penetrated by Soviet spies; it
insisted that CIA was afraid to allow GOLENIEWSKI to ,testify
before a Congressional committee (as a matter of fact, we
had assisted in serving the subpoenas and had urged that
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GOLENIEWSKI be forced to testify so that his specters could
be laid once and for all); and that CIA, afraid for its life,
was putting about rumors that GOLENIEWSKI was insane in an
effort to discredit him. GOLENIEWSKI, incidentally, was
furious and attributed the series to CIA as another attempt
to blacken his name, break down his security, and expose
him to enemy executive action.
With the RICHARDS articles, the two crises in GOLENIEWSKI's
recent history merged. We must revert to the fall of 1963 to
fill in the background of the ROMANOFF claim.
Again, with the clarity afforded only by hindsight,
review of the GOLENIEWSKI papers can detect, here and there,
for several years, traces of his confusion of personality.
A straw in the wind is his constant use of the name "Roman"
(the stem of ROMANOFF)
His most common cover name was Roman TARNOWSKI. (W(1)
(b)(3)
Another straw is the fact that in 1961 he chose the name
Franz Roman OLDENBURG as his cover name in the United
States. Here we have not only the ROMANOFF association,
but a surname taken from high-born relatives of the
ROMANOFF family.
"(Pl�ETi
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Although he had from time to time hinted darkly as
to what he called his "true identity", GOLENIEWSKI made
no serious claim to be a ROMANOFF until December 1963,
This was
after an article had appeared in LIFE Magazine, reviewing
a book published by Robert SPELLER and Son, New York,
entitled "Anastasia, the Biography of the Grand Duchess
of Russia", written by Eugenia SMITH, a Chicago housewife
who claims to be that personage. GOLENIEWSKI was disturbed
by her claim, denied it, and asked to
obtain for him proofs of his own royal birth which, he
alleged, had been left behind in Poland to be captured by
the British at the end of World War II.
Since that time, GOLENIEWSKI in association with
members of the SPELLER firm and a pair of former CIA
employees, Cleve BACKSTER and Herman KIMSEY, has built up
a circumstantial fabric in support of his claim. Once more,
CIA has become one of the principal targets.
It is routine for defectors to be given physical,
mental, and psychiatric tests. GOLENIEWSKIls case is
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no exception.
He made no claim to hemophilia or other
disabling disease, nor was any found.
From the outset, except in the case of the dentistry,
GOLENIEWSKI resisted medical and psychiatric treatment. He
claimed that they were part of a vast CIA plot to persecute
him, even to murder him, attributable to fears of exposure
by Soviet agents inside CIA. Psychiatrists were in Agency
pay to declare him insane; innocuous pills became poison
againstmhich, through elaborate and secret tests known
only to himself, was he able to protect himself; he could
cE,'OF3)1-'17
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not go out into society of any sort for fear of physical
attack which CIA would instigate; his wife, cooped up in
their apartment without friends, was slowly going mad;
he was isolated, hounded because of his secret knowledge.
Reason was to no avail. By March 1964, in addition
to all its other sins, CIA began to conspire with the
British to deny his true identity, to prevent him from
achieving his due place in the world, and to keep him
from claiming his share of the ROMANOFF fortune, now
amounting to more than $400,000,000 deposited in London
and New York. These claims, aired by radio and television,
printed in the sensational press, picked up and repeated
from coast to coast and around the world, have attracted
advanturers, publicists, and opportunistic operators, all
too ready to support GOLENIEWSKI so long as his real money
lasts or so long as he makes good copy. Here the press
crisis and the personality crisis merge.
We have no time to go into detail here, but a few
high spots seem worth hitting. In July 1964, GOLENIEWSKI
bought advertisements in leading newspapers to make it
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perfectly clear that he had never claimed his American
citizenship and that his "relatives" should not make
trouble for him by claiming that he had; in September,
under the name Aleksei Nicholaevich ROMANOFF, he married
his mistress of several years standing in the Russian
Orthodox Church in Exile (a civil ceremony was performed
in Arlington in 1961) in a wedding presided over by Count
GRABBE, the Arch-presbyter; in October, a daughter,
registered in New York as Tatiana Alekseievna ROMANOFF,
was born; he has appeared in numerous news stories as the
Tsarevich Aleksei, the last direct descendant of the ROMANOFFS.
Cleve BACKSTER, who claims to have founded CIA's personnel
security program, asserts he has polygraphed GOLENIEWSKI
and that he is indeed the Tsarevich; Robert SPELLER, Senior,
claims he is convinced, on the basis of his personal investi-
gation and the recognition of the Grand Duchess ANASTASIA,
that GOLENIEWSKI is the Tsarevich; Herman KIMSEY, former
Agency employee and a fellow of BACKSTER's Academy of
Scientific Investigation, claims to have personal knowledge
of the fact that CIA actually does have in its possession
documents which would prove GOLENIEWSKI's "true identity".
And so it goes.
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which we hope our friends in Congress and the press may
find themselves able to use before the book appears. We
have no intention at the moment to attempt to see the
manuscript in advance, to suggest clearance for it, or
to attempt to edit it in any way. We do hope, however,
to draw its claws before it appears.
In concluding this portion of our discussion, I
should like to repeat the assurances which have been given
at various levels in the Agency to various levels in the
Legislative Branch: the GOLENIEWSKI case is an open book
to members of the Congress. To the best of our ability
and to the limit of our resources, we will make every
effort to cooperate in keeping you informed, and hopefully
we can work together to an ultimate satisfactory solution.
'L'A Lc
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