The Nosenko Affair

Joe Spillane Secrets of the Soviet Police Professor Burd Final Paper

Soviet espionage in the cold war was not only used to steal secrets from the US but also used to create a thick fog of war that James Angleton referred to as a “Wilderness of Mirrors.” The goal of the Soviet Union was to disseminate specifically crafted disinformation to the United States that would in effect cripple the US’s intelligence offices ability to operate. One of the most stimulating debates to come from this period is the credibility of the defection of Yuri Nosenko. While officially Nosenko has been given his bona fides there are many former intelligence officers who claim that Nosenko was actually a Soviet plant. Some argue that he was used to undermine the recent defection of Golitsin, and also to defer US suspicions that Lee Harvey Oswald had been an active soviet agent when he had assassinated John F Kennedy. While there has been no real resolution to this debate publicly, one can look at the facts of the case and come to his/her conclusions about the intentions behind Nosenko’s defection.
In December of 1961 a KGB case officer named Klimov appeared in the American Embassy in Helsinki to defect from the Soviets. Klimov actually turned out to be Annatoli Golitsin, an agent that Peter Deriabin had referred to as susceptible to western cooperation in his own defection. Golitsin was hailed as a genuine Soviet defection and the amount of information he was divulging was seen as a major victory for the US intelligence services. His information helped to uncover soviet operations against the US and Britain and he claimed the Soviets had high level penetration throughout the globe. His most famous contribution was his reference to the “circle of five” which helped lead to the downfall of Kim Philby and his circle of Cambridge spies. More importantly though, he also claimed that the CIA had been penetrated by an agent codenamed SASHA that had been responsible in undermining Western operations in Berlin and that now was compromising US intelligence against the Soviets. Eventually Golitsin ended up in the care of James Angleton, head of the CIA. In Wilderness of Mirrors by David C. Martin, Martin wrote:
In Golitsin, Angleton found a defector whose dire warnings of Soviet machinations conformed to his own vision of fiendishly subtle KGB plots. According to Hart, Golitsin's warnings "centered around the idea that the KGB had vast resources which it was using to deceive not only the US government but other Western Governments. This plot was masterminded by something called the KGB Disinformation Directorate...[108]
Golitsin claimed the Soviets not only had penetrated the MI6 and the CIA, but were also in the business of sending false defectors that’s sole purpose was to discredit genuine defectors (such as himself) and to pass on disinformation crafted by the KGB Disinformation Directorate. Because of the defections of Golitsin, Gouzenko, Orlov, Khoklov, Deriabin, and the attempted defection of Voklov, Golitsin’s theory that the Soviets would send false defectors to discredit them became more and more believable. The Soviets had to do something to create damage control, and false defectors that spread information contradictory to true defectors was what Golitsin claimed would be the Soviets next move. After Angleton had been embarrassed by the betrayal of his close friend Kim Philby, he was extremely interested and supportive of Golitsin’s perspectives that the Soviets were capable of this deception. Not only did Angleton believe the Soviets had already sent a false defector in Goleniewski, he also believed that the KGB had penetrated the CIA with agent SASHA, and that the Soviets would indeed be sending more false defectors to discredit Golitsin and the other defectors.
In 1962 at a convention in Geneva US intelligence was contacted by a KGB officer named Yuri Nosenko. In these initial meetings Nosenko provided information that claimed the American Embassy in Moscow was riddled with Soviet listening devices and that the British Naval attaches office had been penetrated by the KGB. Nosenko’s claims that the embassy in Moscow turned out to be true and it also became known that British Naval officer William John Vassal had been blackmailed by the KGB because of his homosexuality in order to turn him to spying for the Soviets. Initially Nosenko’s defection was greeted with enthusiasm and the case was handled by CIA agent Peter Bagley. At first Bagley felt that he had stumbled on a great new asset for US intelligence since Nosenko’s leads seemed to be credible. Then Angleton