JAMES J. ANGLETON, ANATOLIY GOLITSYN, AND THE "MONSTER PLOT": THEIR IMPACT ON CIA PERSONNEL AND OPERATIONS

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A Fixation on Moles
James J. Angleton, Anatoliy Golitsyn, and the
"Monster Plot": Their Impact on CIA Personnel
and Operations,(Ur
Barry Royden
66
Angleton became
convinced that the KGB
had penetrated CIA at
high levels and that they
had taken advantage of
these penetrations to
successfully run agent
provocations against the
Agencyllf
99
This article is based almost
entirely on classified studies
and papers written by senior
CIA officers who either worked
with James Angleton during his
time as chief of the CIA Coun-
terintelligence Staff or who
worked in CIA Soviet opera-
tions at that time. These are
paper files that were never
entered into the CIA electronic
records system and until
recently remained largely inac-
cessible. Supplementing these
sources is a collection of oral
history interviews of a number
of the primary players during
this period
Introduction
James Angleton was in charge
of counterintelligence (CI) in
CIA for 20 years, from 1954 to
1974. In this position he
wielded immense authority,
particularly on operations
against the Soviet Union, the
country's most important intel-
ligence target at that time.JJJY
Angleton became convinced
early in his career that the
Soviet Union's KGB for many
years had successfully run
major deception operations
against the West in general and
against the United States, in
particular. He became con-
vinced that the KGB had pene-
trated CIA at high levels and
that it had taken advantage of
these penetrations to success-
fully run agent provocations
against the Agency. In the end,
Angleton took the position that
virtually every major Soviet
defector or volunteer was a
KGB provocation. This position
adversely affected CIA opera-
tional efforts against the Soviet
Union for almost two
decades�veterans of the period
say it paralyzed operations
�and led to a pursuit of pene-
trations in CIA in the 1960s, a
program codenamed HONE-
TOL.
Buttressing Angleton's think-
ing was KGB defector Anatoliy
Golitsyn, who from his defec-
tion in 1961 through at least
1965 provided analysis of KGB
deception operations against
the Western allies that meshed
completely with Angleton's the-
ories. They called what they
thought they saw the "Master
Plan." Later, those who wit-
nessed the damage the theo-
All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed in this article are those of the
author. Nothing in the article should be construed as asserting or implying US govern-
ment endorsement of its factual statements and interpretations.
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The Monster Plot
An Angleton Chronology
Born: 9 December 1917
Birthplace: Boise, Idaho
Father: James Hugh Angleton, former
US Cavalry officer with service in
Mexico. Worked for National Cash
Register Company and was posted to
Italy early in his son's life.
Mother: Mexican-born Carmen Mer-
cedes Moreno.
Education: Prep school in England;
college at Yale University (graduating
in bottom quarter of his class); Har-
vard law school.
World War II Service: Drafted into
Army in 1943; assigned to Office of
Strategic Services and assigned to
X-2 (counterintelligence)
Postwar: Assigned to Central Intelli-
gence Group in 1946. Hired by CIA in
1948 to serve as head of operations in
the Office of Special Operations.
From 1954 to 1974 was in charge of
counterintelligence in CIA.
Angleton is one of the most written
about US intelligence figures ever; lit-
erature about him, his life, and his
effects is treated in an essay in Stud-
ies in Intelligence by CIA Chief Histo-
rian David Robarge. See "The James
Angleton Phenomenon 'Cunning Pas-
sages, Contrived Corridors': Wander-
ing in the Angletonian Wildemess" in
Studies in Intelligence 53, No. 4
(December 2009).
This table is Unclassified.
ries caused came to call it the
the "Monster Plot."
Angleton's thesis, which
defined the plot, was that the
United States and the Western
world had been the targets of a
vast, complex conspiracy that
originated in the Soviet Union
more than 50 years previously.
To carry out this conspiracy,
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designed to undermine the
West and eventually bring it
under Communist domination,
there had been a relentless,
multi-pronged, world-wide
attack involving the continuing
use of carefully orchestrated
political, economic, military, sci-
entific and intelligence assets
and resources.
Angleton looked to Golitsyn to
help him unravel these pur-
ported KGB operations; he used
Golitsyn as a sounding board to
weigh the bona fides of other
Soviet defectors and volun-
teers; and, predictably, Golit-
syn found them all wanting.
Angleton also arranged to give
Golitsyn access to the person-
nel files of CIA staff officers and
contractors to provide him the
means to determine whicJ1 were
potential KGB moles.
James Angleton
Early Experiences and
Influences
James Angleton's career and
the future of counterintelli-
gence in the US intelligence
community began when he was
drafted into the Army in 1943
and assigned to the Office of
Strategic Services (OSS). He
was placed in X-2 (CI), which
had only been established that
year under the tutelage of the
United Kingdom's Secret Intel-
ligence Service, MI6, Section V
(CI). It was then that Angleton
first met Harold "Kim" Philby
as a liaison contact in MI6
�Philby would reveal himself
in 1963 as a KGB spy, long
after he had established a close
relationship with Angleton.
Angleton's experience as an
OSS officer in London during
WW II greatly affected his
approach to CI for the rest of
his career. This is particularly
true of his knowledge of the
successful British Double Cross
operation, in which the British
were able to identify virtually
all German agents in England
and turn many back against the
Germans. Those who couldn't
be trusted as double agents
were quietly arrested. This
enabled the British not only to
neutralize German intelligence
collection in England but also to
successfully run major decep-
tion operations against the
enerny.,,(.14r
In addition, many German
agents used wireless transmit-
ters to communicate with their
case officers in Germany, a fact
that helped British code-break-
ing efforts. The British had ear-
lier acquired a German Enigma
code machine and, via crypt-
analysis (the ULTRA program),
were eventually able to deci-
pher the bulk of German wire-
less communications. In later
years Angleton often spoke
about the success of Double
Cross and of the vital need to
have a communications intelli-
gence (COMINT) capability as
part of a y deception opera-
tionJfl
Another likely influence on
Angleton was the British prac-
tice of limiting to extremely few
people knowledge of the ULTRA
and Double Cross programs and
giving the officers running
these programs virtual veto
authority over other British
intelligence activities. Angleton
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The Monster Plot
used this approach as a model
to establish similar, unique
operational authorities when he
later ran CIA's Counterintelli-
gence Staff (CIS).
In 1944 Angleton was trans-
ferred to Rome to work in X-2.
Within a year he became the
unit's chief. Notably, in that
period, he renewed his acquain-
tance with Philby, when the lat-
ter attended a meeting with
Angleton hosted by MI6's chief
in Rome. (
Counterintelligence in CIA
�Early Years
Through the years immedi-
ately following the war, Angle-
ton retained his focus on CI
matters through the rapid evo-
lution of US central intelli-
gence functions. He served in
the Central Intelligence Group
and then in the new CIA's
Office of Special Operations,
where he also had foreign intel-
ligence (Fl) responsibilities.
