ABC 20/20

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000201200011-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 10, 2008
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: May 17, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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17 May 1984
DOWNS: Up front tonight, an exclusive report on a first-class mystery in the
dangerous world of America's spies. Now for most of us, our sense of the lethal
twists and turns in the game of spy versus spy comes from fiction. Tom Jarriel
is here tonight, and Tom, you've been investigating one of those rare situations
in which spies surface just enough for us to get a look at them anyway.
JARRIEL: And it's a very unusual look, Hugh, into the life and maybe even the
death of a master spy for the Central Intelligence Agency.
DOWNS: That's what's intriguing. Maybe the death.
JARRIEL: This guy's life was so mysterious, it's not even sure that he is dead.
The CIA won't confirm that he ever worked there.
DOWNS: What is certain is that he knew some of the nation's most important
secrets, though.
JARRIEL: Definitely, from interviews with people who knew him and also, papers
provided by his family for us, we are able to reveal some unusual details about
his strange career. As is so often the case in a mystery like this, this story
begins with the discovery of a corpse. The tranquility of the place belies the
mystery and the nature of the death that occurred here. This is where the body
was found, a remote Maryland farm, about one hour's drive outside of Washington,
..D.C. . The date, ..Nov.. 15th, 1982, and .this is the..body. they found.. State Police
.identified. it..as George Weiss, owner..of.the farm.- (film. clip) Police-.said
Weisz killed himself in this garage, using a garden hose attached to the exhaust
pipe, which pumped carbon monoxide fumes into the car where he sat. The -
Maryland state medical examiner agreed. The official ruling, suicide. Four
.days after the body was found, it was cremated, and the case was closed, but
there's more to it than that. George Weisz's life and death are a complex
puzzle whose pieces still don't fit. 20/20 has been investigating the death of
George Weisz for 18 months, and two key points have emerged, never disclosed
until now. Point one, there's evidence the body in the car was not that of
George Weisz. Point two, Weisz was no ordinary CIA agent, but for 30 years had
been one of this country's most important spies. Even after that, Weisz was in
charge of protecting America's most sensitive nuclear secrets from terrorists
and enemy agents. In the tradition of master spies, George Weisz was faceless,
anonymous. DONAL\WEISZ (son): He was very, very high up, very high up. He was
so-important that nobody knows who he was. FRANK\SNEPP (former CIA agent): He
was the model CIA man, the model spy. He was a very effective operator, in
fact, one of the most effective I've ever met. If you wanna talk about a John
Le Carre character, you talk about George Weisz.
JARRIEL: This cable, found among his personal effects, was sent to Weisz by one
of his CIA superiors, quote, 'There is no aspect of clandestine operations in
which you were not heavily engaged... There are many in which your own approach
and imagination accounted for an-advance in the state of the art,' unquote. The
list of George Weisz's CIA assignments around the world is a roster of espionage
hot spots. In the '50s, it was postwar Berlin, 100 miles inside Communist
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territory, the CIA's number one European spy post. George Weisz's children
recall a bizarre childhood. DONAL\WEISZ: I grew up with the CIA. The children
that I played with, the people that were my father's colleagues and my mother's
friends are a Who's Who of the CIA in Europe. NIKKI\WEISZ (daughter): I had to
remember people that we knew suddenly having different names or people that we'd
call uncle this or that, and then suddenly they would have other last names.
But I never really knew why.
JARRIEL: Who was your Uncle Bill? DONAL\WEISZ: Bill Harvey, the famous Bill
Harvey, who blew his brains out in Rome.
JARRIEL: CIA. WEISZ: Oh, heavy CIA from the beginning. Bill Harvey was the man
who, uh, was the man who, uh, pulled off one of the greatest coups, spy coups,
in the history of the Cold War. He's the one who tapped, he tapped the Russian
telephone lines in East Berlin.
JARRIEL: In the '60s, the big job for the CIA was in Vietnam, and so was George
Weisz. SNEPP: His job in Saigon was extremely powerful.
JARRIEL: Frank Snepp is an ex-CIA agent and an ABC News consultant on another
topic. Snepp wrote a book condemning the agency's policies in the Vietnam War.
SNEPP: I was an analyst for the CIA station in Saigon. Weisz was running the
division of the station which was designed to track Communist agents and to
neutralize 'em. In layman's terms, that means kill them, capture them, turn
them around and what have you.
4
JARRIEL: After Vietnam, Weisz went back to Berlin but this time as CIA chief
there. In 1974, a promotion. Weisz came back to CIA headquarters in Washington
as chief-of staff.of the.. agency's Covert .. Operations Department, dirty-tricks. .
