Tom, you forgot this most important assessment of Pete Bagley’s competence.
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32359254.pdf
Transcribed below.
TOP SECRET
13 October 1970
MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
Subject: BAGELY, Tennant, Harrington
#386 38
1) On Wednesday, 7 October 1970 I briefed Colonel L. K. White, Executive Director-Controller on certain reservations I have concerning the proposed promotion of subject to a supergrade position.
2) I was very careful to explain to Colonel White at the outset that my reservations had nothing whatsoever to do with Bagely's security status. I explained that it was my conviction that Bagely was almost exclusively responsible for the manner in which the Nosenko case had been handled by our SR division. I said I considered that Bagely lacked objectivity and that he had displayed extremely poor judgment over a two year period in the handling of this case. Specifically as one example of Bagely's extreme prejudice I pointed out that the SR division had neglected to follow up several leads provided by Nosenko which subsequently had been followed up by this office (Bruce Solie) and that this lead us to individuals who have confessed their recruitment and use by the Soviets over an extensive period of time.
3) I explained further that Bagely displayed extremely poor judgment in the actions he took during that time that Nosenko was incarcerated at ISOLATION. On many occasions, as the individual responsible for Nosenko's care, I refuse to condone Bagely's instructions to my people who are guarding him. In one instance Bagely insisted that Nosenko's food ration be reduced to black bread and water three times daily. After I had briefed Colonel White, he indicated that he would refresh the Director's memory on Bagely's role in the Nosenko case at the time he reviews supergrade promotions.
Howard J. Osborn
Director of Security
———————————-
Yours truly,
Plato
Dear Caveman Plato,
I haven't forgotten that precious document of yours, at all.
1970, huh? Hmm, three years after the powers that be at CIA had, based on bogus "analysis" by Leonard McCoy, John L. Hart and Bruce Solie, declared Nosenko bonafide.
What the hell was your boy Osborn supposed to do at that point, say Bagley had done a good job (which he had, btw -- receiving only excellent performance reports every year and a commendation upon retiring from CIA)?
Sorry to disappoint you, but Bagley didn't have your hero, Nosenko, "imprisoned" (David Murphy did), or even tortured.
No waterboarding, no electrical shocks to the testicles, no pulled fingernails, no beatings, no staged "executions", no never-ending Beach Boys' "Ba-ba-ba Ba-Barb-ra Ann" song played at earsplitting volume 24/7 in a soundproof room while the guards outside watched TV and played dominoes, no administration of LSD (as Nosenko claimed) or "truth serum," etc, etc, etc. Solitary confinement and no TV or radio or reading materials, yes. (Bummer, huh?) Not allowed to brush his teeth, yes. But did get fresh air and an opportunity to exercise for an hour every day, iirc. They knew he was a false defector, Mikey, knew they couldn't hold him indefinitely (like they do in Russia, or administer a bullet in the back of the head), and ... gasp ... they were trying to "break" him. Almost did, too, especially when they caught him up in a couple of whoppers -- e.g., the fact that he told his interrogators something very important in 1964 that had supposedly happened in Moscow in late 1960, but which he had "forgotten" to tell Bagley and Kisevalter in Geneva in 1962, i.e., that the U.S. Embassy-Moscow security officer, Abidian, had allegedly been spotted by KGB setting up a dead drop, and that that had contributed to their eventually catching Penkovsky, about a year-and-a-half after he'd defected "in place", but we know now that the dead drop story was a KGB ruse, and that Penkovsky had actually been "burned" by a mole in U.S. or British intelligence -- probably Roger Hollis of MI-5 -- just a couple of weeks after he'd defected, i.e., in Spring of 1961.
Amazingly enough, KGB so highly valued the mole (Hollis?) who had betrayed Penkovsky that, in order not to blow his or her cover, they didn't arrest Penkovsky right away, but let him continue to give CIA top-secret information (including the Soviet missiles in Cuba) for about a year until they could contrive a plausible-looking scenario for "suspecting" Penkovsky and arresting him without drawing attention to the mole.
That's just one example of Nosenko's many whoppers that Bagley was onto, but was unable to get Nosenko, muttering to himself and falling into a trance-like state, to confess to and thereby really start "spilling the beans". Bagley intuited, correctly I believe, that Nosenko had been "programmed" in the USSR to not break under "harsh American interrogation.
Regarding your precious document, above, it sounds as though Bruce Baby (who believed Nosenko a true defector because 1) he wanted to, and 2) because 1966
false defector Igor Kochnov told him that he, Kochnov, had been sent by the KGB to the U.S. to find and liquidate both (true) defector Golitsyn and (false) defector Nosenko, got to your boy Osborn and exaggerated the horrible, horrible conditions under which Nosenko was held. Pity that.
You might enjoy reading a few pages in
Spy Wars about the disastrous joint CIA-FBI "Kitty Hawk" case that involved Solie and Kochnov and a hapless true defector (a Soviet Navy captain) to the U.S.
It will give you a good idea of just how bogus Solie's main source of information on Nosenko, Igor Kochnov, really was, and also what great lengths the Ruskies have always gone to protect their moles and agents in the U.S. by sending false defectors to confuse and confound CIA and FBI, and "throw them off the scent".
https://archive.org/details/SpyWarsMolesMysteriesAndDeadlyGames/page/n209Cheers!
-- MWT
PS And oh by the way Nosenko didn't provide any "leads" to U.S. Intelligence on any KGB or GRU "moles" that weren't already suspected (and therefore being watched), or who still had access to classified materials, whereas Golitsyn did -- not so many in the U.S. (although he pointed in the direction of never uncovered in his lifetime Edward Ellis Smith), but several in France and in certain other European countries.