When OSO was organized into
four staffs in 1949, he was
made the head of one, the Oper-
ations Staff, which encom-
passed agent operations and
defectors.
It wasn't until 1954, after the
CIA organization was stabi-
lized into the familiar func-
tional directorates, that
Angleton took control of CIA's
CI function with the creation of
CIS. At the time the staff's
main task was to monitor oper-
ational issues regarding Soviet
and Soviet Bloc countries and,
to a lesser extent, Israel. Dep-
uty Director for Plans Richard
Helms reportedly looked on the
Soviet Russia (SR) Division and
CIS as equals in running opera-
tions against the Soviet Union.
SR Division, however, had no
insight into the activities of
CIS, but Angleton and his staff
had full access to SR opera-
tional files.
Indications of Mindset
Only a handful of written
records exist containing Angle-
ton's assessments of Soviet
intelligence capabilities during
the war and his early years as
CIA's senior CI officer. What lit-
tle there is strongly suggests
that Angleton had become con-
vinced very early on that the
KGB was an extremely capable
organization and that it had
successfully penetrated West-
ern governments at high levels
and for many years had suc-
cessfully run strategic decep-
tion operations against the
West.
One indicator of this is the
importance Angleton attached
to the so-called Trust Opera-
tion as a forerunner of KGB
strategic deception operations.
Trust was a brilliantly success-
ful operation run in the early
1920s by the KGB's predeces-
sor organization, the Cheka,
against other Russians seeking
to overthrow the new Bolshe-
vik government. In this opera-
tion, the Cheka created or
infiltrated (which is still an
unsettled argument) and ulti-
mately took control of the Trust
opposition group (formerly
known as the Monarchist Asso-
ciation of Central Russia) and
presented it both inside and
outside of the Soviet Union as a
viable anti-Soviet organization.
As a result, most anti-Soviet
elements rallied to Trust and a
number of Western intelligence
services covertly supported it.
After maintaining this decep-
tion for several years, the
Cheka arrested the key leaders
of Trust and destroyed the
organization, effectively break-
ing the ba,ck of the anti-Soviet
forces.
The communist Polish govern-
ment's intelligence service
(Urzad Bezpieczenstwa [UN),
with KGB assistance, success-
fully carried out a similar
deception operation from 1948
until 1952.1 The service infil-
trated and covertly took control
of the Polish resistance organi-
zation Freedom and Indepen-
dence, known by its Polish
initials WiN (VVolnosc i
Niezawislosc). With a legacy as
a legitimate Polish anti-Nazi
organization during WW II,
WiN leaders ob�ned US and
British support (b)(1)
for efforts to work (b)(3)I)
against Soviet domination of (b)(3)
Poland. In 1952, the key lead-
ers of WiN were suddenly rolled
up by the communist govern-
ment, and the two major WiN
leaders publicly stated that
they had been working with the
Americans and the British. It
was later learned that the two
had been working for the UB
from the beginning and that all
of WiN's activities had been
I)Jel Similar activity took place in Czechoslovakia; see Igor Lukes, "KAMEN: A Cold War Dangle Operation with an American Dimen-
sion, 1948-1952," Studies in Intelligence 55, No. 1 (March 2011).
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The Monster Plot
Angleton described a case of a KGB penetration of OSS and
went on to say that the case typified the "hundreds of cases in
X-2 which showed [Soviet] penetrations."
directed by the UB with KGB
support. The WiN operation
contributed to the creation of
the CIS and almost certainly
affected Angleton's assessment
of KGB methods and capabili-
ties. LkJ
Some of the best insights into
Angleton's early views on
Soviet intelligence capabilities
are contained in two interviews
(one in July 1976 and another
in June 1977) he granted after
his forced retirement rom CIA
in December 1974. )
In 1976, Angleton told his
interviewer, John Hart�a for-
mer senior operations offi-
cer�about his experiences in
OSS, "when OSS found that the
Soviets were involved in major
espionage operations against
their allies." "We were living in
a dream world," he recounted.
"We had (broken) Enigma and
could track German agents, but
when Igor Gouzenko2 defected
he opened our eyes about the
KGB Rote Kapelle and Rote
Drei operations."3 Angleton
then noted that VENONA had
showed that the KGB had "per-
forated" the OSS.4/)
In 1977, Angleton told the
interview team of Cleveland
Cram, Jack Fieldhouse, and
Richard Drain of his experi-
ences in Italy uncovering KGB
operational activities. He
described a case of a KGB pene-
tration of OSS and went on to
say that the case typified the
"hundreds of cases in X-2 which
showed [Soviet] penetrations."
Angleton then said that
"through research analysis we
re-created over 400 cases under
[Felix] Dzerzhinskiy, which con-
trolled all information from
Russia to the Western allies for
some 15 to 20 years; the Trust
and everything else." He con-
cluded that "we were so god-
damned proliferated [sic] with
Communist Party members."
ts"T
Angleton and Kim Philby
It seems almost certain that
the revelation of Kim Philby's
duplicity in 1963 and the expe-
rience since 1951 of uncovering
four other Soviet agents in the
service of the British had a pro-
found effect on Angleton and
his views of the KGB's capabil-
ity and his propensity to believe
it likely that CIA had also been
penetrated at high levels. By
the time Philby left a posting in
Beirut, Lebanon, for the Soviet
Union, he had become a close
contact of Angleton, especially
during 1949-51, when Philby
was in Washington. Records
show that during the period
Philby visited CIA 113 times,
22 of which involved meetings
with Angleton.5
Many of these meetings
reportedly were followed by
long lunches over cocktails,
and, given the fact that Angle-
ton either didn't keep or later
destroyed any record of their
discussions, it seems highly
likely that there were many
more meetings with Philby that
weren't documented.
Philby was also read in on
the VENONA Project, which
began to point suspicion on one
of the later-to-be-infamous
Cambridge Five British KGB
agents. Philby warned the two
in most immediate danger of
being unmasked and arranged
for the departure from Wash-
ington of the one, Guy Burgess,
who served in the British
embassy and shared Philby's
apartment.
2 igrIgor Gouzenko was a GRU code clerk who defected in Canada in 1945 and passed the Canadians a treasure trove of GRU documents
tha ncovered extensive Soviet espionage activities in Canada.
3)1) Rote Kapelle (Red Orchestra) was the German code name for a highly effective Soviet military espionage operation of some 118
agents which was run in German-controlled Europe during the war. Rote Drei refers to three GRU agents in Switzerland who were con-
nect1d to the Rote Kapelle network and were rolled up in 1943.
VENONA refers to the US cryptology effort during WW II to decipher the encoded messages Soviet intelligence officers used to
report to Moscow on espionage activity in the United States. VENONA indicated that the Soviets had around 300 assets of various kinds
insi e the US government.
5 ) Insert footnote suggesting readings on Philby and the other British spies.