The spy was. not. to...remain home for long, with the-next, assignment for George
Weisz, Vienna. There was a hint that something big was in the works. Weisz was
placed in charge of CIA operations here in Vienna, the city where the big boys,
the CIA and the KGB, would try to outfox each other in one of the biggest spy
deals ever. It was the bizarre and mysterious incident that came to be known as
the *Shadron affair. Nicholas Shadron was the highest ranking Soviet military
defector to the U.S. ever. In 1975, he was in Vienna for a meeting with Soviet
spies, an unprecedented rendezvous, arranged by the CIA. Shadron vanished,
never to be seen again. What happened? In the dangerous and ever-murky world
of spy and counter spy, it may never be known. One theory is that George Weisz
might have masterminded the whole operation, sending Shadron back to the
Russians in a complex double deal. SNEPP: After all, that was his game, setting
up, setting up an environment in which your opposition, the KGB, the Soviet
intelligence people, would be so confused they might even end up killing off
some of their own agents out of suspicion or confusion. That's the doublethink
game. You want a master at that, you got 'im, George Weisz.
JARRIEL: A few years later, the master spy was forced to'retire. A new CIA
director began the wholesale firing of cloak-and-dagger type agents in favor of
spying by computer and satellite, but Weisz rebounded, landing a top job in the
Department of Energy. For three years, Weisz was responsible for protecting our
entire nuclear weapons production complex against terrorists and enemy spies.
In the year before his alleged suicide,-Weisz earned $91,000 working as a
consultant on several highly classified projects. One of them, a Pentagon
intelligence operation,. was doing work so secret that Weisz was required to work
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in a vault. Among Weisz's papers, ABC reporters found a fascinating clue as to
what he might have been working on in that vault. These notes were a meeting
with his Pentagon boss discussing whether an enemy spy could penetrate the White
House. So our investigation shows George Weisz was one of the few men who had
access to many of America's top secrets--secrets about CIA operations around the
world, secrets about our production of nuclear bombs. Did Weisz commit suicide?
To the Maryland State Police, it was clear. There was this note in Weisz's
handwriting that said simply, 'I am tired.' There were reports of career
setbacks and a broken romance with a younger woman, but 20/20's investigation
raises serious questions about the official version of the death, including the
possibility that the body found in the car was not that of George Weisz. This
is the autopsy report on the body found in the car, and it states that there
were, quote, 'no changes in the gallbladder.' I'll repeat that, 'no changes in
the gallbladder.' That means, according to medical experts, that when the body
identified as George Weisz, the one in the car, was autopsied, a normal
gallbladder was found. Now take a look at this document. It's part of George
Weisz's official medical records. Detailed surgical notes taken during an
operation on Weisz on June 14th, 1978, at a military hospital in Frankfurt.
Quote, 'The gallbladder was now removed..' So George Weisz had no gallbladder.
This is Dr. Hormez Guard the medical examiner who did that autopsy. Last
August, Dr. Guard was questioned by ABC News. Reporter Chuck Lewis asked about
his findings. ABC: There was a gallbladder? GUARD: Yes. ABC: If the
gallbladder had been removed, you would have noticed It? GUARD: If it was
removed, but that's not the case.
JARRIEL: A few days later, we interviewed Dr. Guard on camera. By now he was
aware of the medical records showing Weisz's gallbladder had been removed. In
your report, you say you found no changes in the gallbladder, which indicates
there was. a..gallbladder there.. HORMEZ GUARD,.M.D..(medical..examiner).:.,Wel1, . I
believe.. so, but .I.,. I!m not. so sure as to .I...paid aay..great attention on..the
gallbladder.
JARRIEL: But what about the big scar that a gallbladder operation leaves? (to
Donal Weisz): Did your father have a gallbladder scar, and if so, did you ever
see it? WEISZ: Oh, God. Yes, my father had a gallbladder scar that...
JARRIEL: Was it conspicuous? (indicating abdominal region) It went from here
to here. We were on my deck Sunday, and he took off his shirt, and I went,
'What happened to you? Did you run into a machete?' And he said, '0h, no, I
had my gallbladder removed.'
JARRIEL: Dr. Guard insists he would have noticed a large gallbladder scar had
there been one, but in the autopsy report on the body found in the car, the one
identified as George Weisz, there was no mention of any scar. 'Weisz's daughter,
she's only one possible explanation. NIKKI\WEISZ: The explanation is that the
body could not be the same, not... .
JARRIEL: Not your father's body in the autopsy. WEISZ: No, I mean, it, it seems
to me pretty impossible.
JARRIEL: So how was the body identified as George Weisz? Not knowing about the
missing gallbladder, the police were satisfied. They had found the body in
George Weisz's car, in George Weisz's garage, on George Weisz's farm.
DET.\SGT.\JOHN\REBURN (Maryland State Police): So we take his driver's license.
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On there is a picture of him. It's a good picture, and that picture to the
investigators, that is George Weisz in that car.