gave Bagley access to the Golitsin information. Bagley’s attitude soon changed. “Alone, Nosenko looked good," he [Bagley] recalled. "Seen alongside [Golitsin]... Nosenko looked very odd indeed...Nosenko's information tended to negate or deflect leads by [Golitsin]." For instance when the in-place Soviet defector Popov had his cover blown, Golitsin claimed that it could be due to the mole SASHA in the CIA having blown the operation. Nosenko claimed the KGB had used a special chemical they applied to a suspected American embassy employee’s shoes. Nosenko claimed the KGB simply used dogs to follow the scent to a dead drop where the unfortunate Popov appeared. The most important contradiction that Nosenko offered was that the KGB did not have an agent in the CIA. Nosenko claimed that he knew of agent SASHA, and that SASHA was merely a clerk in the embassy office in Washington, a nobody. Golitsin claimed V.M. Koshvuk, head of the KGB's American Embassy Section came to meet a high level agent (SASHA) in the United States in 1957, and Nosenko claimed that Koshvuk was in the US to meet with an agent codenamed ANDREY. ANDREY turned out to be a US servicemen with low level access and therefore a seemingly unlikely candidate for the head of the KB’s American Embassy Section to meet with. After the initial meetings between Bagley and Nosenko, Bagley concluded that Nosenko was a Soviet provocation and should be treated as if under Soviet control.
Then came the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22nd 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald. To compound the tragedy of the President’s death it was soon discovered that Oswald was a recent defector to the Soviet Union and had lived from October of 1959 to July of 1962. The US was of course interested when Yuri Nosenko reappeared in 1964 claiming to have detailed information regarding Oswald’s stay in the Soviet Union. So even though there were already doubts as to the credibility of Nosenko, the CIA approved Nosenko’s defection to the US. Again Pete Bagley was assigned to handling Nosenko. Nosenko claimed that the KGB had never even debriefed Oswald because he was deemed an undesirable candidate due to his attempted suicide that he had performed in order to gain Soviet citizenship. In effect, Nosenko said the Soviet Union had absolutely no interest in Oswald whatsoever. In the book Oswald’s Tale: An American Mystery, published in 1995, Norman Mailer produces reports made by the KGB that proved Oswald had been surveilled; but that affirmed Nosenko’s claims that Oswald was not recruited by the KGB. The surveillance materials released paint a portrait of an average dysfunctional marriage, but no plans for the assassination of JFK.
The timing of the defection of Nosenko became very suspect to Angleton and Bagley. Just at the moment when the US needed information for the Warren Commission Nosenko appeared claiming to have just the information the US needed. Between the repeated claims by Golitsin that Nosenko was a false defector and the all too reassuring message Nosenko was broadcasting that the KGB had no SASHA, no connection to LHO, and in essence were not a threat to the US, the attitude soon changed that Nosenko was in fact a Soviet provocation. His interviews soon became hostile and Nosenko was put in a custom built prison in Northern Virginia where he was held for nearly three years. Pete Bagley became convinced that Nosenko was false. Bagley once said, in reference to a KGB document:
It stated that just catching American spies isn’t enough, for the enemy can always start again with new ones." he recalled. "Therefore, said this KGB document, disinformation operations are essential. And among the purpose of such operations...is 'to negate and discredit authentic information the enemy has obtained.' I believe that Nosenko's mission in 1962 involved just that--covering and protecting KGB sources threatened by [Golitsin's] defection.