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Reflecting on the defection of
Burgess in 1951, Angleton
wrote a detailed memo to the
DD/P on 7 June in which he
described the relationship of
Burgess to Philby and to him-
self.6 Angleton said he knew
Burgess well, having encoun-
tered him regularly in many
social engagements with Philby.
He described Burgess as a
"close and old friend" of Philby.
He noted that Burgess was
present "at almost every social
function which the Philby's
gave for CIA personnel." He
wrote that throughout, Bur-
gess had "always evidenced con-
siderable knowledge regarding
the SIS and Philby's intelli-
gence activity." Angleton ended
the memo by writing, "If Sub-
ject [Burgess] has defected to
the Soviets he will be capable of
supplying them with a great
number of secrets which involve
CIA/SIS accords."AS1
Shortly after the defections of
Burgess and Donald Maclean,
another member of the ring,
CIA formally asked that Philby
be withdrawn as MI6 represen-
tative because of suspicions
that he too was a KGB mole.
Philby returned to London and
resigned from MI6 in July 1951..
Over the following years, the
investigation of Philby contin-
ued, but not particularly
aggressively. As result, there
was no resolution of the case
until 1963, when Philby
defected to Moscow from Bei-
rut./6)
Little beyond the 7 June
memo reveals what Angleton
thought about Philby during
the extended period he was
under investigation. The one
piece of evidence that does exist
is Angleton's observation
recorded in 1956 that although
Philby may not have been a
KGB mole, his close association
with Burgess might have
resulted in the loss of secrets to
the KGB�essentially an echo
of the 1951 memo. There is no
record of Angleton's reaction to
Philby's defection in 1963.
Angleton's Early Views of
Major Soviet Agent Cases
Even before the defection of
Anatoliy Golitsyn, Angleton's
conviction that the KGB was
successfully running deception
operations against the US gov-
ernment was apparent in a
number of major Soviet and
Soviet Bloc agent cases in the
late 1950s and early 1960s.
Michal Goleniewski
(b)(1)
(b)(3)
In January 1961 the volun-
teer defected to CIA in West
Berlin. He was Michal Gole-
niewski, a senior UB officer
who had worked closely with
the KGB. Goleniewski's infor-
mation led to the uncovering as
KGB spies of MI6 officer George
Blake, British Admiralty offi-
cer Harry Houghton, and West
German intelligence officers
Heinz Felfe and Hans Clemens.
In addition, he identified KGB
illegals officers Gordon Lons-
dale and the husband and wife
team Peter and Helen Kroger.
All in all, Goleniewski provided
CI information that was highly
damaging to the KGB. Even so,
Angleton never accepted Gole-
niewski as a bona fide defector.
Oleg Penkovskiy 0)
In December 1960, GRU Col.
Oleg Penkovskiy volunteereliblii )
a British businessman in Mi� i�
cow after several failed (b)(3)
attempts to contact CIA. The
businessman informed MI6,
which brought CIA into the
operation. Penkovskiy was run
jointly until his arrest in the
autumn of 1962. As is well
known, Penkovskiy provided
tremendously valuable informa-
tion, including information on
Soviet intentions during the
Berlin Blockade in 1961 and
during the Cuban Missile Cri-
�grAngleton did not actually sign the memo, but it is almost certainly from him, given the way in which the relationships were
described.
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Even in this most widely acknowledged and accepted of cases,
Angleton came to have doubts, largely as a result of Golitsyn's
influencejW
sis in 1962. Penkovskiy, who
was executed in May 1963, is
considered to be one of the most
valuapgents CIA ever han-
dled.
Even in this most widely
acknowledged and accepted of
cases, Angleton came to have
doubts, largely as a result of
Golitsyn's influence. At first,
Angleton seemed to accept Pen-
kovskiy as legitimate, but after
Golitsyn was allowed to review
the Penkovskiy files in the UK
in 1963, Angleton came to
accept Golitsyn's conclusion
that even Penkovskiy was a
provocation.
Anatoliy GolitsynX)
Background and Early
Handling
No one played a greater role
than Anatoliy Golitsyn in
cementing Angleton's predispo-
sition to believe the KGB was
aggressively, and successfully,
running provocations and major
deception operations against
US intelligence. A mid-level
KGB officer who defected in
Helsinki, Finland, in December
1961, Golitsyn offered "analy-
sis" of the KGB and how it
operated that ultimately led to
Angleton's belief in the Master
Plan. It was an idea consistent
with Angleton's OSS experi-
ence and one he became totally
invested in.
Golitsyn was born in 1926 in
the Ukraine of a humble fam-
ily. He entered the Soviet army
in 1944 and was assigned to a
military CI unit in 1945. After
the war, his unit was trans-
ferred to the KGB, and in 1951
Golitsyn moved to the CI
Department of the First Chief
Directorate (Anglo-American
operations) of the KGB, where
he was involved in running
operations against the United
Stateil
Golitsyn claimed that in 1952
he and another KGB officer
secretly sent a letter to the
Central Committee of the Com-
munist Party of the Soviet
Union (CPSU) outlining their
criticism of the KGB and pro-
posing changes. According to
Golitsyn, he and his KGB com-
patriot were then summoned to
a meeting with Joseph Stalin
himself. There, Golitsyn person-
ally presented his recommenda-
tions, including the proposal
that two former senior KGB
officials who had been ban-
ished from the service be
brought back to run the First
CD. According to Golitsyn,
these proposals were accepted,
but they were not acted on by
the time Stalin died the follow-
ing year)8)
It is not clear whether any
independent corroboration of
this incident was ever obtained.
On the face of it, it seems
highly unlikely that Golitsyn,
at the time a 26-year-old junior
officer in the KGB, would have
gotten an audience with Stalin,
much less been able to con-
vince Stalin to reinstate ban-
ished KGB leaders. In any
event, the Golitsyn's recount-
ing of these events is consis-
tent with his later demands for
personal audiences with Presi-
dent John F. Kennedy and FBI
Director J. Edgar Hoover so
that he could offer recommen-
dations for changes in US pol-
icy toward the USSR)81
Golitsyn was assigned to the
Soviet embassy in Vienna from
1953 to 1955. He then spent
four years in a KGB school.
From there, in August J960, he
was sent to Helsinki.
On 15 December 1961 Golit-
s n
de ected. s the pre-
cipitating factor in his decision,
he cited disagreements with the
KGB resident in Helsinki. He
went on to say that he wanted
to fight "the evil inherent in the
KGB and the Soviet system,"
and he asked for $10 million for
the effort. Golitsyn brought 23
KGB documents with him. The
only substantive CI lead he pro-
vided up front was his "knowl-
edge of a penetration of CIA in
Germany." This turned out to be
the "Sasha" lead. (See facing
page.) Unfortunately, Golitsyn
made this the cornerstone of his
hypothesis about multiple
senior-level penetrations of
CIA.X
Golitsyn was basically cooper-
ative until September 1962. He
submitted to exhaustive
debriefings by the CIA, FBI,
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Igor Orlov aka Sasha,(
Golitsyn told debriefers that he knew of a "penetration of CIA who worked in Germany at least as early as 1953." Golitsyn recalled
that he had seen "Sasha's" true name, his date and place of birth, and the area in which his relatives or parents lived in the USSR.
