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Author Topic: The Fallacies of Howard J. Osborn and Richards J. Heuer, et al.  (Read 21847 times)

Offline Thomas Graves

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Dear Michael,

Regarding the Heuer essay that you've evidently fallen in love with, aren't you glad I turned you onto it?

So it can reinforce all of your misconceptions about Nosenko (the guy who said KGB had absolutely nothing to do with Oswald and, more importantly, that there were no KGB/GRU moles in U.S. Intelligence), and about all of the KGB and GRU officers (whom you've probably never heard of, anyway) who were sent here as triple-agents so that they could, one way or another, build up Nosenko's "bona fides" in the eyes of The Gullibles Or Worse (Hoover, McCoy, Hart, Solie, Kisevalter, et al.) at the FBI and CIA so he could more effectively detract from true defector Anatoly Golitsyn and the leads he was giving Bagley and Angleton about moles in the CIA (and in the governments and security services of some of our allies -- France in particular)?

You're welcome, Michael, but please do try to get around to reading that "unreadable" Spy Wars some day, won't you?

After all, John Newman did.  Thank God.

-- MWT  ;)


PS  Here's a little tid-bit (plus annotations referenced therein) for you from page 282, in the Glossary (Appendix D):


Kochnov, Igor

KGB officer who [on a Sunday morning called Richard Helms "out-of-the-blue" at home and] volunteered to work for CIA while on a temporary mission to Washington in June 1966. To promote his KGB career, CIA and FBI allowed him to "recruit" his [witting] target, Nikolay Artamonov*.  His prospects to rise in the KGB disappeared, as indeed so did he a couple of years later.  He uncovered no spies who were arrested, but told CIA that his other KGB assignment was to locate [and assassinate, if possible] the important defectors Yuri Golitsyn* and Yuri Nosenko*. This convinced some in CIA, including Bruce Solie* [one of Kochnov's "handlers"] that Nosenko was genuine.


*Artamonov, Nikolay Fedorovich

Soviet naval officer (destroyer captain) who defected in the 1950s and moved to the United States where (under the assumed name of Nicholas Shadrin) he worked as a consultant for the U.S. navy.  Agreed to work as a double agent for the Americans and thus allowed himself to be "recruited" by KGB officer Igor Kochnov*. In the course of the operation [run jointly by CIA's Office of Security and FBI because Angleton feared KGB penetration of the Soviet Block Division) kidnapped him [in Vienna, under the nose of Solie*] and inadvertently killed him [allegedly by giving him too much of a "knockout" drug while smuggling him across the border].


*Golitsyn, Anatoly

KGB officer who was stationed in Austria 1953 - 1955 and defected to the CIA in Helsinki on 15 December 1961 years of memorizing cases and documents that had come to his attention.  His pointers exposed active KGB spies in several Western governments, including three intelligence services.


*Nosenko, Yuri Ivanocich

KGB officer who approached CIA in Geneva at the end of 1962 and gave information over the course of a few [five] meetings [to Bagley and flown-in fluent-in-Russian "super handler" George Kisevalter] before his visiting [Disarmament] delegation returned to Moscow. Came back to Geneva in late January 1964 and defected six days after several more meetings with CIA. His good faith came under suspicion but CIA later certified him as a genuine defector. He has since resided in the United States [he died on 8/23/08].


*Solie, Bruce

CIA security officer who worked on personnel security matters. Was assigned as a case officer for Igor Kochnov* in 1966 and came to believe Yuri Nosenko* was a genuine defector. Criticized the 1967 [condensed-down-to-450-pages from the "thousand pager" written by Bagley] report by CIA's Soviet Block Division and then spent months devising a new story with Nosenko. Solie wrote a report that, by 1 October 1968, finally cleared away CIA official doubts about Nosenko's bona fides.[emphasis added 3x]
« Last Edit: August 09, 2019, 09:20:32 PM by Thomas Graves »

JFK Assassination Forum


Offline Thomas Graves

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Dear Michael,

Are you going to send a letter to Peter Dale Scott, telling him that that "sadistic incompetent" Tennent H. Bagley was wrong, wrong, wrong about Nosenko, and that John Newman was a fool to believe him?

