How The Stories of These Soviet Cold War Defectors Reveal The Intelligence Abyss pt. 7

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How The Stories of These Soviet Cold War Defectors Reveal The Intelligence Abyss pt. 7

With the passing of nineteen sixty-six the hunt for traitors within the Central Intelligence Agency continued rapidly expanding. Greater targets brought a renewed vigor to assess each in a growing pool of potential victims chosen using the loose parameters set by prized KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn. The desperate search undertaken by the Counterintelligence Staff Special Investigations Group (CISIG) had now consumed significant Agency resources for years while displacing and ending the careers of multiple loyal officers. Several instances of contrived guilt were feasibly due to CISIG gazing too long at the shadows cast by legitimate defectors, employees, and officers. When a detail struck investigators as relevant they often became convinced of deviltry at work in spite of the contrary facts. All this occurred in the name of a hunt unleashed by James Angleton and his subordinates many years earlier for a forever elusive penetration agent…

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A Return to the Ochelli Effect

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Authors Mike Swanson and Carmine Savastano join the Ochelli Effect to discuss evidence spanning intelligence history to their more recent discoveries in the latest official released documents. Join them and Chuck as they review current articles and research offered by TPAAK Historical Research and The Wall Street Window.

How The Stories Of These Soviet Cold War Defectors Reveal The Intelligence Abyss pt. 6

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How The Stories Of These Soviet Cold War Defectors Reveal The Intelligence Abyss pt. 6

Within the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination the Central Intelligence Agency had internally declared Lee Harvey Oswald guilty within forty-eight hours.i The Federal Bureau of Investigation granted the alleged shooter seventy-two hours before its determination of guilt the same day Jack Ruby shot Oswald. American intelligence groups were desperate to find an expedient solution and their suspect’s inability to defend himself was ideal. However, some within the CIA’s leadership believed this had to be another Soviet plot and Oswald was cast in the role of Soviet agent. Such ideas endangered the US government’s allegations that Oswald acted by himself but those not privately endorsing this idea became suspects in Central Intelligence Agency’s hunt for traitors…

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How The Stories Of These Soviet Cold War Defectors Reveal The Intelligence Abyss pt. 5

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How The Stories Of These Soviet Cold War Defectors Reveal The Intelligence Abyss pt. 5

As the calendar fell upon the days of late 1962, the mole hunt inside Western intelligence began to expand within the United States. Fears of disinformation, false defectors, and the assumption of a traitor within its ranks began to internally damage the Central Intelligence Agency. Official attempts to discover and track disloyal intelligence employees had yet to render any solid leads or suspects. The effort to seek turncoats within the US intelligence community gained momentum with each new accusation and it began to spread. Other nations soon would be influenced by America’s search for penetration agents based upon the claims of a single defector…

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How The Stories Of These Soviet Cold War Defectors Reveal The Intelligence Abyss pt. 4

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How The Stories Of These Soviet Cold War Defectors Reveal The Intelligence Abyss pt. 4

The endless accusations of moles being present in most of Western intelligence services by Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn was like a supernova but was unseen or heard by most in related intelligence groups. Much like the subsequent events that may follow a supernova, Golitsyn’s mole claims backed with the power of the CIA’s Counterintelligence leadership and staff formed a proverbial black hole. This became another part of the vast intelligence abyss, and its pull on the careers and lives of many people would slowly be felt and most were unable to escape the tendrils of this massive investigation for traitors. As 1961 passed Golitsyn would accurately describe some details of yet unknown betrayers within British intelligence and this information when added to later revelations added to the weight of the mole hunt. Yet this larger hunt for CIA moles was precipitated upon ideas that were unproven and relied largely upon a single defector and his supporters…

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CIA Consolidated Files and Cryptonym Collection Updates

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Four CIA Consolidated Files biographies with additional new and related files that regard counterintelligence leader James Angleton, officer Charlotte Bustos Videla, David Christ, defector Anatoliy Golitsyn, mole hunt target Serge Peter Karlow, and Soviet division case officer George G Kisevalter.

Additionally, four new verified cryptonyms for your review, AMPARTY-1, DULAUREL-1, LINIMENT, and LINOZZLE.

