Entry dated :: May 28, 1977
Waterloo 
Pete Bagley:
A Spy in Aspic


I knew the trip to Brussels was somewhat risky. I had written to Bagley three times— and he had not responded. I sent him a cable Helms had recommended that I speak to him about "a matter of mutual interest." No reply. I sent him a precise of the account I had pieced together of Nosenko's defection. Again, no reply. I even had phoned his home number in Brussels. His wife Maria answered, and told me courteously that he would not return my call. Meanwhile, I received a very interesting unsigned document from the CIA through the Freedom of Information Act. It contained forty-four questions— very precise questions with many subtexts— that had been prepared for Nosenko. They were aimed at testing his knowledge about Oswald. Were the "tough questions" from Bagley to which Helm's had alluded? There was no indication they were ever answered. So, hoping they might ring a bill, I sent them to Bagley's address, scrawling on "Bagley's Questions?" I enclosed an elliptical note, asking "Were the questions ever answered?" and, giving my itinerary, said I would be stopping in for two days Brussels en route to France.

It worked. There was a message from "Pete B." when I called back, he was terse. He began by asking pointedly who gave me the 44 questions. When I replied, just as terse, the CIA, there was a long pause. Then, like a kidnapper might arrange a ransom drop-off, he told me where to meet him at the Waterloo battlefield memorial. At 2 p.m. he would be standing in front of the depiction of a particular regiment in a circular mural in the museum.

I had no trouble finding him. He looked considerably younger than his fifty years, His military posture, and stern look, made him stand out among the other tourist like a sore thumb. So much for inconspicuous meetings.

He then took me for a tour of the battlefield-- showing an impressive grasp of Napoleon's order of battle. As we walked from position to position, he reviewed the battle formations, explaining the impossibility of Napoleon's position.

He asked again how I had gotten his 44 questions. I explained the CIA released it under Freedom of Information. He shook his head in disbelief. The idea that the secret documents could be released to an outsider was. He said, "in his time, inconceivable." He expressed indignation that the CIA would make available the questionnaire, especially since it identified him (although in fact, it did not identify him; he had misinterpreted my scrawl on the page).

But now that the subject was breached I asked him whether he had read my precis of Nosenko's defection. He nodded. "Is it a fair rendition?" I continued.

He remained silently for almost a full minute-- and I could see the tension in his face. Finally, he said "You've got it wrong."

"In what way?" I pressed.

"Unfortunately, I can't tell you more."

If this all he had to tell me, I wondered why he hadn't just told it to me over the phone. I assumed he had met me to tell something more definite about Nosenko. Couldn't he at least point out the error?

"If I told you that, I'd have to tell you everything," he answered. He added, as if it were some consolation, that he had even refused to talk about the case to John Hart, the CIA investigator who had spoken to Helms.

He then said matter-of-factly that he had made a reservation at the Villa Lorraine, a three star restaurant outside of Brussels. He asked if I would like to join him. I again assumed he had more to tell me, and accepted.

At dinner, he apologized for not being able to correct my error. He hardly dampened my interest by asserting "Nosenko was not just another case-- it was at the heart of everything that happened at the CIA for a decade." Realizing that he was still obsessed by Nosenko, I asked if he would be interested in seeing other material on the Nosenko case that had been released under the Freedom of Information Act.

June 8-13, 1977
St. Tropez

The house in the village of Gassin perfectly fit Bagley's penchant for inconspicuous places. After reading my Nosenko file at a medieval nunnery in Bruges, while I wandered around the cloisters, he had made his decision. He would tell me the secret side of what happened to Nosenko. But it would take time, so I rented this house just outside St. Tropez. It also fit his idea of the good life, which included lunching dailys at the Club 55 on the topless Pamplona beach and hikes in the countryside ( he was a dedicated bird watcher).

He began by telloing me what Angleton had omitted. "Where you went wrong was that you assumed that it was after Kennedy had been assassinated in November 1963 when Nosenko had first contacted the CIA ."

I rechecked my notes, mystified by his point. The date I had been given was January 23, 1964, which was nine weeks after the assassination. I had assumed that Nosenko contacted the CIA because of what he knew of the assassin--Oswald. I answered defensively "That is what I was told."