To believe Bagley, that is?

-- MWT   ;)

Edit: I've just now noticed that the very last thing Scott tells Newman in the (March 3, 2018 -- Part II) video is that Newman (i.e., Bagley) has just now convinced him that Nosenko was dispatched to the U.S. to discredit Golitsyn.

Comments, anyone?

-- MWT  ;)


Check it out at 41:32

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=AhrZXO_p4QY

« Last Edit: July 13, 2019, 01:35:45 AM by Thomas Graves »

Offline Michael Clark

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Note: The original title of this thread, before Thomas edited it, was: Re: Standing Challenge To Michael Clark (Or Anyone Else Who Wants To Give It A Shot)

Edit: I've just now noticed that the very last thing Scott tells Newman in the (March 3, 2018 -- Part II) video is that Newman (i.e., Bagley) has just now convinced him that Nosenko was dispatched to the U.S. to discredit Golitsyn.

Comments, anyone?

-- MWT  ;)

Thomas, are you going to warn Peter Dale Scott, or Newman (since no one is free from your pernicious and capricious opinions and respect), that you will label them as liars, fools, brainwashed, commies, traitors and idiots, .. if they happen to disagree with you on some matter?

Thomas, do you think that anyone would engage you in this debate, given your borderline propensities?
« Last Edit: August 11, 2019, 04:08:24 PM by Michael Clark »

JFK Assassination Forum


Offline Thomas Graves

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Thomas, are you going to warn Peter Dale Scott, or Newman (since no one is free from your pernicious and capricious opinions and respect), that you will label them as liars, fools, brainwashed, commies, traitors and idiots, .. if they happen to disagree with you on some matter?

Thomas, do you think that anyone would engage you in this debate, given your borderline propensities?

Dear Michael,

Are you totally "bummed out" that "Pete" Bagley's books convinced John Newman that Yuri Nosenko was a false defector, and that he, in turn, has convinced Peter Dale Scott of same?

It must be quite traumatic for you!

(Nice deflection, btw.)

-- MWT   :(
« Last Edit: July 13, 2019, 03:40:09 AM by Thomas Graves »

Offline Michael Clark

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Note: The original title of this thread, before Thomas edited it, was: Re: Standing Challenge To Michael Clark (Or Anyone Else Who Wants To Give It A Shot)

Dear Michael,

Are you totally "bummed out" that "Pete" Bagley's books convinced John Newman that Yuri Nosenko was a false defector, and that he, in turn, has convinced Peter Dale Scott of same?

It must be quite traumatic for you!

(Nice deflection, btw.)

-- MWT   :(

Tommy, following up on my previous question...., have you noticed how much interest there is in your questions and posts? Would you accept a hint if I told you that it rhymes with Zero?
« Last Edit: August 11, 2019, 04:09:18 PM by Michael Clark »

JFK Assassination Forum


Offline Thomas Graves

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Tommy, following up on my previous question...., have you noticed how much interest there is in your questions and posts? Would you accept a hint if I told you that it rhymes with Zero?

Michael,

Then why do you keep posting "responses" on this and my other anti-Nosenko/pro-Bagley threads?

Two questions for you, Michael:

1)  Are you "bummed" that both John Newman and Peter Dale Scott now believe Yuri Nosenko was a false defector, sent here by the KGB to discredit Anatoly Golitsyn?

2)  Can you think of any person Nosenko helped the FBI or CIA to "uncover" who: 1) wasn't already under suspicion, 2) was still working for the KGB/GRU, or 3) still had access to classified materials?

Can't you name any names, Michael?

