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~QQOQQ 104-10301-10011] 2025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F_ KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992
SEp,28.1998 3*23PN A NO. 279 P.2
4
S E C R E T
The Special Investigations Group of the CI Staff (CI/SIG)
CI/SIG (the Special Investigations Group) did not exist
prior to the establishment of the CI Staff in early 1955 , Its
major functions as described in CSI No = 70-1 of March 1955 are
much more modest than the functions 'ascribed to it in a write-up
by the Staff in eatly 1973 _ The 1955 description of functions
is as follows
"Special Investigation Unit
"Major Functions
"Performs the CI investigation and analysis of
known or potential security leak in the Clandestine
Services or_ zation, whether' in headquarters r in
the field, from the standpoint of its effect on (1)
existing Operations and (2) the Covet of personnel
In_performing_ this function_ maintains close working
relations with the Security Office the latter being
primarily concerned in such cases from Agency
security rather than an operational security stand -
point
By 1973 the description 0f tasks which had been assigned
to CI/SIG or which they had absorbed during the course 0f
events over a period 0f nearly two decades provides a much
broader range of functions and responsibilities _ They are listed
as follows
"CI/Special Investigations Group
"1 Conducts research into the long-range velidity
of CIA operations in terms of known or Potential hostile
capabilities , includ= penetrations , and of Agency security.
"'2 _ Catries out coordination with the Office of Security
in such cases _
"'3 _ Maintains and uses sensitive counterintelligence
holdings including certain Conint and defector materials ,
to match these ageinst operational and personality da ta
and thus to derive operational leads _
"4 . Coordinetes and cooperates with counterintelligence
and elements of other departments and agencies of
the USG to tabulate, and take counter-action against
hostile plans '0r approaches abroad for the recruitment of
American officials (American Targets Program)
S E C R E T
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gani=
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S E C R E T
"5 _ Plays a direct role in sensitive counterintel -
ligence liaison with closely allied foreign intelligence
services on hostile penetration Plans and operations_
"6 _ Reviews: compatibilfty between cover and
assfgnments of CIA staff menbers .
"7 _ Ma intains central' data on leaks to the news
media and assists the Office '0f Security, as necessaty ,
in determining the sources of leaks _
"'8 _ Maintains central data on the nature and
extent %f knom compromise of 5 taff personnel
co intelligence serVices , whether
heenf_aison
OI hostile_
"9 Prepares studies of individuals including
8 [ournaiista whose foreign intelligence connections ate
2 source o concern _
"10 _ Carries out additional and sensitive tasks as
assigned by the CtCI_
The first chief of the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) (es
it was called in CSI NO _ 70-1) was Birch 0'Neal, a_ former FBI
officer who had transferred to
CIA after World Wer Il, * In the
mid-fifties_SIG had rather slim picking and appeats to have spent
most of its time investigating vatious aspects of the
LcMAYFOWL
5
complex (the Boris Morroslcase) as it affected US interests based
on information the Agency acquired from foreign sources Then in_
1962 SIG received its biggest shot in the arm with the defection
of Golitsyn who brought with him several dozen leads to American
citizens including some supposedly in CIA_ The handling of these
leads was assigned to SIG by Angleton, including the information
emanating from Golitsyn, which related to foreign countries . Thus
0 ' Neal and his assistant, Jean Evans _ played a major role in
directing the handling of the Golitsyn leads (or "Serials" a5
Angleton invariably called them) _ The activity continued through -
out the sixties reaching its apex in the period 1964-65 when the
HONETOL investigations (of CIA staff officers) was at its most
#The term SRecsixtieyebttgaciorscGrape (SIG) became common
usage in sixties but no exact date can be assigned for
this change.
S E C R E T
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98
Israel, and 8 contract agent in New York_ In addition to the
Office of the Chief (including two special assistants and 2
Secretariat) the Staff was composed of seven "Divisions" and
four "Groups
24
For fiscal year 1958 the CI Staff was
s6,650 ,0og:
24
The Sum of 8,800,ood wes allotted for Fiscal Year 1959, and
24
sh,066,000 was
to be requested for 1960 , Specific figures were
quoted in the appropriate sections for projects or support,
such as travel_ Otherwise the budget was almost solely for
salaries 0f Staff personnel_
The survey next brief attention to deception , egreeing
that it had to be carefully compartmented and that it best
belonged in' the CI Staff. On the subject of the YSpecial Investi-
gation Unit however
"
the survey took its first serious exception
to the organization and operation of the Staff stating:
"Hence , in order not to contaminate a senior staff
(CI Staff) with Agency employee investigation and/or
exploitation, this should be done by individuals with
CE ability within 8 special section of the Office 0f
Security. It is
"Recommended that:
"a _ The DD/P release for assignment to the Office
Of several individuals as may be appropriate
0f proven ability to handle and exploit al1 cases
o2
CE aspect involving Agency personnel;
"b SID and its function be eliminated from CI
Staff; and
The DCI approve the above recommendations . It
The survey tean took special note of the Projects Branch 0f
CI Staff, the section that handled the mail opening project.