He shot back, "Angleton omitted telling you that Nosenko was supposedly working for us before the assassination. He was our man in Moscow." He added, "I should know-- I recruited him."

That was the missing piece-- or at least of one them.

Bagley's story began in Switzerland in the summer of 1962. Officially, he was the Second Secretary at the American Embassy in Berne; unofficially, he was a CIA case officer. His worked for its elite Soviet Russia Division, code named BK HERALD. In it, he headed the recruitment team that went after REDTOPS. REDTOPS were Soviet diplomats, military attaches, intelligence officers or other government officials who were travelling through or temporarily stationed in the west. Bagley's mission was to arrange for these REDTOPS to be somehow approached by an so-called "access agent," which was usually some diplomat with a plausible excuse to meet REDTOPS, and then induced or persuaded to act as steal secrets for the CIA when they returned to the Soviet Union. It was not an easy job.

On June 8th, he got an urgent call from Geneva. A Soviet security officer named Yuri Ivanovich Nosenko, who was at the Disarmament Conference there, had passed a note to an American diplomat at the meeting. It said only he wanted to be put in touch with a "representative" of the U.S. Government, which meant CIA.

Bagley caught the next plane to Geneva. Working through the American diplomat, he passed a message back to Nosenko containing only a time and an address. The address was that of a "safehouse," which the CIA maintained in Geneva for just such a contingency. It was actually a small apartment with a terrace in an inconspicuous bloc of flats that would be used only for Nosenko, and then abandoned.

As he waited for Nosenko to show up, Bagley was joined in the apartment by another case officer in the Soviet Russia Division named George Kisvalter. Kisvalter, who was born in Russia, spoke perfect Russian. He had just flown in that afternoon from Washington to assist Bagley with the interrogation.

Nosenko arrived about an hour and a half late, claiming that he had to make sure he wasn't followed. He was a powerfully built man, about six feet tall, with a massive jaw. He acted very professionally, and, without any resistance, rattled off answers to the questions as if he was there for a job interview. He also seemed to know that it was being taped. The first question was mandated by CIA regulations for all REDTOPS. Kisvalter asked Nosenko whether he knew of any imminent Soviet plans to launch a military attack. Nosenko smiled, as if he was expecting the question, then shook his head "no." He was next asked why he had contacted the CIA. Hostile intelligence services previously had sent "dangles" to the CIA, as the secret Central Intelligence Directive on Defectors warned, "to penetrate or convey false or deceptive information to U.S. Intelligence services."

Nosenko replied his motive was economic. He had spent 900 Swiss francs (or about $200) of KGB funds on a drinking binge and needed to replace it. In return, he offered to furnish the CIA with a KGB manual on its techniques for surveilling western diplomats in Moscow. He said it would explain how the KGB had caught one of the CIA's top agents.

Bagley then asked Nosenko if he wanted to defect to the West. If he did, then crash arrangements would have to be made to get Nosenko out of Geneva.

Nosenko answered "No." He had no intention of defecting. He had a wife and children in Moscow to whom he planned to return. He only wanted 900 Swiss Francs.

This was the answer Bagley hoped to hear. The object of the exercise was not to encourage REDTOPS to defect, but to get them to spy for the CIA. He handed Nosenko the 900 francs. He explained to Nosenko, who had already shown an interest in money, that the CIA would pay him handsomely if he assisted them by supplying information. He would, for example, be given an additional $25,000 for every Soviet source in the west his information helped to expose. The money could be deposited in a Swiss account for when he eventually decided to defect. He would, moreover, be given assistance in getting his family out of Russia.

Nosenko betrayed no emotional reaction at this offer to commit treason. He shrugged and said he would consider it.

Bagley still didn't know with who he was dealing. In response to his "flash" cable, CIA files had no information, or "traces," on Nosenko. The only Nosenko in them was Ivan Nosenko, the Soviet Minister of Shipbuilding, and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, who had died six years earlier.

Nosenko explained that he was Ivan Nosenko's son. He had been born October 20th 1927 in Nikolayev, Russia, and, as the son of a Minister, had attended the elite Frunze Military Academy. In 1953, after serving briefly in naval intelligence, he joined the KGB. He was assigned to its Second Chief Directorate, which had the primary responsibility for for recruiting foreigners in Russia and mounting counterintelligence initiatives against the West. He worked in both its "American Department," which attempted to recruit U.S. embassy employees in Moscow, and the "Tourist Department," which attempted to recruit American tourists in Russia. He had been given the Geneva duty to watch over the Soviet delegation purely as a perk.