He thought the name was Polish-sounding and began with a "K" and ended with a "ski." Shown a list of names of CIA staff and con-
tract employees with "Slavic" names, he immediately pointed to the name Klibanski as Sasha's true name. Klibanski was the birth
name of a CIA officer who had changed his name to Serge Peter Karlow. In part because of this Identification, Karlow became the
first innocent victim of Golitsyn's testimony))
Karlow had served in Germany in the late 1940s or early 1950$. The Karlow lead was turned over to the FBI, which mounted a full
investigation. At the end of it, in 1963, the FBI concluded that Karlow was not identifiable with "Sasha." Nonetheless, reportedly at
the urging of Angleton, the decision was made to pressure Karlow to resign, which he did. (Karlow was ultimately compensated for
his forced resignation by a special act of Congress.)/)
Meanwhile, in February 1964 Golitsyn provided additional information on the Sasha lead. This led to the firm identification of an Igor
Orlov as Sasha. Orlov had worked for CIA�apparently as a contract agent�against a Russian �gr�rganization in Munich and
had used the name Aleksandr Kopatskiy. (Sasha is a common nickname for Aleksandr, and the last name Kopatskiy fit Golitsyn's
original description of the agent's surname.) However, by 1964, the case was moot. Orlov had stopped working for CIA in 19618'5
and the newly minted Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA). On
the other hand Golitsyn was
very demanding and very much
a prima donna from the begin-
ning. Although he never met
Kennedy or Hoover, at his insis-
tence he did meet twice with
Attorney General Robert Ken-
nedy and multiple times with
DCI John McCone (a total of 11
times starting in July 1962).
Golitsyn also demanded access
to CIA and FBI files. At first,
his request was denied. SR
Division handled Golitsyn's
debriefings, while CIS officers
debriefed him regarding possi-
ble penetrations of CIA and
friendly Western intelligence
services.
During this period, Golitsyn
made no claim to having infor-
mation regarding KGB penetra-
tions of CIA beyond Sasha. In
his early debriefings, he
asserted that Western intelli-
gence was well penetrated by
the KGB, but he said nothing
about CIA. In fact, at one point
he said that he "excluded the
possibility that the KGB had
any agent placed as high as a
country desk in CIA."
Golitsyn did provide leads to
other American agents of the
KGB, but none of these was
new or timely. He identified
William Weisband as a KGB
penetration of the US Army
Security Agency, but Weisband
had already been
inally, he described
a technical penetration of our
embassy in Moscow, but this
lead was vague and never
resulted in a find until Yuriy
Nosenko defected in January
1964 and described the system
in detail.
Oddly, in light of his later con-
spiracy theories, in August
1962, Golitsyn reportedly told
debriefers that the Sino-Soviet
split was real. However, in dis-
cussing the matter with Golit-
syn, one of the debriefers
speculated on the possibility
that the Sino-Soviet split might
be a sophisticated Soviet disin-
formation operation. Not long
after, Golitsyn began to espouse
that position.)
Handling Problems and
Early Theories of Soviet
Deception Operations
By September 1962 things
began to go south with Golit-
syn. At that point he "went on
strike" and refused to be
debriefed. He asked for another
meeting with McCone, gettir(b)(1)
it in December 1962. At this(b)(3)
meeting he began to elaborate
on his theory of the existence of
a KGB strategic deception pro-
gram. He stated that Khrush-
chev's de-Stalinization program
was a myth and that the pur-
ported Soviet splits with China
and Yugoslavia, as well as the
Cuban Missile Crisis, were all
deception operations�while
McCone might have been sym-
pathetic to the idea of strategic
deception, the last claim would
have strained the credulity of
the DCI, who was one of the few
to have expected to f nd Soviet
missiles in Cuba.)8.?
In February 1963 Golitsyn
seemed to have given up help-
ing the United States and
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The Monster Plot
moved his family to the UK,
officially becoming a defector to
the British. At first, he
appeared to be content with
British handling, but he gradu-
ally became disenchanted and
returned to the United States
in August. When he returned
he elected to live in New York
City rather than in the Wash-
ington area to have more pri-
vacy and separation from CIA.
Golitsyn returned to find
James Angleton and CIS in full
control of his case. He was
granted another meeting with
McCone. In the session, Golit-
syn told the DCI that British
Prime Minister Harold Wilson
was a KGB agent and he
repeated his claim that the
Sino-Soviet split was a disinfor-
mation operation. He went on
to stipulate that the same was
true to some degree in the pub-
lic relationships of the USSR
with Albania, Romania, and
Yugoslavia. Finally, Golitsyn
insisted that the Soviet inva-
sion of Hungary in 1956 was a
deception operation intended to
give the West the impression
that the Soviet Bloc was
divided. By this time Golitsyn
was also arguing that Oleg Pen-
kovskiy, who had played such
an important role in the Cuban
crisis, was actually a KGB dou-
ble agent. In addition, he postu-
lated that through the Trust
operation the KGB had been
able to develop penetrations of
Western intelligence�even
thought the Trust operation
had ended in the mid-1920s.)$)
Golitsyn also began to insist
that he be accepted as an equal
by CIA and FBI, not as a Soviet
defector, and be given full
access to appropriate CIA and
FBI files to uncover high-level
KGB penetrations of the US
government and other Western
intelligence services. He out-
lined his plan of action for
defeating the KGB as follows:
� He should have total access to
relevant materials (i.e., CIA
personnel and operational (b)(1)
files). (b)(3)
� He would apply his KGB
background and experience to
analyze these, materials.
� He would combine his analy-
sis with what CIA or other
Western intelligence services
knew about the KGB and its
operations.
� He would provide his analy-
sis and recommendations for
action.
Enter Yuriy Nosenkoitil
Background and First
Contact
If a single event could have
broken through Angleton's
mindset, it might have been the
arrival on the scene in June
1962 of KGB Capt. Yuriy
Nosenko, who knew enough to
at least create doubts in Angle-
ton's mind about the skill of
Soviet intelligence. Instead,
with the help of Golitsyn, the
chief of counterintelligence
descended even more deeply
into Master Plan theology.
Nosenko volunteered his ser-
vices in Geneva that month, but
he would not defect to CIA until
January 1964. He embarked on
an ordeal he could never have
imagined.),I4
Nosenko was born in October
1927 in the Ukraine. His father
had been a minister of ship-
building, a member of the Cen-
tral Committee of the CPSU,
and a deputy to the Supreme
Soviet of the USSR. After sev-
eral career false starts,
Nosenko, through the influence
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The Monster Plot
of his father, landed a job in
1953 with the KGB. He was
given a job in the First Depart-
ment of the Second CD (inter-
nal counterintelligence) to work
against the US target, an
assignment he held until his
defection. Despite a reputation
for drinking and carousing,
Nosenko was promoted to cap-
tain in 1959.