How it was operated and viewed in 1959 is not without interest
in view of its subsequent role in the
""Family Jewels" issue when
it was revealed to the Rockefeller and Church Committees. Thus
it is revealing to note the 1959 survey found no- thing wrong with
S E C R E T
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budget
gave'
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the mail opening program except they worried about its security
and als0 thought it would b@ more @ffective if expanded. This
is how the survey described the project in 1959 :
"a The Project Branch conducts a project 0f
censorship within the US of mail from the USSR which
is called HTLINGUAL Orifigecur this project was
der3}oBedibiox the Office Security at the request
of SR in 1952 Its purpose was to identify
and to obtain samples of handwriting and basic back -
ground facts on established corre_ spondence
between persons in the USSR and the United States _
Such information was to be used operationally to
sustain any comunications with secret Wri-
which would 'likelkeE
pass the Soviet censors and could
be Bickeer Up in U.S.A= The interception is done
at central Post Office in New York, and the
Ietters are delivered to the Agency for processing
ana return. As the need for Soviet communication
camouflage lessened with the increase of legal
travel to and from the USSR the Project was re-
oriented and expanded toward direct CI and FI goals
in September 1956, it was taken over by the
CI Staff,
24
"b At present this Eivel
employees in New York and
dI9uHcludea
at Headquarters
Those in New York are under the Office 0f Security;_
those in Headquarters under the CI Staff The
Yearly cost is the total of the various salaries ,
"C= The primary purposes %f this Project are to
produce CE information operational leads and
Positive intelligence that can be gleaned
aExe
me il
"d_ The operation in New York photographs
about 50 _ 000 envelopes per month out 0f a total of
about 200,000 letters coming_from the USSR to in-
dividuals in the U.S.A. via New York, These films
are forwarded to Headquarters and examined in the
~Projects Branch and some 10,000 of them are selected
on the besis of Agency interest in the areas of
origin in Russia . These 10,000 negatives are then
made into prints ana the nanes of the addressees
are recordea
aiphabetically
on IBM cards From the
IBM cards RI makes a continuing record and a copY
0f this record of names is returned to the Projects
Branch _
About 1,000 of these intercepts are opened
Per month in New York by the Office of Security
the letters verifaxed and_copies sent to the Projects
Branch at Headquarters There is a watch list of
some 500 names on file both in the Branch at Head -_
quarters and in the Security Office in New York and
any letters coming from or going to any of the names
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Hjc
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and
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on this list are opened _ This watch list is revised
quarterly_ It i8 made UP of names of interest princi-
pelly to CI SR Division ana the Security Office,
and includes names
iisted by
the FBI .
"f_ There are trained linguist-analysts in the
Branch who extract information 0f interest from the
intercepts _ and the
"23ij2
of this information
is
deterninea
by the Chief of ects Branch _ At
present the rate of dissemination from" Projects Branch
runs at an, average of about' 150 per month and the
puber is. increaSing _ Sixty percent of these dissemina -
tions are Positive intelligence The disseminations
are controlled by the Deputy Chief of CI Staff_
11 g. SR Division' has obtained valuable operational
leads from this Project, and the FBI wants as much
information 2s it can get by this means
"h_ There are 40 individuals in CIA who are
officially cleared to know ebout this Project. These
include members of SR Deviecords Office of Securi DBig ,
CI Staff, and RI Machine COPS DD/P ,
Director of Personnel sfdue to his
previous
service in the
DD/P) - and the Chief, Staff_ The DCI, DDCI and the IG
Staff also have access_ to the Project.
t"i It would appear 'fron present results that much
more_value could be obtained from this Project if more
intercepts were opened _ Project Branch is at present 2
handl four times as much volume as it did in the past
with the same number 0f personnel and at the same cost
Its staff at Headquarters 1s capable of handling 2,000
per month with the present T/o= but the New York staff
coula not that number of opened intercepts unless
its
[petGonneRPly
was increased _ It is felt by the Branch
that a rate of 4,000 intercepts
per month would be 2
future, goal - It is estimated that this would
require an increase of one interceptor
2
one secretary
ana one letter opener in New York and an addition to
Project Branch at Headquarters of four linguist-analysts,
four clerical personnel and one reports officer.