Bagley immediately realized that Nosenko, if his story checked out, was an incredible catch. Not only was he the son of hero of the Soviet Union-- Khrushchev himself had been a guard of honor at Ivan Nosenko's funeral bier-- but he was in a key section of a part of the KGB which the CIA knew virtually nothing about-- The 2nd Chief Directorate. Up until two years before, it had not even known of its existence. No one had ever been recruited from this Directorate before. If Nosenko now could be induced to go back to Moscow and work as an "agent in place," the CIA would have a mole in the heart of KGB counterintelligence.

As the debriefing proceeded, Nosenko provided a wealth of clues to identify Soviet agents in the United States and England. He also revealed how the KGB had planted microphones in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. He then left two hours after he arrived, and, as Bagley watched, he vanished into the night.

Two days later, he returned for another session. This time he brought with him the promised documents on survelliance. They revealed that the KGB had a chemical substance they sprayed on the shoes of American diplomats in Moscow, so that they could be invisibly followed by survelliance teams with dogs. He then agreed to act as a mole for the CIA in Moscow (although he refused to allow the CIA to contact him on the grounds it would be too dangerous).

On June 11th, Bagley cabled the CIA in Washington: "Subject has conclusively proved his bona fides. He has provided info of importance and sensitivity. Willing to meet when abroad." The CIA responded by providing Nosenko with a cryptonym-- AE FOXTROT. Bagley was authorized to provide AE FOXTROT with a secret writing kit, a password, and a means of communicating with the CIA. Four days later, Nosenko (or AE FOXTROT, as he was now known in the CIA), returned to Moscow.

Bagley flew to Washington the next week believing he had "hooked the biggest fish yet". When he arrived at CIA headquarters that Saturday, he was personally commended by his superior David Murphy, the Chief of the Soviet Russia Division, who believed Nosenko's career in the KGB could be systematically advanced by the CIA. It could indeed arrange for its secret agent in Moscow to have a string of dramatic successes in his counterintelligence work. As his case officer, Bagley's career would also be advanced.

Bagley also had a message that Angleton had wanted to see him. There had been always been some tension between Angleton, who had no "operational" responsibilities for agents but second-guessed their value and the Division which actually ran and supported agents in the Soviet Union. It was not unlike the competition that goes on in a news magazine between reporters, who find sources, and fact-checkers who question their reliability. Although Angleton had no direct authority of him or the Division, he decided it would be "politically wise" to see the Counterintelligence Staff Chief right away.

Angleton handed him a file to read which he said pointedly was too sensitive to leave his office. It concerned another REDTOP defector. He suggested he review it before making any further judgments about AE FOXTROT.

As he poured over it that June weekend, he was astounded. Each point in Nosenko's story paralleled information given by this earlier defector. When the two stories were compared, it became clear to that Nosenko was a "provocation", sent to him in Geneva by the KGB to supply clues that would divert from and confuse the intelligence the CIA already had from the real defector. The practice was called in the CIA "painting false tracks". He understood, even before Angleton told him, that he had been duped by Nosenko.

Angleton seemed far less concerned about this turn of events. He suggested that now that the Division knew it was dealing with a KGB "controlled source," it could use him to the CIA's advantage. He would be treated as a "mailbox" in which messages would be deposited for the KGB. As far as any information that came from AE FOXTROT (and presumably the KGB), it would be labelled "From as source whose bona fides have not been established," which was the term of art for a disinformation agent.

Bagley returned to Switzerland crestfallen. The mole he had recruited turned out to be a Soviet plant. Whether or not he would re-emerge was problematical.

Then, on November 22nd 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated. Less than a week later, the CIA established that the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, had attempted to contact Soviet intelligence in Moscow during his stay there. The question was asked of CIA procedure experts: If Oswald had made contact with the KGB during that period, what unit of Soviet intelligence would have been handled his case. The answer that came back was the 2nd Chief Directorate's "Tourist Department." By coincidence, it was the one unit in which the CIA had, on paper at least, an agent--AE FOXTROT.