In June 1962, Nosenko was
dispatched to Geneva as the
security officer for a Soviet dis-
armament delegation. There he
contacted a State Department
officer, who arranged a meeting
with a CIA case officer.
Nosenko said he needed $250
(the amounts vary by account)
in Swiss francs to replace
money that had been stolen
from him (presumably official
funds lost to a prostitute or to
alcohol). In return, Nosenko
provided what was described as
"two pieces of good CI informa-
tion." One piece identified a
KGB penetration of the British
Admiralty named William Vas-
sail. This item prompted a cable
in which reported,
"Subject conclusively proved his
bona fides." Nosenko insisted at
first that he was neither will-
ing to work in place for CIA nor
interested in continuing a rela-
tionship. He soon relented, but
he insisted that he not have
any contact with the Agency in
Moscow. He ultimately returned
to the Russian capital with the
Soviet delegation.
Tennent "Pete". Bagley was
one of two case officers who
debriefed Nosenko in Geneva.
Bagley reportedly believed
Nosenko was a legitimate vol-
unteer until Angleton, using
information from Golitsyn, con-
vinced him that Nosenko had to
be a provocation.7
Angleton arranged to have
Nosenko's reporting passed to
Golitsyn almost immediately.
Golitsyn quickly suggested that
Nosenko's appearance was
somehow part of a scheme to
arrange a "kidnapping [presum-
ably of a CIA case officer] to
arrange an exchange for me" or
intended to divert attention
from Golitsyn's leads by "throw-
ing up false scents." Angleton
told John Hart in 1976 that he
and Golitsyn had immediately
seen a provocation in Nosenko's
defection in Geneva during a
second assignment there in
January 1964. Angleton said it
was not credible that Nosenko
would volunteer and provide
valuable CI information simply
for "getting drunk and needing
$300."
Although SR Division was for-
mally responsible for handling
Nosenko, Angleton�as suspi-
cious of Nosenko as he was at
the beginning�remained heav-
ily involved, and he brought
Division Chief David Murphy
around to his point of view.
Contributing to Angleton's
argument (and Golitsyn's) was
the conviction that a CIA pene-
tration had been responsible for
the arrest and execution in
1959 of GRU Col. Petr Popov,
who had volunteered to CIA in
1953 in Vienna. The two rea-
soned that the same penetra-
tion would have told the KGB
that Nosenko had contacted
� CIA in 1962, thus, the argu-
ment went, the KGB wouldn't
have let Nosenko travel out of
� the USSR again unless he was
under its control
Another factor that contrib-
uted to their judgment was
Nosenko's reporting on the so-
called Cherepanov Papers. In
November 1963, an official
working for the Soviet interna-
tional book distribution agency
passed some 103 pages of cop-
ies or summaries of secret and
top secret KGB documents to
an American couple from a US
university who were in the
Soviet Union to buy books. CIA
later learned the official was
Alexandr Cherepanov, a former
KGB Second CD officer who
had worked against the Ameri-
can target in Moscow before
being ford out of the KGB in
1961. (b)(1)
Cherepanov had instructed (b)(3)
the couple to give the papers to
the US embassy, which they
did. Unfortunately, the charg�
d'affaires decided the act was a
Soviet provocation and ordered
the documents turned over to
the Soviet Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. Photocopies of the
papers, however, were made by
CIA's station chief before they
were sent to the ministry. The
7 That he ever believed in Nosenko as a genuine defector is an assertion Bagley vigorously denied in his book Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries,
and Deadly Games (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 2007).
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he Monster Plot
Following the polygraphs, Nosenko was isolated while Golitsyn
sen./ed as a behind-the-scenes adviser for his interrogation by
others.
documents contained very
detailed and valuable informa-
tion about the KGB's opera-
tions against the US embassy
and station in Moscow. Asked
about the affair after he
defected, Nosenko said he had
been directly involved in the
KGB investigation after the
embassy returned the materi-
als to the foreign ministry.
According to Nosenko,
Cherepanov was a legitimate
volunteer and the materials he
provided genuine. He went on
to explain that Cherepanov had
been arrested and executed.
Angleton and Golitsyn would
have none of it. Angleton told
John Hart that he believed the
Nosenko defection was, in
effect, a result of the
Cherepanov case. The docu-
ment delivery to the US
embassy, he held, had been an
effort to establish a bogus line
of reporting from Moscow to US
intelligence that had failed in
Soviet eyes because the docu-
ments were returned (and pre-
sumably not believed by US
intelligence). In this hypothe-
sis, Nosenko's mission fit in as
an attempt to carry on the
deception in another way. Years
later, an exhaustive CIA review
of all reporting on Cherepanov
indicated that without ques-
tion Cherepanov had been a
legitimate volunteer.
Nosenko and Lee Harvey
Oswald
Nosenko's bona fides were of
particularly critical importance
when he defected because of
information he offered in the
wake of the assassination of
President Kennedy in Novem-
ber 1963. Nosenko claimed that
he was responsible for KGB
handling of Lee Harvey Oswald
when Oswald received political
asylum in the Soviet Union in
1959. Nosenko said the KGB
never trusted Oswald and had
sent him to Minsk, where he
labored in a factory, to keep him
isolated. While Oswald was in
Minsk, Nosenko claimed, the
KGB had no contact with him�
and was, in fact, pleased when
Oswald insisted on returning to
the United States.
Nosenko stated categorically
that the KGB had not recruited
Oswald and was not involved in
the Kennedy assassination.
Given Angleton's conviction
that Nosenko was a provoca-
tion, it followed in his mind
that Nosenko's claims could not
be taken at face value. The
then-deputy director for plans,
Richard Helms, later was
quoted as saying that it was
because of the importance of
verifying or disproving
Nosenko's apparent knowledge
that he and DCI McCone
approved having Nosenko kept
in isolation and interrogated for
more than three years.
Nosenko's ordeal began in
April 1964, when he was
administered his first poly-
graph; five more would eventu-
ally follow. The polygrapher
said he was told ahead of time
that Nosenko was a provoca-
tion and that the purpose of the
testing was to break his story.
Who was responsible for this
instruction is not entirely clear.
Angleton insisted later that it
was SR Division Chief Mur-
phy's idea. Angleton said he
would first have heard Nosenko
out and looked for inconsisten-
cies. Reviews of the polygraph
charts years later would show
that Nosenko had not shown
deception in response to a num-
ber of key questions�though he
was accused of deception in all
his answers. Nosenko did lie
about some things, his KGB
rank and other relatively minor
issues, for example; other state-
ments that had been judged to
be lies turned out to have been
the pro ct of poor transla-
tions.
Following the polygraphs,
Nosenko was isolated while
Golitsyn served as a behind-
the-scenes adviser for his inter-
rogation by others.
