Post # 2
Some observations for now:
Cram's review of Epstein's
Legend begins on page 25, but he has a lot of negative things to say about him before that.
Cram believes he was spreading James Angleton's "propaganda" in
Legend.
Cram's ignorance-based bias against Angleton is almost palpable.
Example: "The theme of
Legend was extended in a 1980 novel called
The Spike by Arnaud de Borchgrave and Robert Moss. De Borchgrave, soon-to-be editor of the new
Washington Times, and Moss were friends and admirers of Angleton, whose
conspiracy theories were consistent with their own. Moss had been spreading Angleton
propaganda for some time, such as the claim that [Anatoliy] Golitsyn had provided the lead to [Kim] Philby. This caught the eye of Adm. Stansfield Turner, who was then DCI [director of the CIA]. When he asked the Counter Intelligence Staff about it, the staff replied from
solid knowledge that the claim was false." (emphasis added)
...
The fact is, Golitsyn
did provide the final clue to British intelligence that lead to the uncovering of Philby (and also lead to the uncovering of fellow mole Anthony Blunt).
The following excerpt is from the London Review of Books in its review of
Philby in Beruit by Tom Carver:
"In December 1961, Anatoly Golitsyn, a senior KGB officer, defected to the West. He brought with him a number of clues which substantially strengthened the case against Philby."
(I'll expand on that shortly ...)
Regarding what the CI Staff allegedly told DCI Turner in 1968 about the uncovering of Philby, it must be born in mind that Angleton had been fired by (possible mole) William Colby in December of 1974 and replaced by counterintelligence newbie George Kalaris, and that shortly thereafter, CI Staff had been stripped of its pro-Angleton/pro-Golitsyn officers.
Throughout the monograph, Cram disparages the view of Angleton, Bagley and Golitsyn that, beginning in 1959, the KGB was more interested in waging CIA-manipulaing "deception operations" against the already-penetrated Agency than in was in penetrating it further and stealing more information from it.
(To be continued ...)
Okay, here's Cram's review of
Legend --
Epstein is a bright and able writer who took his M.A. at Cornell and his doctorate in government at Harvard. He made a name for himself with his book
Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth, his master's thesis at Cornell. It was one of the first serious works to expose the shortcomings of that Commission. Epstein became aware of the Yuriy Nosenko case through
The Reader's Digest, and this led to his acquaintance with James Angleton. Their association flourished, and Angleton became Epstein's major source on Nosenko and the controversy surrounding his defection. Eventually
The Reader's Digest sponsored Epstein's research to the tune of $500,000.
Legend, the book that resulted, was a bestseller, projecting the author to the forefront of those who were proponents of Angleton's theories. Following its publication, Epstein wrote numerous articles for
New York,
Commentary, and other publications, mostly—though not always—supportive of the Angleton theories.
Legend has two parts: the first is about Nosenko and Angleton's belief that he was part of a KGB deception operation; the second is about Oswald's sojourn in the Soviet Union following his service with the Marine Corps in Japan. While in Japan the book suggests that Oswald acquired information about U-2 flights flown from the airfield at which he was stationed. In brief, Epstein accepted Angleton's conclusion that "Nosenko was a Soviet intelligence agent dispatched by the KGB expressly for the purpose of delivering disinformation to the CIA, FBI, and the Warren Commission." In this scheme, Oswald, the supposed lone assassin of President Kennedy, probably was working for the KGB. (Nosenko said this was not true.) Oswald, having defected to the USSR in 1959 and returned three years later, had been living a "legend," a false biography concocted for him by the KGB. A central theme in both parts of the book, carefully stated and always present, was that the highest level of the Intelligence Community, and certainly the CIA, was penetrated by a "mole" working for the KGB. Although this mole had not been found by 1978, the best "proof" that one existed, according to the book's argument, was Nosenko's assertion that he knew of no penetration, thereby contradicting statements made by a "Mr. Stone," who subsequently proved to be Anatoliy Golitsyn. Epstein thus promoted the twin beliefs of deception and penetration by the KGB, Angleton's theory that came to be called derisively "the monster plot." Epstein's source notes state that his work is based on interviews with Nosenko and retired CIA and FBI officers. He lists Gordon Stewart, Admiral Turner, Richard Helms, James Angleton and members of his CI (Counterintelligence) Staff, William Sullivan and Sam Papich of the FBI, and others connected with the Golitsyn and Nosenko cases. Epstein carefully camouflaged his sources by never quoting them directly, but clearly a number of CIA officers provided an immense amount of classified information. This leaking about sensitive Soviet cases was on a scale the CIA had not experienced before. But, because Epstein so cleverly refrained from pinpoint sourcing, exactly which CIA or FBI officers provided classified information could not be determined. In 1989 the mystery was solved when Epstein published a second book,
Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB and the CIA, which again dealt with the contentious old cases, including Nosenko and Golitsyn. Angleton, his major source, by then was dead, and Epstein revealed who his informants had been. (See review of
Deception) Although the presentation of these highly classified cases shocked most observers, within a year the entire Nosenko case was opened to the public by the US House Select Committee on Assassinations.
Legend sold well, and conspiracy buffs found it a welcome addition to the growing literature on the Kennedy assassination. Many others, however, found the book confusing, its claims extravagant, and its conclusions unsupported by evidence. One of the chief critics, George Lardner of
The Washington Post, wrote:
"What Epstein has written .. . is a fascinating, important, and essentially dishonest book. Fascinating because it offers new information about Oswald, about the KGB, and about the CIA. Dishonest because it pretends to be objective, because it is saddled with demonstrable errors and inexcusable omissions, because it assumes the KGB always knows what it is doing while the CIA does not. It is paranoid. It is naive." Nevertheless,
Legend unquestionably set the tone for the debate that subsequently ensued in the media about the Nosenko affair. It gave Angleton and his supporters an advantage by putting their argument adroitly — if dishonestly — before the public first. Not until David Martin responded with
Wilderness of Mirrors was an opposing view presented coherently.
...
I will critique it in my next post.
-- MWT
