UNPERSUASIVE CASE AGAINST 'FEDORA'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000201900008-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2010
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: September 27, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/09: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201900008-3
NEW YORK TIMES
ARTICLE APPEAR .3 27 SEF'2EMEE'R 1981
ON PACE
Unpersuasive-Case
Against `Fedoia'"-
To the Editor:
William Safire's Sept;-1? column,
"The Other Shoe,".. on the supposed
double or triple secret agent ."Fedo-? i
ra," is seriously in error-as is the
information from- the-Reader's Di
gest, Edward Jay Epstein and James
Angleton, on which the column is ap-
parently ultimately based -- at least
on one crucial
The heart, of the matter is the al-
legedrelationship between Epstein's
"Fedora" and Yurit Nosenko, a self-
:: confessed K.G.B. agent. who told the
F.B.I. and the C,LA: in 196364 that he
had been Lee Harvey. Oswald's case
agent for the K:G.B.'and that there
had been no relationship between the
K.G.R. and Oswald,..the assassin of
President Kennedy. ',
To put it mildly, them?were - and
are 'well-founded and substantial
doubts about the truth of Nosenko's
basicstory:
1-? As chief counsel for the Select'Corn
mittee on Assassinations in. 1977-79, I
directed a comprehensive investiga-
tion of Nosenko and his story. about-
Oswald and concluded, along with 'a
unanimous. committee, that Nosenko
had lied to_ the F.B.I. and C.I:A in
196364- and to us in 1978. The details
are- set out in "The Plot to Kill the
President".(Times Books 1981).
Included in that ihvestigation,
which had access to the key classified -I
documents -as well as F.B.I. and
C.I.A.
_ personnel and foreign defec-
tors, was a review of Epstein's allega-
tions about the relationship between a
"Fedora"and Nosenko. a , --
According to Epstein, of?Noseiike?
had lied, . then the bona fides of- his??
.`Fedora" .had to be questioned and
rejected, too. Unfortunately, it just is
not all that simple:
Although the details of.. the pro-
cess of reasoning are classified,-we--
concluded that ". -. contrary to Ep-
stein's ~assertion[s) .the.. bona
fides.of Nosenko [are] : : not:inex-
tricably intertwined with those of any
- o ther defectoi :.. "..
Professorof:Law
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/09: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201900008-3