Golitsyn and Angleton 's
Fantasies Grow ( )
Golitsyn outline his judg-
ments on Nosenko in a memo-
randum Angleton sent to
McCone in July 1964. In it
Angleton quoted Golitsyn as
asserting that Nosenko was a
KGB provocation sent out "for
the salvage and protection of
very sensitive KGB penetra-
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The Monster Plot
tions in the State Department
and CIA itself; disinforma-
tion...regarding Soviet intelli-
gence and security
organization, operations and
potential; and the physical liq-
uidation of Golitsyn himself." In
this memorandum Angleton
stated that Golitsyn "wanted to
work closely with the Agency,
the State Department and the
FBI" to identify and neutralize
KGB penetrations and provoca-
teurs. To do so, Golitsyn "made
a strong appeal for access to the
files and case materials on our
agents and on our personnel
engaged in operations against
the USSR." Angleton strongly
supported Golitsyn's request
In October 1964, Golitsyn was
granted another meeting with
McCone. In this meeting Golit-
syn for the first time named
five CIA staff employees as
KGB moles. Golitsyn also told
McCone that "there could well
be 30 penetrations of CIA." At
Golitsyn's request, personnel
and related operational files on
these CIA employees were
passed to him so that he could
pursue leads.
By this point, Angleton's
acceptance of the Master Plan,
supported by Golitsyn's analy-
sis, had matured, and Angleton
and his CIS acolytes had, in
effect, come to see the KGB as
"10 feet tall," head and shoul-
ders ahead of CIA in the intelli-
gence profession. This, in turn,
led Angleton to conclude that
no CIA operation against the
USSR could be valid because
CIA had been penetrated and
that US intelligence could not
recruit any Soviets because
they would automatically be
exposed to the KGB by these
penetrations and would eventu-
ally come under KGB control.
To operate thus and to man-
age CIA penetrations, Bagley
would later explain, required a
highly secret KG? element
independent of the known First
and Second Chief Directorates.
This would have be run by a
KGB deputy chairman. In order
to support and protect Soviet
penetrations, KGB and GRU
provocations would be dis-
patched to volunteer to CIA
with information designed to
cover the penetrations. Nosenko
was one such provocation, the
analysis held, and thus it stood
to reason that any KGB or GRU
volunteer who verified
Nosenko's bona fides was by
definition just another provoca-
tion. Since Golitsyn was the
only KGB defector to report
otherwise, he was the only KGB
-source telling the truth.
Golitsyn's analysis flowed
from a 1959 presentation by
then-new KGB Director Alexan-
der Shelepin in which Shelepin
laid out an initiative to politi-
cally attack the West through
KGB disinformation opera-
tions. (Another source had
reported similar information
previously.) From this, Golitsyn
reasoned that a super-secret,
powerful disinformation depart-
ment had been created to carry
out these policies. Also created,
he suggested, was a super-
secret COMINTERN organiza-
tion that included as members,
among others, Nikita Khrush-
chev and Che Guevara.
Golitsyn contended that the
KGB had sent out multiple
provocation agents to carry out
this plan. Further, such provo-
cations could not be successful
unless there were penetrations
of the target services to provide
feedback on the effect of the
efforts. Thus, it was not a ques-
tion of whether the KGB had
penetrated CIA but rather of
identifying the penetrations
that were certain to exist.
In April 1966, Angleton
offered a window on Golitsyn's
logic in a presentation he made
to his officers after he and
Golitsyn returned from a trip to
Europe. Angleton discussed
how much emphasis Golitsyn
had put on the Trust operation
and how it had served as a
model for Shelepin's plans for
strategic deception operations
in the future. (Angleton's
review of the Trust operations
of the 1920s consumes two full
pages of a 24-page transcript of
the meeting.) Angleton went on
to stress the importance of
COMINT as an essential part of
the feedback loop in the British
Double Cross operation. In this
case, the British ability to read
German communications with
German agents in the UK
allowed the British to manipu-
late their agents and feed
deception information back to
the Germans with the assur-
ance that the agents were
transmitting what the British
wanted the Germans to get. In
the case of the KGB, Angleton
argued, it was the presumed
penetrations of CIA that pro-
vided the KGB its equivalent of
COMINT?)
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he Monster Plot
In this discussion, Angleton
repeated arguments he made
elsewhere that the Sino-Soviet
split was a KGB deception, as
were the purported differences
between the USSR and East-
ern Bloc countries "such as
Romania, Albania, etc." (Angle-
ton expanded on this latter
theme in a letter that he sent to
the chief of counterintelligence
of the French internal service in
1966. Angleton wrote
The Bloc, having achieved
equality under a common
ideology now represents
for the first time, a true
international. As such, it
derives great flexibility in
presenting a wilderness of
mirrors to a confused
West. Once common objec-
tives are agreed upon in
secret, each Bloc country
can go forth and deal
with the West in a differ-
ent fashion, but still
guided towards the com-
mon objective in
accordance with the deci-
sions of the conspiracy"
Angleton specifically cited FBI
sources Dimitri Polyakov (a
GRU colonel) and Aleksey
Kulak (a KGB science officer)
as deception agents (see follow-
ing text boxes). He also fin-
gered Soviet scientist Mikhail
Klochko, who defected to the
Canadians in 1961. All three,
according to Angleton, had been
used to support the fiction of
the Sino-Soviet split. He
reviewed the Nosenko case and
table.
that of Yuriy Klotkov, a KGB
officer who defected to the Brit-
ish in 1963. Both were sent to
"mutilate" Golitsyn's informa-
tion about KGB penetrations.
HONETOL
In his April 1966 soliloquy
Angleton referred repeatedly to
the joint FBI-CIA molehunt,
HONETOL, even though what
had started as a joint effort
with the FBI in November 1964
;8( had long since morphed into a
solely internal CIA project.8
HONETOL was formed in
November 1964 to work on
Golitsyn's assertion that at
least five and possibly as many
as 30 Agency officers or con-
tractors were Soviet penetra-
tions. Golitsyn insisted that
Hoover participate directly in
the task force, but the director
refused. Instead a senior FBI
officer and Angleton were the
most senior representatives. )
The five people Golitsyn had
specifically named as KGB
moles became the prime sub-
jects of the HONETOL investi-
gations. They were: Iaor Orlov
(Sasha)
Richard
Kovich, and SR Division Chief
David Murphy. To this list of
suspects, Golitsyn later added
the Moscow chief
of station who had made the
photocopies of the Cherepanov
Papers. Their common thread
in Golitsyn's mind was that all
Dimitriy Polyakov (ak
TOPHAT/SCOTCH
Dimitri Polyakov was a GRU colonel
serving in the Soviet UN Mission in
New York when he was recruited by
the FBI in January 1962. He worked
in place until his return to Moscow in
the summer of 1962. From the start,
Angleton took the position that
Polyakov was under KGB control and
at some point he apparently con-
vinced enior FBI officials of this as
well.,)
Polyakov went on to serve in Ran-
goon from 1965 until 1968 and in
New Dehli from 1973 to 1977. In
between he served in GRU head-
quarters in Moscow. CIA handled
Polyakov throughout this period, and
he was seen as a consistently highly
productive agent. He was again
assigned to New Delhi in 1979, but
returned to Moscow after only six
months. He never again traveled out-
side of the Soviet Union as far as we
know, and US intelligence had no fur-
ther contact with him. All in all
Polyakov was one of the most highly
productive Soviet sources in the his-
tory of CIA.
