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

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. 2

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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