Some six weeks later, Nosenko sent a cable to an innocuous-sounding address in Europe. It was the pre-arranged signal that Nosenko had been given by the CIA. He indicated he would be arriving in Geneva the following week, where he would again be acting as the security officer for the Soviet disarmament delegation. He wanted a meeting with "George," the name by which he knew Bagley.

Bagley, now stationed in Washington, had risen to a central position in the Soviet Russia Division. He headed its counterintelligence operations (which had no connection with Angleton's Counterintelligence Staff) and he was slated to be the Deputy Chief of the whole Division. He still remained the case officer of the mystery agent AE FOXTROT. As soon as Nosenko's signal was flashed to Washington, Bagley booked a flight to Geneva. He assumed the rendez-vous with Nosenko would lead to a few tidbits of disinformations. He had no idea of what was in store for him.

On January 23rd, Nosenko sauntered into the safe house, taking few precautions about security. He greeted Bagley like an old friend. As he poured himself a drink, he casually told Bagley he had made a "decision." Instead of returning to Russia, he would defect to the United States.

Bagley was speechless. Even if he believed Nosenko was genuine, CIA policy would be to discourage defections, and persuade REDTOPS to return to the Soviet Union, where they could do some good as spies. Since he believed Nosenko was phoney, and controlled by the KGB, such a defection would be ludicrous. But before Bagley could question this decision, Nosenko brought up another surprise-- Lee Harvey Oswald. He reported that he had information about Oswald that could be crucially important to the United States.

Bagley asked how he knew about Oswald.

Nosenko explained that he had been the KGB officer assigned to Oswald's case when he arrived in Moscow. He was consulted on Oswald after he returned to the United States. Then, after the assassination, he had been asked to read through Oswald's entire KGB file and act for the KGB as sort of inspector general in the case. He in fact "signed off" on the case for the KGB. This put him in an unique position: he could testify to the relationship between Oswald and the KGB.

Bagley was totally unprepared for this turn of events. He didn't believe Nosenko, but he had to forward his report to Washington. He knew that Nosenko's claims to being Oswald's case officer would set off "bells" in the CIA. The President might even now have to be briefed on the case. There was nothing he could do but continue the interrogation session, and hope that the label on the file would alert headquarters to the danger of disinformation.

He asked the key question. What interest did the KGB have in Oswald?.

"It was decided Oswald was of no interest whatsoever, so the KGB recommended he go home to the United States." Nosenko answered.

Bagley listened keenly, as he tried to figure out Nosenko's game. It appeared the KGB wanted its man in Washington. But why? Changing the subject, he asked him why he now wanted to defect.

Nosenko had a ready answer. He said that he had come under suspicion and feared he would be arrested if he returned to Russia. He said he had just received a telegram ordering him to return to Moscow on February 4th. He had less than a week. He needed help from the CIA.

When the transcript of this interrogation was cabled to CIA headquarters, Helms had no choice but authorize a "crash" defection for Nosenko. If he had done otherwise, the CIA could be accused of suppressing potentially important evidence on the Kennedy Assassination. He was too proficient a bureaucrat to fall into that trap. He gave Bagley the "Go" signal. He specified Nosenko was to be taken out of Switzerland "black," without revealing his identity to the Swiss, which meant military attache planes, not opened to border inspection would be used.

After a brief stop at the U.S> debriefing center in Frankfurt, Nosenko arrived in Washington on a military transport on February 11th. He was ensconced in a CIA safe house outside of Washington. This was the easy part.

The issue was what to do with him. Bagley's investigators, after scrutinizing his biography, concluded it was a "legend," concocted by the KGB. He could not have held the positions he claimed to have had in the KGB. They concluded that Nosenko was a dispatched defector under KGB control. Bagley concurred, as did his Chief, David Murphy.