Angleton, however, stuck to his posi-
tion throughout the life of the case,
seeing Polyakov as a KGB double
agent. The memos concerning the
Monster Plot imply that Angleton may
have leaked information about
Polyakov to the media. Even with the
leaks, Polyakov was not arrested,
presumably because of his senior
position and because Soviet authori-
ties had no hard evidence of his trea-
son. Robert Hanssen may have cast
suspicion on Polyakov in 1980, but
we believe that it was not until 1985
that he was arrested and ultimately
executed, after confirmation was
received from Hanssen and Aldrich
Ames.
he name is a compound of Hoover and Anatoliy. The FBI quit the project in February 1965 after concluding that Golitsyn was unre-
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he Monster Plot
Aleksey Kulak
(aka FEDORA/BOURBON)()
Aleksey Kulak was a KGB science
and technology officer assigned to
the Soviet UN Mission in New York
at the same time as Polyakov. Kulak
volunteered to the FBI in 1962 and
was run by the Bureau in New York
from 1962 to 1967 and again, when
he returned to New York, from 1971
to 1976. Kulak was an extremely
productive source, and the FBI was
convinced of his credibility,r
From almost the very beginning of
the case, however, Angleton viewed
Kulak as a KGB provocation. In
1978 Edward Jay Epstein published
Legend: The Secret World of Lee
Harvey Oswald, in which Epstein
described Kulak's relationship with
the FBI in some detail, using infor-
mation that most likely was leaked
to Epstein by a former FBI deputy
director, who shared much of Angle-
ton's analysis. Nonetheless, Kulak
was never arrested, and reportedly
died of natural causes around 1986.
had served in Berlin in the late
1950s.
Throughout the life of the
HONETOL investigations,
Golitsyn insisted that he was
100 p
Orlov,
Kovich, and were KGB
agents, but he vacillated about
Murphy. Golitsyn also contin-
ued strongly to suggest there
had been or still were other
KGB moles in CIA and that the
penetrations went back to 1950.
In the end, the FBI agreed
about Orlov but dismissed the
other claims.
Remarkably and tragically, all
of Golitsyn's "leads" to KGB
moles in CIA except for Orlov
(see page 45) were based not on
sensitive information he had
acquired as a KGB officer but
from postulations based on his
knowledge of KGB modus ope-
randi and his review of CIA
personnel and operational files.
Moreover, in view of the fact
that upon his defection, Golit-
syn had claimed to be unaware
of any penetration of CIA
beyond Sasha, it seems reason-
able to speculate that Angle-
ton's own predilections about
KGB deception operations and
penetrations were the founda-
tion of Golitsyn's assertions.
HONE TOL Victims
Golitsyn and Angleton's con-
voluted logic and tortuous rea-
soning are apparent in the
cases they made against the
suspects.
Richard Kovich was an SR
Division case officer. Like all of
Golitsyn's suspects, he had
served in Berlin in the late
1950s. Golitsyn's circumstan-
tial case against Kovich grew
out of his search through CIA
operational files for leads to
Sasha, who he had come almost
from the begin a a pect
was I�or Orlov.
Studies in Intelligence Vol. 55, No. 4 (December 2011)
(b)(1
(b)(3
No information was ever
developed to support the case
against Kovich, and the FBI
formally concluded there was
no basis for an investigation.
Nonetheless, Angleton's accusa-
tions put a freeze on Kovich's
career. Ultimately a special act
of Congress compensated
Kovich's family.
(b)(1)
(b)(3)
(b)(1)
(b)(3)
(b)(1)
(b)(3)
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The
Monster Plot
Despite the fact that Murphy had been cleared, Angleton con-
tinued a distrust of himaSr
David Murphy was chief of
SR Division when Golitsyn
defected. Golitsyn said he sus-
pected Murphy "might be a
KGB agent," apparently par-
tially out of pique that Murphy
would not give Golitsyn access
to certain CIA operational files.
Golitsyn had nothing but specu-
lation to support his thesis. The
FBI determined in 1965 that
there was no reason to launch
an investigation of Murphy. In
1970, a thorough review of
Murphy's background and oper-
ational history conducted by
Angleton's own Counterint Ili-
gence Staff cleared him. )
Ironically Murphy had been a
convert to the Angleton-Golit-
syn theology. As late as 1967,
SB Division under his leader-
ship produced a 125-page study
entitled "The Soviet Penchant
for Provocation," which dis-
cussed early Tsarist provoca-
tion operations as well as the
Trust and WiN operations and
concluded that "Soviet provoca-
tion ...always involved penetra-
tion of the staff and/or agent
networks of the opposition." It
went on to state, "The targets of
most important provocations
today are the intelligence ser-
vices now working against the
USSR, principally CIA." SB
Division was also on record in
1966 as strongly supporting the
thesis that Nosenko was a prov-
ocation and believing that at
least 12 other "Soviet intelli-
gence cooptees or olunteers"
were the same.
Despite the fact that Murphy
had been cleared, Angleton con-
tinued a distrust of him that
may have precipitated the CI
chief's fall from CIA.
:hen-new DCI
William Colby, who ordered
another complete and vain
review of Murphy's file. This
incident was apparently the
final straw for Colby, who
shortly thereafter forced Angle-
ton to retire.
In addition to those named
above, reportedly "scores" of
CIA officers had their files
reviewed as a result of the sus-
picions of Golitsyn and Angle-
ton.
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The Monster Plot
Nosenko's Ordeal4
)(
(b)(
By the summer of 1964, Nosenko's situation had dramatically worsened. He was
held a virtual prisoner in the Washington area while continuous efforts were made
to convince him to "confess" his KGB role. In August 1965, Nosenko was move to
here he remained until October 1967 in near total isolatio (b)(
In December 1965 the first protest of his treatment came from senior SB Divisioi(b)(
Reports Officer Leonard McCoy, who had been given access to Nosenko materials,
concluded that Nosenko was a valid defector. McCoy then wrote a 31-page paper
in which he detailed the unique value of the Cl information Nosenko had provided,
which stood in contrast to many of Golitsyn's vague leads. He also strongly attacked
the analysis by which Nosenko had been judged. SR Division Chief Murphy
rejected McCoy's paper, but McCoy jumped the chain of command and in April
1967 sent ajnemo directly to DCI Helms making his case that Nosenko was a valid
defector. )
In October 1967, based on the recommendation of DDCI Adm. Rufus Taylor (and
possibly as a result of McCoy's memo to the DCI), Nosenko was turned over to the
Office of Security (OS) for handling. OS immediately removed him from solitary
confinement and through August 1968 conducted its own polygraph examinations,
which concluded that Nosenko had been substantially truthful on all relevant ques-
tions. In September 1968 the FBI concluded after its own interrogations of Nosenko
and collateral inquiries that there were no indications of deception by Nosenko and
no good reason to doubt his bona fides.