What do your beloved sources like John L. Hart, Howard J. Osborn, Leonard McCoy, Bruce Solie and Richards J. Heuer, Jr., say? Do they mention any specific  names?  How about Tommy Mangold or Jefferson "Intellectually Dishonest" Morley?  James "Jumbo Duh" DiEugenio?  Can they help you out with this? 

If so, please share those names with us so that I (with help from Spy Wars, etc) can enlighten you about them.

-- MWT  ;)

Btw: 21 23 24 people, in addition to you and me, are currently reading this thread. Not bad for an "Off Topic" thread at the JFK Assassination Forum, huh?

« Last Edit: August 10, 2019, 03:33:31 PM by Thomas Graves »

Offline Thomas Graves

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Re: My Standing Challenge To Michael Clark
« Reply #30 on: August 10, 2019, 04:10:14 PM »
Okay, forget Michael Clark, who seems to be tongue-tied at the moment.

Does it bum out anybody here that John Newman, having read Tennent H. Bagley's Spy Wars and Spymaster, now believes that Yuri Nosenko -- the guy who tore the CIA apart in the late 1960s, thereby protecting Popov's Mole  (Edward Ellis Smith), a military code clerk "Jack" (who was recruited in 1949 and unwittingly started the Korean War), and, ultimately, mole Aldrich Ames, etc, etc, etc ... and oh yeah who swore up and down that the KGB had had nothing to do with Oswald in the USSR -- was a false defector, and that Newman convinced Peter Dale Scott of that, too?

Anybody?

Gulp ... Everybody?

-- MWT   ;)

PS  Were the Ruskies so afraid we were gonna nuke 'em seven weeks after the assassination that they sent Nosenko to calm us down or maybe even to set us off on a bunch of tinfoil hat conspiracy theories, or ... heaven forbid... the the idea that Oswald was so dog-gone crazy that he'd probably done it all by himself?

OR, did they know that Nosenko would charm enough wishful thinkers in high places by telling them what we all wanted to hear, and thereby make them even more amenable to believe anything he said about anything?
« Last Edit: August 11, 2019, 03:53:12 AM by Thomas Graves »

Offline Thomas Graves

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http://intellit.muskingum.edu/alpha_folder/H_folder/Heuer_on_NosenkoV1.pdf

“As critics have accurately noted, deception was taken as a premise; it was not a finding arrived at after careful investigation of Nosenko's story. Jack Fieldhouse concluded ". . . there was never an honest effort to establish Nosenko's bona fides. There was only a determined effort to prove Nosenko was mala fide and part of a KGB deception meant to mislead CIA into believing it was not penetrated-thereby covering up the 'real' reason for the compromise of Popov and Penkovskiy." Hart observed that "... at no time from June 1962 to October 1967 was Nosenko afforded the land of systematic, objective, non-hostile interrogation . . . which otherwise had been standard operating 'procedure' in dealing with similar sources." It is noteworthy that none of the background on assumed penetration of CIA or the Soviet disinformation program is included in the formal SB Division assessments of Nosenko's bona fides. It is documented in limited distribution memorandums of that period, but those who doubted Nosenko believed they could and should prove their case only on the basis of anomalies and inconsistencies in Nosenko's own statements, without reference to penetration of CIA or to all the other Soviet operations that were considered part of the master plot. Except for Jack Fieldhouse, those who subsequently defended Nosenko adopted these same ground rules, so systematic refutation of many master plot arguments is lacking in their analysis. The principal counterargument was the simple assertion that the KGB would never mount such a deception because of the cost to it self in information given away (to be discussed later) and the risk that a KGB defector, penetration, or disaffected provocateur might compromise the entire enterprise at any time. It was also noted that, to obtain Politburo approval to place one of its own staff personnel in contact with the enemy as a false defector, the KGB would have to be able to demonstrate that this was the best and least costly, perhaps the only, way to achieve its objectives. This too seemed quite implausible. No objectives were ever suggested that could not be achieved by less costly or less risky means. This counterargument has passed the test of time. It seems impossible that the KGB could have concealed such an extensive and all-inclusive deception for so many years, given the steady flow of new KGB defectors and sources in a position to reveal such a conspiracy had it actually existed. One may, of course, argue that many of these subsequent sources up to the present day are also part of the plot. This would imply however that the entire KGB as we have known it for 25 years is, unbeknownst to most of its officers, little more than a cover organization for deception, with the truly secret work being done elsewhere.“