Murphy believed, moreover, that the KGB might have instructed Nosenko to break away at his earliest opportunity and go to a Soviet Embassy. He could then denounce the CIA for attempting to kidnap him. He might even claim the CIA was attempting to suppress his Oswald story. On February 17th, less than a week after Nosenko's arrival, Murphy wrote Helms: "... there is greater evidence now I believe for the view that this operation is designed for long-term goals of utmost importance to the Soviets. One of these is probably a massive propaganda assault on the CIA in which Subject, most probably as a `re-defected CIA agent', will play a major ... role." In addition, he expressed concern that Nosenko's mission also was aimed the "penetration of our operational effort," which could be accomplished by Nosenko learning CIA procedures, and the "protection of past or possibly existing sources," which he could do by confusing ongoing investigations with false clues. Because of all this damage that Nosenko could do, Murphy recommended that preparations should be made to imprison Nosenko to prevent him from re-defecting. He noted "the big problem is one of timing: How long can we keep subject or his KGB controllers, ignorant of our awareness of this operation? At some point, he would have to be confronted and broken through a process of "hostile interrogation."

Bagley knew that this inevitable confrontation was strongly opposed by Angleton, who wanted to keep playing Nosenko, and his KGB controllers, like a fish on a line. But while Angleton might have inexhaustible patience, Murphy wanted results. Nosenko had involved himself in the investigation of Oswald, which had brought the issue of his status to the attention of the FBI, Attorney General and Warren Commission. Helms, with the concurrence of the Department of Justice, had authorized the "hostile interrogation." It was only a matter of time. To lull Nosenko into a false sense of confidence, the CIA paid him $60,000 for the information he supplied, began making arrangements for him to be a U.S. citizen and even sent him on a vacation to Hawaii with Bagley. All the while he was cavorting on the beach, the CIA was constructing a "vault" for him in the basement in the basement of a what looked like a ranch house a few miles from downtown Washington.

Then, on April 4th 1964, Nosenko was strapped into a lie detector. It was all a carefully rehearsed drama designed to break him. His interrogators told him over and over again that his answers were lies. He asked for Bagley. Bagley came in, examined the lie detector results, and then ordered him stripped and put in a cell. It was only the beginning of his ordeal.

Nosenko spent the next three and one half years in a windowless cell in solitary confinement. Day and night, the light remained on in his eight foot square cell, with guards keeping him under constant visual observation. Every three or four days, he was brought in front of interrogators, and grilled relentlessly about details of his story. As the weeks dragged on without results, they tried various disorientation techniques, such as gradually setting clocks back and manipulating lighting conditions to convince him it was day when it was really night, thereby confusing his sense of time. At one point, Bagley was convinced that he was about to break, and admit his entire biography was a KGB invention. He muttered something indicating that he could have held any of the positions in the KGB he had claimed to hold. Bagley held his breathe, anticipating that a full confession would follow. When it didn't, he repeated the question. After a long pause, Nosenko replied, "You misunderstood me." He then pulled himself together, and stuck monotonously to his story.

The battle went on year after year. Bagley versus Nosenko. Bagley set forth the case against Nosenko in a 900 page report. "But he never broke," Bagley said, as he ended his story.

But Nosenko was not in prison now. As I found out in my interview with him, Nosenko ,cocky and in high spirits, was now working as a counterintelligence consultant for the CIA. What had happen to transform him in the eyes of the CIA from a provocateur on a KGB directed mission, who had been imprisoned, to an accredited defector?

Bagley answered glumly "I wish I knew." He explained that in late 1967 the Soviet Division was "re-staffed." Murphy was abruptly removed as and sent to Paris to be station chief there. Bagley, who was then Deputy Chief, was not promoted. Instead, he was transferred to Belgium, where three years later he sought early retirement. Other top officers who had been involved in the Nosenko were also switched to other divisions. In the months that followed, the entire case seemed to be turned inside out. The insiders who had developed the indictment against Nosenko were turned out; the outsiders came in. It all happened without warning or explanation. Nosenko, who had been the Division responsibility, was suddenly turned over to the CIA's Office of Security.

Then, earlier this year, when John Hart had come to see him, he learned that Nosenko had been "rehabilitated," as Hart put it. He also realized that Hart's job was re-writing the history of the case to expunge any trace of Nosenko's KGB mission. He had come to see him to see him to pressure him to recant, which he had refused to do.

Bagley had heard that Nosenko's new case officer, Bruce Solie, had received a CIA medal.

"For what?" I interrupted.

"The whitewash," he answered bitterly.

It was now clear why he had believed himself justified in telling me his version of the story. There still seemed to be a missing element: why the Soviet Division had been purged?

Bagley could not answer that question.


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