TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/052091/0520104.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 7.0 KB | 151 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 24

Stalking the Red Intruders


How the CIA's counterintelligence chief virtually paralyzed the
agency at the height of the cold war with his obsessive pursuit
of Soviet moles

By BRUCE VAN VOORST/WASHINGTON


    James Jesus Angleton was an enigma. With his horn-rimmed
glasses, homburg hats and foppish manners, he looked more like
a Cambridge don than an American spy hunter. Yet the Idaho-born
Yale graduate, who joined the Central Intelligence Agency after
a wartime stint in the Office of Strategic Services, had a flair
for global intrigue and office politics that propelled him into
the CIA's upper echelons. During his 20-year tenure as head of
counterintelligence at the height of the cold war, Angleton
hamstrung the agency with a paranoiac mole hunt that led him to
ignore crucial leads provided by KGB defectors -- and even to
terrorize staff members with intimidating inquiries. By the time
he was sacked in 1974, the hard-drinking, chain-smoking Angleton
had so thoroughly undermined the agency's effectiveness that a
formal CIA review accused him of having a "very detrimental"
effect on the agency.

    Those sensational charges are advanced by British author
Tom Mangold in a new book, Cold Warrior (Simon & Schus ter;
$22.95), and provide the basis for a PBS Frontline special, The
Spy Hunter, airing May 14. Though allegations of wrenching
divisions within the CIA in the 1960s and early '70s are not
new, Mangold has managed to corroborate many of the details in
interviews with former CIA officials who were so distressed over
events of that era that they were willing to break their vow of
silence. After three years of research, Mangold concludes that
counterintelligence and the recruitment of Soviets -- both of
which came under Angleton's scrutiny -- "were virtually
paralyzed by Angleton's operations." TIME's survey of many
senior CIA veterans indicates there is considerable truth to
this judgment.

    Angleton's fixation on Soviet penetration probably began
with allegations that his best friend in Britain's MI6
intelligence service, Kim Philby, was a KGB mole. Philby removed
all doubt when he defected to the Soviets in 1963. "After the
Philby case," says an Angleton friend, "Jim was never the same."
But the full scope of Angleton's obsessive mole hunt was not
apparent until his dismissal. Agents sent to clear out his
secret vault at the CIA's Langley, Va., headquarters discovered
hundreds of files from his Ahab-like search for Soviet
counteragents within the ranks of the CIA. Investigators were
baffled to find scores of unexplored leads and astounding
revelations of Angleton's misdeeds and malfeasance. Among them:



    THE NICK NACK DOSSIER. The FBI gave Angleton a file full
of tips from a Soviet military intelligence officer code-named
"Nick Nack," who outlined Soviet penetrations around the world.
Angleton, convinced that the agent was part of a Soviet plot to
plant a mole, stuffed the report in a safe and ignored its
contents. When Angle ton's successor, George Kalaris, followed
up the information, all of the 20 leads it contained resulted in
arrests and convictions of important Soviet agents. "In each
instance," says Mangold, "spies continued to operate for seven
to 10 years because of Angleton's neglect."



    THE LOGINOV BETRAYAL. Angleton was the prime motivator in
the tragic case of Yuri Loginov, a Soviet KGB officer who
provided valuable intelligence to the CIA for more than six
years. Angleton decided that Loginov, then under Soviet "deep
cover" in South Africa, was "dirty" -- a Soviet plant. Loginov
was exposed as a KGB spy to local authorities, who in 1969
turned him over to the West Germans to use in a spy swap with
the East. In 1979 an agency review determined that Loginov had
been aboveboard and his information valid.



    THE GOLITSYN DEFECTION. Angleton's fears of a mole in the
CIA appeared to be confirmed in 1961 by KGB Major Anatoly
Golitsyn, a Soviet defector. Although Golitsyn initially denied
any knowledge of Soviet penetrations, he later claimed that the
Soviets had planted an agent code-named "Sasha" inside the
agency. Golitsyn also described a Soviet "master plan" to
provide disinformation to the CIA and cautioned that subsequent
Soviet defectors would be dispatched to discredit him. Thus when
KGB Lieut. Colonel Yuri Nosenko defected in 1964, the stage was
set for a monumental confrontation that still reverberates
within the halls of the CIA. Nosenko claimed to have firsthand
knowledge that the KGB was not involved in the assassination of
President John Kennedy and, moreover, that there was no Soviet
penetration of the CIA. But Golitsyn fingered Nosenko as a false
defector, and Angleton sided with Golitsyn.

    Unable to find a mole among Soviet defectors and
counteragents, Angleton turned on the CIA's own staff. Some 40
officers in the Soviet Division were considered suspect, and 14
of them were seriously investigated. Angleton's only grounds
were that they were of Russian origin or, based on Golitsyn's
allegations, that their names began with K. Three senior CIA
officials who later learned how the investigation had marred
their careers sued the agency and won six-figure compensations.
KGB Colonel Oleg Gordievsky, who spied for the West for 10 years
before defecting in 1985, said after reviewing Angleton's cases
that the former counterintelligence chief "displayed
disgraceful ignorance of the KGB and the Soviet system as a
whole."

    Angleton's conduct greatly inhibited the CIA's attempts to
recruit Soviet agents at the height of the cold war. Retired
veterans of the agency's Soviet Division describe a lethargy
that gripped them because of Angleton's constant security fears.
"Jim had gotten out of hand," concludes former CIA Director
William Colby. "His central intelligence staff had become far
too intimidating." The Soviet Division, according to Colby,
"wasn't doing anything worthwhile." Richard Helms, who was the
CIA's director from 1966 to 1972, concedes that "Jim fell in
love with his agent Golit syn," but he also insists that "it
speaks well for Jim that the CIA was not penetrated on his
watch."

    To many observers, Angleton's defense of the CIA against
Soviet penetration is sufficient evidence of his professionalism
and his contribution to the nation. But as former senior CIA
officials speak out on the abuses and failings of that period,
it becomes increasingly clear what a heavy price was paid.
Mangold's account leaves many questions unanswered; yet his
sources, many of them never before heard from, convincingly
challenge the air of omniscience that Angleton cultivated.
Intelligence is always a shifting kaleidoscope of light and
shadow, reality and illusion, but the basic lesson of Angleton's
career is that nobody in a clandestine organization such as the
CIA should ever be allowed the degree of power he possessed.