Michael,

Regarding your beloved Richards J. Heuer's essay, Five Paths to Judgement, an excerpt of which you've posted above (and which I've cleaned up a bit for you -- hope you don't mind), Duncan was kind enough to retain my long new post on the subject and to send it to me in a PM with the instructions "just copy and paste it to a thread now" (or words to that effect), so I guess right back here on this thread is as good as any for doing that.

Would you care to read that long post of mine, below, and then comment intelligently on it, giving specific rebuttals, if you can?

Thanks,
-- Tommy   ;)

---

The following very long post of mine is tangentially related to The Assassination of JFK in that the points Tennent H. Bagley makes in his 2007 book Spy Wars (some of which I quote or paraphrase, below) convinced conspiracy theorist John Newman (who in turn convinced conspiracy theorist Peter Dale Scott last year) that Yuri Nosenko -- the KGB defector who swore up and down that the KGB had no interest whatsoever in Lee Harvey Oswald during the two and one-half years he lived in the USSR -- was a false defector.

My post revolves principally around what is believed versus-what-is-known about two KGB officers, Aleksandr Cherepanov and Yuriy Loginov, both of whom are talked about quite a bit in a section titled "Litmus Test Approach" in Richards J. Heuer's Five Paths to Judgment, a dated CIA-sponsored essay that goes out of its way to find (false) defector Yuri Nosenko misunderstood, mistreated, and unfortunately, ... true.

Yes, as I said, two KGB characters, Cherepanov and Loginov, whose legends and narratives tend to overlap in such a way as to have, unfortunately, encouraged many in the CIA to come to believe two things: that there were no KGB moles in said agency, and that low-level KGB officer Yuri Nosenko was a true defector, having come to the U.S. just seven or so weeks after the assassination of President Kennedy, and two years after the defection to the U.S. of (true) defector Anatoliy Golitsyn.

In my post you will find me "correcting" only ten (a nice round number if there ever was one) of the many, many "inaccuracies" (a politically correct word if there ever was one) Heuer makes in the section, and I will do so by quoting, or referring to, things my hero, Tennent H. Bagley, has written about the two characters in his fine 2007 book, Spy Wars.

...

From Heuer's  Five Paths to Judgement:

Litmus Test Approach.

[...] This approach is similar to that of the finished intelligence analyst who asks: "Is the information consistent with the facts as we know them from other sources?" For example, a statement by a Soviet leader or an article in a military journal may be compared with information from a classified source of certain reliability. If the open source differs from the reliable classified information, it may be judged deceptive. Use of this approach presupposes that one can be certain of the reliability and accuracy of the information or source used for comparison.

Unfortunately, such certainly is seldom available.

When this degree of certainty is present, and is justified, the approach yields strong inferences about deception. This litmus test strategy played an important role in extending the Master Plot Theory [note: as espoused by true defector Anatoliy Golitsyn, and believed in by James Angleton, Tennent H. Bagley, and several others in CIA]. The conviction that Nosenko was under KGB control led to his case being used as a touchstone for evaluating other sources of information on Soviet intelligence. If another source supplied information supporting questionable elements of Nosenko's story, or supporting the line that Popov and Penkovsky were detected by surveillance rather than penetration, or supporting any other aspect of the theme that CIA was not penetrated, then that source automatically became suspect as part of The Master Plot. [...]