"j_ The Office of Security which works With
Project Branch, is agreeable to the ' gradual expansion of
the" operation_ It would be in favor of expanding at
Present to the extent of opening more intercepts and
taking samples of these intercepts for S W
This could
be done by the aforementioned increase of Security Office
Personnel in New York without an immediate increase in the
Headquarters staff It would beoperationally much more
feasible if a secure room could be obtained in the Post
Office in New York for theit sole use Since the DCI
made the original arrangement for this {Ee-Syscer with the
Chief Postal Inspector any changes in system of
operation
should be made
in the same way This is the
only level at which such arrangements could be accom-
plished securely _
S 6 C R E T
51
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Cot? i ECd;EN
65
versus area division prerogative in the conduct of operations _
Noting that there might have been some imediate reasons for the
CI Staff to take on operational aspects in its efforts to increase
CI activity, nevertheless it concluded these reasons were not
necessarily based on the best operational and organizational pro-
cedures and methods _ The normal staff functions, the survey
opined, coula be carried out effectively with a much smaller but
highly experienced staff whose impect and counsel would more
favorably be received by the operating elements of the DD/P _ The
team also concluded that there had been insufficient attention
given to penetrating hostile intelligence organizations and
recommended that;
"Chief , CI direct the efforts of the CI Steffttoward
the development of programs for the aggressive pursuit of
penetration activity against hostile intelligence services , "
In_a forward to the report, the 'Inspector General of the
Lyman YKirkpatrick, directed special attention to one particular
espect of CI work,
"The Speciel Investigatiog_Division assists the
Office of Security in using_DD/P assets to trace leads
concerning CIA employees This is probably a necessary
assist to the Office of Security but should be handled
with the utmost of discretion and security It would be
very seriously damaging to the efforts' of the CI Staff
if it ever becane know that it was engaged `in any
activities involving CIA employees An analgous S ituation
is the stir caused by the occasional misimpression created
abroad that CIA reports on other US Government employees .
Thus within CIA the; Office of Security must be the sole
unit to bear the stigma 0f being concerned with fellow
11 employees _
Unfortunately this sensible warning
was not heeded by CI
Staff management, or by the management of the Clandestine Service
as 2 whole for that matter . Instead, in the mid-1960s the CI
Staff, with SIG in the vanguard, hypnotized by the allegations
of Golitsyn, launched HONBTOL the active investigetion 0f,
numerous Agency employees (five in particular) with generally
S E C R E T
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had written a provocative analysis that found Nosenko bona
ride and challenged as incorrect the Monster Ploc
asbebsmenta to the contrary_ Even more provocative, he haa
provided 4 copy directly to then DDCI Richard Helng when
styuied within the Soviet Division in pronoting his viev.
Kalaris first learned of this Vell after McCoy joined the
staff, ynan nimgelf told him. Angleton, on the other
hand , was certainly not unaware of this part o1 McCoy s
background , and fc 19 iKely that ne and Rocca and Mler
interpreted Kalaris's selection ot MCCoy a8 evidence that
Kalaris Vas Out to diacredit them .
Kalaris, originally having been sunmoned hong to take
over temporarily until a replacenent for Angleton could be
found , had a Eitle in the beginning a5 "Accing Chiet_
CIOPS . " In March , Nelson told him, haven t found
anybody yet and a5 tine vent on it looked increasingly 85
if he and Colby vera not going to find anyone - But by thie
time Kalaris was becoming intrigued with vhat he was dolng,
and vith the potential of the job_ He went
back tofrasilijlo
to Bee his family Jn late March , and when he returnea he
told Nelson he vould take the Job on a permanent baafe In
June _ the "Acting" va8 aropped and Kalaris became Chief ,
CIOPS _
What_Kalaris Found
The Stace8f_Affalrs
As he Iooked around , Kalaris found what struck him a8 a
desolate situation_ Mountains of traffic Here coming in to
the staff, but none oE it seened to be of much importance.
The ataff had no relationship Nlth the Soviet Division or
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Mccoy
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any of the other geographic dlvision8 _ If the dlvisions had
any significant cages , Kalarie Vas unavare of them bacause
the divisions Vere giving hin nothing of substance _ McCoy 8
arrival in the staff made thie picture unmiscakably clear
since , fresh from SE DivisJon and a posltion therein chat
wade him privy to Virtually 411 the division 8 sensitive
cases , he Yas able to tell Kalaris what he Vas miseing on
the SE front,
It also before Jong becane evident that there vas an
element O2 a two-vay street in thie 6Ituation. Sovlet-East
European cases vere aiscovered in CI Staff files that the
area divisions had never been informed of or had only
linitea information about, These included such casee as
MORINE (a Past FBI source of voluminous GRU operational
documentb vho Was known to the Soviet Division but whose
operational leads had been shared neither with thac division
nor vith the Other geographic dlvisions in whose territory
the Soviet agents uere working) KITTYHARK] (a XGB officer
who had contacted CIA during a Visit to the United Scates
several Years back and wha igured in a double-agent gane
befng ru by the FBI) [GRrDIRon Leslie Janes Bennett',
former senior oEficer in Soviet counterespionage in che
Canadian RCIP who had resignea Erom that service in 1972
under a cloud Of suspicion engendered by the Angleton staff
and it6 guru Anatoliy Golitsyn--a case never briefed to
either SE or EUR Division) and Cpivod
also known as
[ZoNEJ
C) 8 Eonstantin
Dumitrachescu , a
RomanianJintelligence officer
11
Yho defected in Esraejin 1972 and subsequently cane to this
country and Vas debriefed by CIOPS officers , buc Yhose
information and leads had not been furnished to the area
divisions)
Many of the people in the staff had been hand-picked by
Angleton . They had been in their jobe for a number of years
and were VeIl settled into their way of doing things. So
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wel] in fact that' wost nad given up hope of ever golng
anywhere else Or accomp]fshing anything nel .