How The Stories Of These Soviet Cold War Defectors Reveal The Intelligence Abyss pt. 3

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How The Stories Of These Soviet Cold War Defectors Reveal The Intelligence Abyss pt. 3

The proverbial intelligence abyss expanded with the revelations of each new defector, exposure of double agents, and fed a growing suspicion of hidden moles within Western clandestine groups. Due to a nearly perfect storm of facts mixed with paranoid speculations a significant expansion in hunting for such agents would commence following the appearance of two final related defectors. As familiar intelligence officers dealt with the latest defectors and longstanding suspicions mounted over the prior years, it was a matter of time before the right defector and claims inspired certain intelligence leaders to adopt the belief that a hidden traitor likely existed within their own group. The 1960s had just begun and before that decade ended several careers, some lives, and multiple intelligence group operations would lay in shambles…

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How The Stories Of These Soviet Cold War Defectors Reveal The Intelligence Abyss pt. 2

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How The Stories Of These Soviet Cold War Defectors Reveal The Intelligence Abyss pt. 2

Within the murky depths of the historical intelligence abyss lies a nearly ceaseless array of unanswered questions and varying accusations, some affirm or deny the credibility of several figures related to unresolved historical mysteries. The last article in this series began a descent into reviewing the valuable but often inconsistent nature of multiple defectors that dealt with intelligence groups. From Pyotr Popov, a reliable double agent that was later exposed and executed, to Peter Deriabin a source of valuable intelligence who later offered less reliable claims regarding significant world events based on mere postulations are just two varying historic tales. Defectors can each offer vital intelligence, but they simultaneously might also render consequential negative effects for those dealing with them. The question is how much weight the claims of a defector should be given, at what point could they be wrong, and even if they are false defectors or moles intent on misinforming the very people they claim to aid. Defectors and moles can both appear nearly the same in the vastness of historical intelligence and in rare cases are precisely that…

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C.A.A. Savastano returns to The Lone Gunman Podcast w/ Rob Clark

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Join your host Rob Clark and his guest C.A.A. Savastano to discuss and inspect the claims of two prior guests from different sides of the Kennedy assassination case. They discuss the same problems that differently motivated inspections of the case offer, dissect some related myths, and offer why the sources of evidence we believe are important to forming reasonable conclusions.

A Dive into the Pond

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J.V. Grombach and his group "The Pond" might be the least well known development in wartime US intelligence because of a commitment to pursuing his political enemies using the power of an unknown intelligence group. In total secrecy, he would attempt to destroy or purge official groups of those he found unacceptable and it would require other officials to stop his increasingly damaging attacks from within their own ranks.  

Wild Bill and the OSS

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Join your host Chuck Ochelli with author Carmine Savastano as they offer some insights with evidence into the design and history of America's first official attempt to centralize intelligence via the Office of Strategic Services.

The OSS: History and Documents

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Inspecting the foundations of the modern historical American intelligence system and its military origins reveals the influences that created the Office of Strategic Services from which all later intelligence groups would evolve. Additionally noted are some resulting power struggles between civilian and military departments about the policies and future path of American intelligence.

The Imprisoned Defector

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The Imprisoned Defector

Hearty alpine thistles were in bloom in the rural lanes outside Geneva, Switzerland in the summer of 1962. Just beyond this scenic atmosphere "KGB officer Yuriy Ivanovich Nosenko contacted the CIA...Over the course of five meetings he provided sufficient information to enable the two officers from CIA's Soviet Russia Division...to establish that he was a bona fide source. The major information furnished by him at that time was the identification of a US code technician who had been recruited by the KGB, and the identification of the location of KGB microphones in the US Embassy in Moscow, 52 of which were later found." Nosenko's eventual defection and the drastic shift in his treatment would lead to years of solitary imprisonment...

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Three Company Men

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Three Company Men

Often the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA, the Agency, the Company) is ascribed direct control over the Kennedy assassination by those who suspect them. Their tactics and even some among their fallen ranks were guilty of suppression of evidence, obstruction of justice, and deception at the very least. Yet they were not the leading investigative agency, but supported the "efforts" of J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation... 

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The CIA, a Russian defector, and the Communist conspiracy that likely never was

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The CIA, a Russian defector, and the Communist conspiracy that likely never was

For decades, the United States government contended there was no Communist or domestic plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. However not all in government agreed, some would allow the repeated breach of law to conceal their involvement for the "implications". While some may enjoy reciting the findings of the President's "Warren" Commission, the following information is intentionally absent. Commission documents are definitely not the complete story...

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