SOVIET Russia DIVISON CHIEF DAVID MURPHY

DAVID EDMUND MURPHY
He was born during nineteen twenty-one in New York and graduated from State Teacher's College prior to serving with the US Army in Korea during WWII. David joined Army Military Intelligence (G-2) and consulted for the Department of Defense before his employment with the CIA in nineteen forty-seven. He subsequently operated under US Defense Department cover and was promoted to Deputy Chief of Station in Berlin serving under William K. Harvey. Murphy would succeed Harvey as Station Chief amid the late nineteen fifties but possessed a mixed record of failed recruitment attempts targeting Soviet intelligence assets.

A CIA Biographic PhoTo of D.E. Murphy

By nineteen sixty-one David rose to lead the Eastern European Division and two years later was Chief of the Soviet Russia Division. He was among the CIA officers doubting the credentials of KGB defector Yuriy Nosenko and this disbelief led him and others to suppress information regarding Nosenko's captivity. Murphy later himself became a target of an internal mole hunt despite supporting the Agency's Counterintelligence Staff’s attempt to break Nosenko. His guilt was insinuated by Counterintelligence Chief James Angleton which tarnished his reputation and severely damaged his future career. He was reassigned from a division chief position to the less prestigious role of Paris Station chief. Murphy left the State Department in the course of nineteen seventy-four and consulted for the Agency three years later until his retirement.