Bagley justified Nosenko’s prolonged captivity due to several inconsistencies in Nosenko’s stories that Nosenko could not provide a logical explanation for. One of the most prominent was Nosenko’s admission that he had lied about his rank in the KGB. In January of 1964 when Nosenko came forward in Geneva he had provided a KGB document that had him listed as a Lieutenant Colonel, which was the rank Nosenko claimed to have achieved. During interrogations Nosenko admitted he was only a Captain. Nosenko claimed the misprint on the card was simply a clerk’s mistake. The fact that he had documents issued from the KGB that corroborated his initial lie raised suspicions he was a Soviet plant. Another glaring contradiction came in the form of his defection. Nosenko claimed the reason he defected in 1964 was because KGB officials were on to him and he had received a recall telegram to return to Moscow which caused him to fear for his life. Yet when the CIA checked to see if such a message was transmitted it turned out no communications had been sent in that length the day Nosenko claimed it happened. But Nosenko never did break, nor did he ever admit to being a false defector. Even though Nosenko had been caught in lies that he couldn’t explain away there simply wasn’t enough proof that he was a Soviet provocation. At the end of 1,277 days of captivity in abrasive conditions, Nosenko was set free.
Even though Pete Bagley and James Angleton maintained that Nosenko was a double agent, the US did eventually give Nosenko his bona fide and eventually a new group of Nosenko believers have emerged. Those that do believe Nosenko was genuine site the information he divulged in regards to the case of Sergeant Robert Lee Johnson. Nosenko had hinted at a major penetration in France and the use of a new breakthrough x-ray device that allowed agents to read combinations to combination locks. On November 25th 1964 Johnson admitted to using such a device in France to pilfer secrets from his post at the Armed Forces Courier center near Paris. His post was where all classified documents between Washington and NATO command posts in Europe passed through. Nosenko believers say that the KGB would never willingly jeopardize such a successful operation and therefore that Nosenko was genuine. However upon closer investigation it is believed that the KGB viewed this operation as blown. Johnson had apparently overslept one night and didn't show up at the appointed meeting time for his drop. He made up an excuse to the KGB that conflicted with the staffing rotations at the Courier center, and the KGB felt Johnson had been compromised. Nosenko disbelievers say that the KGB only gave up what they saw as a failed operation and that all Nosenko’s information only led to blown, or on the brink of blown, Soviet operations.
In the end there isn’t a definitive conclusion as to whether or not Nosenko provided genuine information or whether he only provided disinformation and dead ends. One thing that can be proven is that Nosenko did lie to the CIA during his interviews. One officer of the CIA said "If you accept the fact that there was high-level penetration of the CIA…it's out of the question that Nosenko could have returned from Moscow a genuine article. If you believe Golitsin, then Nosenko would have been killed as Popov and Penkovsky had once they were compromised, since SASHA would have blown the contact he had made in 1962. If you believe Nosenko, then Golitsin could be seen as the provocateur and possible Soviet plant. Either way, this debate has ruined the career of many CIA officials because of the treatment of Nosenko and because of the mole-hunt for SASHA within the CIA. In the long terms, this debacle had in effect made the CIA stop using human intelligence throughout the world and instead rely on digital (SIGINT) technologies to spy. Now because of the threat of terrorism, there is a new effort to renew human intelligence throughout the world to penetrate anti-US groups. The Nosenko affair, if it’s effect was to sow indecision among the CIA, was very successful. It had long terms effects that hurt the US intelligence services. Because of the shift away from human intelligence the US was embarrassed when they couldn’t anticipate the downfall of the Soviet Union or the attacks on the World Trade Center. It also made the CIA not trust itself and a failure to cooperate in these departments can also be seen in the withholding of information between agencies that went on before the World Trade Center attacks. While Nosenko can’t be given credit for these failures wholesale, the Wilderness of Mirrors the Soviets helped create left a foul taste in the mouth of the US intelligence services. The fog of war still keeps us from knowing the truth of the matter. Was there really a SASHA? If there was, why was Nosenko given his bona fide? Was it to hide embarrassment, or was it maybe another play by the US to further the confusion of our enemies? Hopefully one day we’ll know for sure.

WORKS CITED
1) Mailer, Norman. Oswald’s Tale: An American Mystery. Ballantine Books, NY. 1995 pp. 69-79, 221-223

2) Martin, David C. Wilderness of Mirrors. The Lyons Press. US 2003

3) Yuri Nosenko, KGB, Dir. Mick Jackson. Perf. Tommy Lee Jones, Josef Sommer, Oleg Rudnik. Lions Gate. 1986