Tom Mangold’s Cold Warrior purports to show how James Jesus Angleton singlehandedly ruined the CIA

AT ONE point in Tom Mangold’s Cold Warrior, Richard Helms, the Director of Central Intelligence from 1966 to 1973, is quoted as saying to the author: “I still haven’t the faintest idea if Nosenko is bona-fide.” This is a remarkable comment, because from the mid 1970s on, both the CIA and the FBI had made up their institutional minds about Yuri Nosenko.

The young Russian had defected to the United States in February 1964 claiming to be a lieutenant colonel in the KGB. Extraordinarily, just three months after the assassination of President Kennedy, the Americans had in their hands someone who on two occasions had had an opportunity to inspect the KGB file on Lee Harvey Oswald. And Nosenko was ready to testify before the Warren Commission that not only had the KGB made no attempt to recruit Oswald during the three years he lived in the Soviet Union, it had not even thought it worth while to debrief him. But as the CIA began to interrogate Nosenko, it came up against lies, inconsistencies, and patent nonsense in his testimony.

GS

About the Author

George Szamuely

Featured Tags

AT ONE point in Tom Mangold’s Cold Warrior, Richard Helms, the Director of Central Intelligence from 1966 to 1973, is quoted as saying to the author: “I still haven’t the faintest idea if Nosenko is bona-fide.” This is a remarkable comment, because from the mid 1970s on, both the CIA and the FBI had made up their institutional minds about Yuri Nosenko.

The young Russian had defected to the United States in February 1964 claiming to be a lieutenant colonel in the KGB. Extraordinarily, just three months after the assassination of President Kennedy, the Americans had in their hands someone who on two occasions had had an opportunity to inspect the KGB file on Lee Harvey Oswald. And Nosenko was ready to testify before the Warren Commission that not only had the KGB made no attempt to recruit Oswald during the three years he lived in the Soviet Union, it had not even thought it worth while to debrief him. But as the CIA began to interrogate Nosenko, it came up against lies, inconsistencies, and patent nonsense in his testimony.