Compartmentation Vas 3 way of life. ana managenent Was
remote Erom the rank and file- Kalaris Was appalled to
learn that hi6 chief of support, Yho had worked in the btaff
for {our Or five Years , had never net Angleton; he had only
seen him from a distance . The overall atmosphere seemed to
Kalaris to be conditioned by doublethink and mirrors
Comparcmentatfon in the Angleton staf? had been carriea
to such extremeb , hotever a8 to become counterproductive
With Angleton not disposad to be forthconing vith his
successor . and Rocca and' Miler taking their lead from him
(And Hood already having lefe the staff and tha Agency some
months earlier) St Vas difficule for the Kalaris team to
find out what the staff had been doing. Like the blind men
and the elephant, the parsonne] belov the top leadership had
never been exposed to more than thair Own narron slice Of
Btaff aCtIvities_ and accordingly even with the best or will
they were linited in Yhat they were able to tell the nev
panagenent _ The MORINE case (see belov) provided a vivid
illustration of this point.
McCoy _ vith his Soviet DivieIon background_ vas
particularly struck at the alnost total absance of Soviet
expertise in che staff_ There was no Russian language
capability and no realistic area knowledge , and what
experience there Vas in soviet matters was dated and
limited. This Vas the case not only in REA , but in the
Operations Group 4s vell_
One Of the first things Ka laris had to do afcer
assuming office Vas find out Yhat vas in the 6afes ana
vaults In the Anglecon premises _ Thfs ultinately cook
months , 46 there vere Beveral vaults and many safes
containing among thea Jarge quantities of Paper . AIl this
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had to be revieved_ ana not Only for the purpose Or
decermining what it wa8 411 about significant seguente of
thls paterial, it was dlecovered , were unique to the CI
staff ana had never been integrated into the DO file and
records system _ Infornation from the mafl-intercept
program, for example, Vas indexed ingide the CI Staff , but
reflected nowhere outbide_ Other material largely
duplicated files naintained by other elenents _ Some files
contained @ostly presb clippings: Decisions had to be made
ana action taken , item by item, on indexing, transfer Of
files, determinations of what needed to be retalned and shat
could OI shoula be destroyed , etc. As the pagnitude Of this
cask became evident , arranganants were made for personnel
from IMS ta be detailad to the staff on a long-term bagie to
go through the materfal
In a vaulted area across from Angleton'8 office a
couple or safes Vere found for which no combination could be
located, and which accordingly had to be drilled by
specialists from che office of Security_ Kalaris rejects as
untrue the inage conveyed in Mangold'5 book about Angleton
that has him personally leadlng SWAT teams of safecrackers
3s Vent about opening the Angleton safes, but it 1s
Correct that he was present during the drilling. He had
naver s8en this operation perforned before, and was
interested to observe hov Jt Va8 done _
Some curious and some disquieting chings turned HP 48
the neu team gradually made Ics way through the CI Staff
premises _
~~on the lighter side, in one safe two Bushnan boNs and
some arrows Were found _ Concerned about the poesibility
that the arros might be 'poisoned , Kalaris had them sent--
Tom_Mangola , cold Werrior, Simon 0 Schuster, 1991,
PP . 327-J30
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very carefully--to OTS for examination. Mhen vere
returned, with a judgnent that they vere harmless _ Xalaris
gave them to Angleton as a Persona ] memento .
CI Staff Memo CI 136-75 , 10 July 1975
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I-In & more Gerious Veln, files uere found on the
assab8inations Of PresIdent John P. Kennedy and his brother
Robert F Rennedy - These included autopsy Pctures of the
remains of Robert Kennady _ Although Nosenko ' $ account Of
the KGB 0 involvement uith Lee Harvey Obwal and his denlal
that the KGB had anythIng to do Vith the @urder of John
Kennedy pight reagonably explain an Angleton interest in the
John Kennedy assassination, neither Kalaris nor Blee , vith
whom Kalaris consulted on thI6 blzarre finding, had any idea
why Angleton had the pictures _ Nelcher could they think of
any reason why it was appropriate for CI Staff files to
contain then . vero accordingly destroyed.
~~Angleton S dogged pursult , Inspired by Golitsyn and
his theorjes , of Sovfet Intelligence penetracion of CIA had
led co secret investigations, stretching over period of
many years , of over forty serving CIA officers . Known 46
the KONETOL caseb _ ana later bometimes referred to in the
popular literature 43 the Great Molehunt , this activity had
produced extensive files in the CI Staff. In addition ,
Bevera] hundred files Were found On Anerican cieizens who
Wcre not CIA personnel but on vhom Golitsyn analysie nad
similarly cast some sort of KGB shadou_ Anong the Most
notevorthy oE these Vere files on WS Averell Harrlman and
Henry Kissinger _ Most of these files were composed entirely
of nevepaper reports and 8 few FBI reports _
~-Classified materials, in quantities that ultinately
filled several packing boxes , were eventually found in
10
Golitsyn S possession at his upstata Neu York] farn house_
Some of chis material consieted of personnel-type files on
CIA staff officers. Golitsyn, who resisted returning these
documents when Kalaris sent people to retrieve them,
The term ~HONETOL . useq 85 an acronym, allegedly derives
from comblnation of parts of the last nane of FBI Director
John Edgar Hoover and the firet name of Soviet KGB defector
and Angleton guru Anatoliy Golitsyn.