JARRIEL: Police say this man, Dale Young, a tenant on the Weisz farm, was the
one who positively identified the body in the car as that of George Weisz.
Young did not wish to speak on camera, but he told 20/20 he never got close
enough to see the body clearly. Young said he was surprised to learn that he
had provided the formal identification. When shown the close-up photograph of
the body, Young said that doesn't look like Weisz to him. there was more
confusion at the funeral home when three members of the family finally saw the
body. Daughter Nikki said, 'That's not my father.' NIKKI\WEISZ: It just didn't
look like the person that I knew.
JARRIEL: When Weisz's wife, Etta Jo, saw the body in the coffin, she blurted
out, 'That's not my husband.' But Weisz's older son, David, who works for the
U.S. government and is stationed in Pakistan, David was certain the body was
that of his father, and the order for cremation was signed. Sgt. Reburn says he
showed a picture of the body in the car to Donal Weisz. REBURN: I said, 'Is
that your father?' And Donal told me that that was his father, George Weisz.
JARRIEL: Donal Weisz says he has no recollection at all of that exchange ever
taking place. He says this about the body and the photo. WEISZ: Apparently
someone who resembles my father but I don't believe that it's my father. It
could be, but it's not.
JARRIEL: In addition to Donal, Weisz's wife and his daughter say this police
photo of the body is not George Weisz. In trying to get to the bottom of all
this, 20/20 asked the Maryland Medical Examiner's office for pictures taken at
that autopsy..We.were repeatedly .told.no.such pictures?:were taken...Indeed, the...
.autopsy records indicate that-no photos ~ were requested, _but.-nine- months ?aftert ?we
were assured that no autopsy photographs existed, and not long after we told
them about the gallbladder discrepancy, the Medical Examiner's office produced
some photos. The family said that this picture does appear to be George Weisz,
but this photo does not answer the crucial question, 'Did the body that was
autopsied have a large gallbladder scar as did George Weisz?' This morgue
picture doesn't help much either. The shirt is off, but the Maryland Medical
Examiner's office says there's no full-length nude shot, a picture that would
tell us whether or not that scar is there. No photo, they claim, that would
solve the mystery. SNEPP: It is not inconceivable that the CIA or whoever would
have substituted Weisz's face for that of the body in tampering with the
photograph. Again, it's so very easy.
JARRIEL: With cremation, the identification mystery may never be solved. The
last best chance was at the autopsy, but no fingerprints were taken, no X-rays,
no dental charts, steps that could have provided positive identification of
George Weisz. In fact, the key test, checking for drugs that might have
contributed to his death, routine in cases like this, seems to have been
requested, then crossed out. So this drug screen, which might have determined
if something other than carbon monoxide contributed to the death, was never
done. The State Police indicate they might have pressed their investigation
further if federal agents had only told 'em more about George Weisz. REBURN: I
feel that if George Weisz was such a high.operative and it was a factor in the
security of our country, our agencies could have... They were notified. I did
what.I felt was right in notifying them. They certainly dropped the ball by not
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stepping forward and saying to the State Police, 'Hey, this guy here,' we
should, you know, we should show a little more interest in him. We handled it
as a suicide, a routine suicide, and did what we felt had to be done.
JARRIEL: The police say they have no plans to reopen the case, but there is that
matter of the gall bladder and the question of who that really was in the car.
The Weisz family lawyer wants a better explanation. TOM\SIPPEL (family
attorney): You cannot overlook the possibility that if, in fact, there was a
gallbladder on that body that was autopsied, that it was not George Weisz.
Cases have been won and lost on less evidence than that. DONAL\WEISZ: It would
be nice to know that he was dead. There is no evidence, no clear evidence, that
he is dead.
JARRIEL: So what really happened? Well, we certainly don't know for sure, but
there is an interesting footnote to all this. This week the CIA telephoned
20/20 to say that the agency had not killed George Weisz, and what's strange
about that is we never asked.
DOWNS: What does that mean? Does that imply that maybe sometimes they do? What
do you see as...?
JARRIEL: As a policy, they say they don't any longer.
DOWNS: What is, do you see as the possibilities here? I know there are a lot of
'em.
JARRIEL: They're intriguing and they're endless, Hugh. First of all, his
greatest value would be to the Russians? Did they kidnap him, substitute a body
..._and take..him off.somewhere to try to pick his.brain for that classified -
information-he had? A.second possibility.. is that-George Weisz is an eternal
spy, he's off on another assignment and this was all a cover for a new
assignment. That would be very cruel to his family, though.
DOWNS: Yeah, it would.
JARRIEL: A third possibility is that there was lax police investigation, a
mix-up at the morgue and George Weisz did indeed commit suicide as the
authorities contend.
DOWNS: Do you think we'll ever know?
JARRIEL: I doubt it.
DOWNS: Thank you, Tom.
Richard Mitchell, Transcriber
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