Finally, in October 1968, OS officer Bruce Solie wrote a memorandum which con-
cluded that Nosenko was the person he claimed to be, that he served in the KGB
in the positions that he claimed to serve in, that he was not dispatched by the KGB,
and that previous inconsistencies in his debriefings were not of material signifi-
cance. The OS report went on to cite voluminous valuable CI information Nosenko
provided. This included information on some 2,000 KGB officers and 300 KGB
agents or contacts, some of whom he accurately identified as US and British citi-
zens recruited by the KGB,1
Angleton never accepted Nosenko's rehabilitation. In January 1969 he continued to
insist that Nosenko was a provocation, since to jud e otherwise would have repu-
diated Golitsyn, "a proven reliable KGB source." )
Nosenko died in August 2008. According to his obituary in the Washington Post, he
had lived under an assumed name. The obituary asserted that in 1975 he found
Angleton's telephone number and called him; the conversation apparently led
nowhere.
Golitsyn's Slide into Irrelevanc(4)
After his involvement in the HONETOL investigations, Golitsyn became increas-
ingly removed from operational activities. In July 1965, the FBI broke off all contact
with him. From then on, Golitsyn became immersed in writing books with his anal-
ysis of Soviet government behavior and goals and what he thought the West
needed to do to defend itself. For the most part, he withdrew from contact with CIA
or other intelligence services. He has produced two books that maintain his conspir-
acy and deception theories. A Facebook page is kept in his name; 38 people have
"liked" the page as of the end of 2011. (7)
Studies in Intelligence Vol. 55, No. 4 (December 2011)
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1)
3)
1)
3)
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The Monster Plot
Concluding Remarks:
CIA's operations against the
critically important Soviet tar-
get were adversely affected in
the 1960s and 1970s as the
result of Angleton's insistence
that the KGB controlled virtu-
ally every source that CIA han-
dled. This made difficult�even
paralyzed, said veterans of
period�efforts to recruit Soviet
agents and diminished CIA
ability to produce intelligence
from human sources on the sub-
ject of most importance to US
policymakers.
There are a number of les-
sons that can be derived from
this history The first is that no
counterintelligence officer
should be allowed to have
unfettered authority in an
intelligence organization. Coun-
terintelligence is a vitally
important part of the intelli-
gence business, and it is
ignored at great peril. But in
the end it should only be part of
a process of operational deci-
sion making.
In addition, counterintelli- (b)(1)
gence units should contain a (b)(3)
mix of long-time staff and per-
sonnel who rotate in and out
from other parts of an intelli-
gence organization. Continuity
at the working level is invalu-
able, but at the senior level
fresh eyes are periodically
needed to ensure balance.
Another, perhaps rather obvi-
ous, lesson is that no defector,
no matter how valuable and
loyal he may seem, should ever
be allowed access to organiza-
tional information beyond that
which the defector himself
reported.
Finally, this history illus-
trates the fallacy of making
firm intelligence judgments
based solely on analytic reason-
ing and in the absence of hard
facts, a lesson that we only
recently relearned when it was
posited in 2002 without factual
support that Saddam Hussein
had an active weapons of mass
destruction program.
Bibliography and Suggested Readings
The primary sources used in this paper are major studies (marked below with an asterisk) that were compiled following the retirement
of Angleton. These studies were written by senior CIA officers who were seeking to document and explain Angleton's tenure as C/CIS
as well as the infamous "Monster Plot" theory and its ramifications for CIA. These studies, and the m oranda cited below, were
stored as paper files and never entered into the official NCS record system. All are classified Sffi�ET.
*The Monster Plot: Counterintelligence in the Case of Yuriy Ivanovich Nosenko (John Hart - December 1976)
"Anatoliy Michaylovich Golitsyn - Review, CIS Study No. 3 (Bronson Tweedy - March 1976)
54 S ET//NOFORN
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(b)(1)
(b)(3)
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7h(ETHNOFORN
e Monster Plot
Some Observations on the Nosenko Case (Leonard McCoy � December 1965)
Yuriy Ivanovich Nosenko (Bruce L. Solie � October 1968)
Memorandum: The OSWALD Case � Section l" (undated/unsigned � description of polygraph administered to Nosenko regarding
his knowledge of Oswald's time in the Soviet Union and of contacts with the KGB)
Memorandum for the DCI from C/CIS James Angleton � AELADLE's (Golitsyn's) Conclusions on the Nosenko Defection (8 July
1964)
Transcript of Remarks of James Angleton made to CIS Staff Meeting held "ca. March [April] 1966"
Interview with James Angleton (John Hart�July 1976)
Interview with James Angleton (Richard Drain, Jack Fieldhouse, Cleve Cram � June 1977)
Letter from W. G. Wyman, Assistant Director, Office of Special Operations, CIA to J. Edgar Hoover, Director, FBI (25 June 1951)
The Cherepanov Affair (Author/Date unknown)
Memo to: DD/Plans; Subject: Guy Francis De Moncy Burgess; date June 7, 1951 (Author unnamed but from context clearly it is
James Angleton)
Interview with Burton Gerber (9 March 2011)
Contribution from Leonard McCoy (11 March 2011)
Published Products
(b)(1)
(b)(3)
Cleveland C. Cram, Of Moles and Molehunters: A Review of Counterintelligence Literature, 1977-92 (Center for the Study of Intelli-
gence, 1993)
Robert M. Hathaway and Russell Jack Smith, RICHARD HELMS As Director of Central Intelligence, 1966-1973 (Center for the Study
of Intelligence, History Staff, 1993) (Classified Secret)
John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999)
Richards J. Heuer, "Nosenko: Five Paths to Judgment" Studies in Intelligence (Fall 1987)
Tom Mangold, Cold Warrior�James Jesus Angleton: The CIA's Master Spy Hunter (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991)
David Martin, Wilderness of Mirrors (New York: Harper and Row, 1980)
J. C. Masterman with Introduction by Nigel West, The Double Cross System: 1939� 1945 (New' Haven: Yale University Press, 1995)
David Robarge, "The James Angleton Phenomenon�'Cunning Passages, Contrived Corridors': Wandering in the Angletonian Wil-
derness" in Studies in Intelligence 53, No 4 (December 2009).
. John McCone as Director of Central Intelligence 1961-1965 (Center for the Study of Intelligence, History Staff, 2005) (Clas-
sified S//NF)
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