11
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maintained that Angleton and Miler had given thege {ileg to
him to revied and to Keep a8 long as he needed them, ana he
was not finished Nich them yet_ Ultinately, al] the ffles
that were found Vere retrieved from Golitsyn, though it nas
never been possible to be certain that this represented a)]
the files that he in fact had_
~~A potentially explosive find surfaced in June: a
of maf) frOm the wail-intercept--HTLINGUAL--progran. It had
been the public expose of HTLINGUAL and the MHCHAOS program ,
infiltration of donescic leftist and dissident groups in
search or insidious forelgn sponsorship, in a front page
story by Seyeour Hersh in the_NerYork Tinee On 22 Decenber
1974 that had precipitated Colby '8 decisfon to force
Angletcon 8 retirement_ and led to establishment in 1975 Of
the Rockefeller Comm_ssion On CIA Actfvities in the United
Scates, and the Church (Senate) and Pike (House) committees
to invescigate CIA and its activities. Boch these programe
naa been CI Staf? responsibilltiee . CIA Vae receIving
letters from citizens who believed CIA had incercepted their
nafl, a CI scaff represencative had just finished briafing
the Senate Select Committee Staee on the ubject, and CoIby
on 10 July would be maklng a etatenent on che mail-intercept
program before the Pastal Facilfties, Mafl, and Labor
Management Subcommittee O2 the House Post Office and Civil
Service Committee _ The bag of mail Has a hot potaco.
Kalaris 6 memorandur to ADDO Blee dated 3 July 1975 tells
the story. ##
In the course of preparing for a move of CI
Project materials from one vault to another we found_ on
top of 8 shelf , dispatch (dated] 27 March 1972 from cOS
27,16-7
Panama to Chief AK _ This dispatch forwarded 114 items
mailed from the Soviet Union to varioue persons in the U,5.
3
Ernest Toikerdanoa CI 088-75 , 17 June 1975
CI 113-75 , J July 1975
12
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bag
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Theee bad been In 8_ Package delivered to a doctor In the
Id
[canal zone} Yho turned them over co the
Etleiog
whlch in
turn forwarded then to Headquarters. The dlopatch Was
passed to CI Staff by WH Division in 1972 _ A note on tha
dispatch indicates chat CI Staff took no action other than
to process the materials into itb files; but the CI Project
continued to hold the originals- At the time CI Projact
theorized that a mailing label on a package
tronl@iyayo 29
Corporationin Ne Hyde Park , New York , to tha [canal zong],
doctor had fallen Off the package for the doctor, and been
erroneouely fastened to che package contalning the Sovjet
mail .
#2 . This is the only case 48 far a5 Ke know in whieh
the orlginal mail has been hela by this Agency . In 411
other caseb we examined the nail, opened It surreptitiously,
photographed it, And Pyt ft back into the Dail channels for
delivery to the addrebbee _ Thus , this presants uS wich a
peculiar problem _ The letters nave 41l been opened vith a
letter opener. we do not Xnow at what point along the way
the letters Vere opened _
"3 Ne solicit your advice. There seams to be at
least tuo courses vhich we @ight pursue_ Ne could send
theee items to the people to whom they ara addressed_ under
cover of 4 letter explaining nov we had acquired the mail
and apologizing for our delay in forwarding it_ Another
course of action would be to reinsert the mail into the
postal system by forwarding it under cover of a memorandun
to the U.s. Postal Service. In the memorandum we Jould
state that che mail came into our hands overscas ana Vas
inadvertently held_ The memorandum woula further state that
chfs Agency docs not know at Yhat point the mail Vas openea _
"Attachments: 114 Items
hungarian
cuszen =
S [sic] Declarations
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@BCRET BENBITIVE HoboRN
1 U.S- Regietered Mail/Return Receipt
0 5 Post Cards
25 Letters
24
1
(Svedish Custom 5 [sic} Declaratfon"]
~~The Person Yho brought the letterb to Kalarie, the
supervisor Of the bumner employee Yho actually found them _
va6 knorm Co be an Angleton loyalfst , and Kalaris could see
a trap unfolding in front o2 him if he mishandled the
matter . The deliverer could be expected to tell Angleton
just vhat U2s done with the lettere_ and Angleton to EInd
Yays to exploit any i1l conceived decibions _ After due
deliberation che staef of the Senate committee Yas
informed , and on 16 July, not quite tuo weekb after the
initial memorandum on this subject . the DCI sent the mail co
the Postnaster General under cover of a letter explaining
the situation. The Postmaster Genera 1 in turn Bent a copy
of this lettar_ along with the actual mafl and a letter of
nis ow , to each addreesee _ The Postnaster General ': letter
referred to "apparent incerception and acknouledged
retention of this mail by the CIA, ana described the matter
as "a serious violation of your rightsm and "abuse of the
mail8."+ In due course some of the recipients wrote letters
co the DCI asking vhether CIA had dossiers On them .
