INLAND TV STATION LOOKS IN ON "SECRET WAR"

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100020027-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 18, 2011
• Sequence Number: 27
• Publication Date: July 18, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/18: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100020027-2
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
18 July 1986
Inland TV station looks in on "secret war',
By ED STATTMANN
A television station has brought home to Indiana a look at international
spying and counterspying.
Investigative reporter Tom Cochrun and producer Ben Strout of WTHR-TV delved
into the history of superspy William K. Harvey and photographed a presumed
Soviet agent in private conversation with an aide to Senate Foreign Relations
Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind.
Cochrun said Yuri Bokanyov caught his eye because the man came to
Indianapolis several times and seemed to be in charge of visiting Soviet
delegations. He said Bokanyov seemed to be extremely sophisticated and a poor or
excellent speaker of English as it suited his purposes.
Eventually, Strout caught Bokanyov in a candlelight conversation at a
Bloomington motel dining room with Keith Luse of Lugar's staff. Luse said they
were at cross purposes, with Bokanyov wanting to talk about ' 'Star Wars, ' the
president's high tech plan for repelling nuclear attack. Luse instead was
pushing Lugar's effort of persuading the Soviets to allow emigration of people
who had been refused exit visas.
Cochrun said Luse's story that Lugar and others who needed to know about the
meeting with Bokanyov did know checked out.
Six months later, in Moscow, another Lugar aide asked about Bokanyov, who was
supposed to be at a meeting there, Cochrun reported, but was told Bokanyov had
''caught a cold'' and would not be stationed as previously expected in
Washington. Whether that meant Bokanyov failed in his mission or was withdrawn
for other reasons was unclear.
Cochran said Lugar's people felt the Soviets made an effort to learn all they
could about Lugar's operations and staff.
The program quotes Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., chairman of a House
subcommittee on intelligence, as being aware of incidents aimed at his
employees .
"I know the Soviets are trying to penetrate my Staff," Hamilton said.
"I see it as intelligence research," " Igor Malachenko, a member of the
Soviets' U.S.-Canadian Studies Institute, is quoted as saying about his group's
visits.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/18: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100020027-2
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/18: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100020027-2
The segment of the program about now deceased CIA agent William K. Harvey,
a Danville, Ind., native, is mainly history, but Cochrun said it was hard to
get. Many of the photographs never had been shown before, the newsmen said.
Harvey switched from the FBI to the CIA shortly after the CIA was
founded. Several former CIA agents quoted by Cochrun credited Harvey with
being a guiding influence in the early operations of the CIA.
Retired CIA man Arthur M. Thurston of Shelbyville said Harvey and Kim
Philby, the British master spy who proved to be a Soviet double agent, knew each
other well.
''Bill Harvey detested him,'' Thurston; said.
Harvey, as CIA station chief in Berlin after World War II7 ordered a tunnel
dug that intercepted East Bloc telephone lines, gathering enormous amounts of
information for several years before it was discovered, Thurston related.
The show depicted the formerly secret presentation of a distinguished service
medal to Harvey for his undercover work.
Harvey played a major role in the Cuban missile crisis, the program said,
providing proof that the Soviets were about to emplace missiles in Cuba aimed at
the Western Hemisphere. That proof led to President John F. Kennedy's successful
demand to Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev that the missiles bound for Cuba be
withdrawn.
The program alleges the proof cost Harvey the lives of nine agents.
The documentary says efforts by Robert F. Kennedy to arrange the death of
Fidel Castro became a boondoggle for which Harvey eventually took ill-placed
blame in a 1975 investigation headed by Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho.
Harvey retired at Plainfield, Ind. He died while under care of an
Indianapolis physician, Dr. Jack Hall of Methodist Hospital, who said he
received mysterious calls about Harvey for years afterward.
''The word was that he didn't really die,'' Hall said.
D.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/18: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100020027-2