In April a folder with some MORINE , material was found
in an RGA safe and dellvered to McCoy , &ho _ believing that
he had stumblea upon an overlookea vein of
counterintelligence gold , brought the matter to Kalaris's
attention_ MORINE in ract had not been overlooked by
Angleton, but this was not apparent at the tIme _ The
discovery of this folder led to a memorandum to Nelson a few
days lacer , entitled "Skeletons In the CIOPS Closet, m
CI 180-75 , 15 August 1975
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the ataft, on It8 Oum and without coordination with the
24
divIeion, had passed to Goretgn 14a18o2
a copY Of a FIES
containing division-controlled NOFORN information .
Paper and_Records: Disposal and_Reiategratiqn
The paper-and-records problem Va8 high on che agenda of
issues that needed co be addresbed _ The quantity that the
Angleton vaults and safes conta_nea was almost overvhelning,
and much Of this nad never been Aade available outside the
staff. Integration of this uniqua data into the Do records
systom not only nade conmon aense; it vas an Obvious
prerequlsite to the staff rejoining the directorate.
Kalaris had no problem in principle vith the concept of
keeping certain information vithin the staff, as SE did uith
its LESToRAG] byscem _ but the Angleton team haa gone
overboard , whether for reasong of bureaucratic style Or
fear of penetration of the Agency , information of al1 xinds
and from all kinds Of sources had been held privately- Al1
this haa first to pe reviewed to identify Yhat Va6
appropriate co recain And what wab not, and the appropriate
then made retrievable_
In the vake Of the Rockefeller Commission InveetIgation
ana the Church and Pike committee hearings , the Agency and
the DO uere busy wr = iting regulations and providIng
guidelines to operating elements on what was ana vas not
proper activity, particularly vis-a-vis Us parsons . For
the CI staff , this heavily involved definition6 of subjects
and actlvities that @erited staff atcention_ Executive
Orders would later provide a framework , albeit often
maddeningly imprecise, for these questions_ but che firet of
those addressing US foreign incelligence activitites, E.0.
53
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11905, Vas not issued until February 1976.# In the
meanuhile, advice from the Hill and the lawyere supplied the
framework And there appeared to be hundreds , perhaps
thousands of files in the Angleton staff chat nad been
created and ma intained according to criteria, e.9.
anticonmunism , that did not fit these gufdelInes _
Establibhment of 4 gu_dellne that counterintelligence
{1le6 vere not to be established and maintafned solely on
the basis of iteme in the prege provlded for alimination of
a Jarge percentage of the material that had been collected
by the Anglecon statf prominent among this being files on
Henry Klssinger 0_ Averall Harriman, and bome J0-40 US
congressmen , among others . Conmon sense provided other
vorking guidelines such as, for example, the sinplistic role
of thumb: if a file h8s some linkage to reality, retain it;
if not , destroy it. People fron RID Here brought in to help
decide what should go into the overa]l records sybtem, and
Dhat did noc belong there. Sone Of them effectively poved
into the staff. And they vere
not the only outsiders to do
this. In July 1975 the Departnent Qf Justice sent somo
lawyers to review the HTLINGUAL naterial , and Yhen they
d_acoverea that there were 27 boxes of it in one of the
6taff vaults it was decided that the best place for them to
do their work vould be right there _ Three desxs Vere set uP
them in the vault.
Some stacistics fram monthly reports at the time give a
glimpse of the Augean task of dealing wfcb a11 of this paper
and records.
January 1976: Five Branch personnel spent 2-1/2
days revleving al1 files hela in the branch for a count Of
Signed by PreaIdent Gerald R. Ford , February 18 , 1976 .
54
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how many of these files vera on US citizene _ Total count
vas
2,018 Efles
on Adericane _
Mareh 1976: AJl (41 Ilnear feet) Golitsyn fIle
material held in records center been raca lled and a
review begun . In six more feet vere acqulrea from SE _
July: CI/RGA Index currently contains about 255,000
cards , down over 11,000 in last ten months
Augubt: Golitsyn material nas now been
consolidated; about 15 linear Eeet have been destroyed _
September: Approxinately 40,000 carde vere
deetroyed; they duplicated a pore complete {ndex paintained
by SEICI_
October: CI/RGA index has been purged ot a1l cards
duplicated in DO main index-zover 12 O00 cards vere removed
and destroyed.
February 1977 : Four ISc analysts vere aesigned to
REA to assist in the processing and integration Qf CI Staff
records into the DO central system .
The "HONETOL" filee appalled the nev CI staff in their
numbers and, as chey were read , cheir scope and the
hollowne6s of the reede upon which they had been built-*
HONETOL had not yet become natorlous to the outeide world,
but inside it Nas perceived as 4 problem of major
proportions . If , on the one hand , chese files actually
The term THONETOL meant @oTitsyn leads to a penetration
of the Onited States--CIA as Yell as other US institution8 _
This led to tuo kinds of files: the leads thenselves _ 15
Golitsyn provided and described them (e.g._ a Eile on the
Jead "Sasha") and files on suspects_ 1.e persons
suspected Of being the subject of a lead , Actual leads Were
very few; suspects were very wany _
55
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ha6
May
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contained evidence OE a penetration of CIA, this clearly was
of vital Importance . If_ on the other hand , did not,
it vas importanc that chib be recognized and the files and
3 ouspicions appropriately dealt with. Julian Foxl lawyer
by education who jolned the Btaff in late sumaer 1975 , was
assigned to study chese filee. A procedure Vas developed
Yhereby he revieved each One by one And prepared a Bummary
of its contents . This vent forvard to Kalarfb wftha Jn each
instance, a reconnendation on the Cover sheet for
dieposItion _ On file after file these cover eneets ended up
saying the Bame thing; that the file had been revieued _
that che conclusion haa been reached cnac there Vas nothing
of aerit in it, and the file should be destoyed . The reviev
of the file on Richard Kovich, for example , which was eght
pages long , was dated 22 December 1975. Kalaris ,
concurring , sent Jt to ADDO Blee uith 0 handvritten note
thac the material in this cabe would be packaged and hela
Dith instructions that it should be destroyed a5 soon a3 the
Senate released CIA from Its embargo on debtruction, and
that the 6ududary @edo and CovBr sheet would constituce che
only future recard _ The HONETOL files received steady but
not priority attention. It took somewnat over 8 year for
3
FoxJeo make his vay through all of then. Nothing of erit
wg found in any of them _
A specia] approach Vas developea to get the MORINE] daca
into central indices _ As a result Qf the conpartmentation
applied to,' KORINE in the Angleton Btaff much of the
existing MORINE information vas aquirreled avay and not
immedfately appreciated. The rejuvenated exploitation
program produced 4 flood of [ZRTAFFY] correepondence vith
field stations but this was slow to yield indexable
macerial. It was not until the end Of 1975 that a focused
RIchara KoviZh Vab One G: the threa CIA staff officers
most severely afrected by ehe HONETOL vitch-hunt_
56
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analytical effort On KORINE got undervay . Beglnnlng then
29
with the cabbette materfal fCc cpsgInternational Department
trainee nanes) and later vith country sunmary reports when
analy61e and liaison feedback flashed ouc an underscanding
of GRu ras idency pereonnel operat_ons . HORINE" data vare
provided by the Btaff to SE Division, vhich in turn conveyed
chan on to RID under SE Division docunant SX) numbers a3
LESTORAG] infornation.
Nanes Of GRU officers , code nades
and true names (where Knoyn) of agents and developnentals_
support absets , etc. wera inaexed in this fashion_
Beople_Responssbilitie?
The Kalaris staff Inherited responsibility for
handful of defectors and certain contract personnel who had
been vorking for the Angleton staff_ This responslbility
Vas not particularly velcomed , but ic had to be dealt vith:
The defeetors vere Golitsyn, Nosenko , Deryabin, and
6) g
Rastvorov , and a former Romanian intelligence by the
6
name o [Constantin Dunitracheecu] also xnoen as MHPIVOT / 1,
The Soviets were vell knokn _ at least by reputation, to the
8
SE aluwni on the staff, but the Ronanianf was 0 total
surprise. had never heard of him.
24
In early 1972 che Israell internal service Shin Becy
had approached CIA through Angleton and asked for aseistance
in arranging che defection and resettlement of
ChTef , SE (Blee) nad been avare of [Dumitrachescu 8
defection at the time, and had deduced = and ultimately
obtained confirmation from the DDO that Angleton had
arranged to brIng him to the United states and had hin
squirreled ahay .
%pC
ana
officer
They
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This would suggest that Anglaton may hava lacked the
opportunity thac others haa had to observe the kinds Of
behavior Soviet defectors have displayed in sortIng out who
the Jnportant players are in natters affecting their future,
and figuring out how to deal with them _
~~In the eyes of bome who knew hIm, Angleton viewed
hingelf more a5 chief of an operacional encity than Df 2
staff_ Few gave him high warks as an effective staff_ as
oppoeed to operations, officer _ His secret travels Jn
Neetern EuropeE not to mention to Israel , to meet with
senior liaison offfcials with whom he had developed
confidential relationships constituted a form of independent
operational activity. The proposa] , uleimately stillborn,
in 1965 for Angleton to develop specIal counterintelligence
units in Vietnamtt displayed certain parallels with his
conduct of counterintelligence abroad as Chief of che CI
Staff in the way in Yhich the Jocal station voula be
effectively cut out ana command channel and comunications
vould run direct to counterintelligence headquarters in
Nashington_ The proposed special counter intelligence (SCI)
units for Vietnam were nodeled arcer SCI units employed by
X-2 , che counterintelligence arm of the wartime Oss_-Vhere
Angleton began his intelligence career. Perhaps those early
experiences shaped in sone way Angleton 6 later preference
for conduct counterintelligence--by himself, without
involvement of the araa divisions and stations _
~and nar_To Do About Iti Game plan
The_Plan
In assessing tne state of affairs in the staff, it did
Angleton may nave nad Gone exposure probably during the
19505 to pre-War (1938) RGB defector Aleksandr Orlov .
01-AS described in Cleveland C Cram ' $ history of the CI
Staff (to 1974) ,(vol.X, 1004 ff,
22
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streamline our procedureb .
By 2976 the office of the Executive officer of the
Staff included a Privacy Act Section Vith four poeitions in
addition to 8 three-person Records and Registry Sectlon.
(FOIA and Privacy Act requeste were handled together-) But
this by no means solved the problem- In the fall of 1977 _
a6 DO ceiling and personnel reductions Vere being meted Qut
and the gtaff vas trying to gear itself to getting along
vith 1es6 , the DDO Va6 advised that the staff 3 Privacy Act
Saction vas 60 scrained and It6 personnel under So much
pressure that henceforth it would not accept deadlines
imposed by elenentb oucside the staff_ When requirenents
cere received, che section would advise the requester how
much tine vould be required o corplete the work .
But noxna) FOIA and Prlvacy Act requests vere not all;
there were a1so @pecialty raquestb that had to be met . AJ1
had the conmon denoninator of the staff'8 unique fllas and
records . These included such matters 86:
FOIA requests for information concerning Lee Harvey
Osvald.** Kandling these required the creatien of 0 task
foree of 1J operations officers and analysts, plus clerical
personnel and their full-time efforts for over 4 aonth =
Requests for intervieys and/or information from the
Senate and House Select Intelligence Connittees and the
Department of Justice _
A review of the Rosanberg case by a Federal court,
which caused problems Vith regard to related VENONA
CI 131-75 , 9 July 75
0 Nosenko S assertlon that ne 4a6 famlliar with the KGb ' s
asseesnent of and involvement with Osvald in the Soviet
Union had Jed to enaless debrlefing, analy6is, and Cxoss -
check research on this subject.
67
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Untted States ; "In each Cabe You Open a file on thera muet
be a denonstrable_SI interest _ Please as6ure that thl6
guideline i8 folloved' wetIculouely.
pouble_Agent Eranch Nas Chargea uith the
conduct of and coordinatlon On double agent operations
abroad _ since the vast majority of DA Cases were run bY the
US military gervice8 , che FBI , or--in somc instances--
Toreign-liaison services , the branch Vas very heavily a
coordinator rather than active runner of operations _
98
Area Operations_Dranch Was charged with
coordination with the area divisions on matters of CI
interest, ana with stimulating CI dlsciplines ana practices
In the area divisions and field stations_ The centerpiece
of the branch 8 accivity Vas management ana conduct of the
CI Survey program . ConsJeting Itbelf only of the branch
chjef and two clericals, the branch staffed its survey tears
with detailees from the arca divisions and CI Staff officerg
borrowed from other branches of the stafe, both Ops and RGA
Sosuteroperations _ Branch Was charged Vith
operations designed to counter and disrupt the activicies
abroad of roreign intelligence services inimical to US
interests _ Charles Anderson , an LA Division officer who Vas
brought in to the staff by Sternfield to head the branch ,
had had considerable experlence In CA operations _ ana the
branch s activities reflected thls background _ Virtually
all had a clear CA character from promotion of 8 book about
the Tupamaros and terrorism in Uruguay , to a press campaign
in Burope designed to expobe the Curiel apparacus as an
inetrument of Soviet intelligence, to a paper che Cuban
intelligence residency in Chile dur the Allende regine _
Primary Orientation was toward Latin America , with heavy
focus on terrorist organizations and activities. Anderson 5
operations tended to be highly imaginative , often complex_
71
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PAPER: THE IMS TEAM FINALLY GOES HOME
In May 1980 the IMS analyst group detailed to the CI
Staff to deal with the paper inherited from the Angleton
Staff finally completea its work and returned to IMS _ In
all, during the preceding four and a half years some 600 feet
of CI Staff files had been reviewed _ about 375 feet by IMS
and 225 feet by CI Staff personnel The Analysis Group maln
index had peen reduced from 500,000 cards in 1975 to 28 , 000 _
DERYABIN RETIRES
Peter (Petr) Deryabin retired in January 1981 on the eve
of his 6oth birthday, One of the early group of KGB ofricers
to come to the West following the death of stalin in 1953 _ he
had defected in Vienna in 1954 _ Since that time he had been
continually as8ociated with, and in effect a ward of the CI
Staff. For a number of years he, along with other defectors ,
114
8 B @ R B T / NOFORN