Nosenko was only one of about a dozen sources [note: among those twelve others were Cherepanov and Loginov; see below] on Soviet intelligence who eventually came to be considered part of The Master Plot [which John L. Hart disparagingly gave the sobriquet "The Monster Plot"]. To illustrate the application of the litmus test approach in this case, we discuss only two of these other sources -- both of whom may have lost their lives as a result of U.S. preoccupation with Soviet deception, one Cherepanov through no fault of CIA, the other Loginov as a direct consequence of the Master Plot Theory.

Cherepanov was a former officer ofthe American Department of the KGB Second Chief Directorate [today's FSB], the same department in which Nosenko had served for a time. He was known to CIA from an abortive attempt to contact the American Embassy in Yugoslavia. After his return to Moscow, he was assigned to the Second Chief Directorate. He was subsequently dismissed from the KGB and went to work for Mezhlmiga, the book distribution enterprise. In October 1963, Cherepanov gave a packet of documents to an American couple visiting Moscow to purchase books and asked that it be delivered to the American Embassy. The package, which contained KGB reports dealing mainly with surveillance techniques and operations against the American Embassy, was opened by the political counselor of said embassy [the ambassador was unavailable at the time]. He concluded this was a Soviet provocation and, after copying the documents for CIA, insisted they be returned to the Soviets. Nosenko reported that when the documents were returned the KGB immediately identified Cherepanov as their source. A quick check revealed that Cherepanov had disappeared. Nosenko himself then became part of a team of KGB officers hastily organized to find and arrest him.

The legitimacy of the Cherepanov documents was questioned at the time they were first received and analyzed at CIA Headquarters, but no firm conclusion was reached. In 1962, Nosenko had reported that CIA's first penetration of the GRU, Colonel Popov, had been arrested in 1959 as a result of surveillance of an American diplomat in Moscow. This comfortable explanation deflected suspicion of a KGB penetration of CIA as the cause of Popov's demise. One of the Cherepanov documents, plus a note from Cherepanov that accompanied the documents, confirmed Nosenko's earlier report and provided additional plausible details. A different Cherepanov document concerned another area of concern relating to Popov's compromise. It was a detailed KGB analysis of movements by FBI surveillance teams in New York City. It showed KGB awareness of a special FBI surveillance at precisely the time an illegal agent [Margarita Tiarova, escorted to Popov in Berlin by Dimitri Polyakov, a GRU officer and future triple-and-quadruple agent unknown to Popov] dispatched by Popov had arrived in New York City. CIA had given the FBI information on this illegal's arrival. A compromised FBI surveillance would have drawn suspicion to Popov, and there was speculation that it was a possible cause of Popov's compromise. The Cherepanov document could have been planted to exacerbate the already difficult relationship between CIA and the FBI.

The information from Nosenko and Cherepanov was mutually reinforcing. The documents Cherepanov delivered in 1963 confirmed Nosenko's earlier report that Popov had not been compromised through penetration of CIA. Then, when the Cherepanov documents were questioned at CIA Headquarters, Nosenko came out in 1964 to confirm their authenticity. If a KGB team had been sent out to apprehend Cherepanov, then obviously the documents he provided were genuine rather than a KGB provocation. When Nosenko was judged to be under KGB control, it seemed clear that Cherepanov must have been under control as well, and that both were confirming each other's bona fides while pushing the view that Colonel Popov had not been compromised through penetration of CIA.

...

Yuriy Loginov was a KGB illegal who volunteered his services to CIA in May 1961 while abroad on an illegal's training mission. He came to the West again in 1962 and for a third time in 1964, shortly after Nosenko's defection. The purpose of his 1964 trip was to cultivate and prepare for recruitment an American military communicator stationed in Cairo. Loginov brought with him several items of interest, including a copy of a top secret KGB training manual, presenting KGB doctrine on the recruitment of Americans. After 15 months in the West, Loginov returned to Moscow to report that he had developed a good personal relationship with an American, but that the target did not appear recruitable and was being reassigned to the United States.

The Loginov case baffled SB Division from the start. Although the information he provided, particularly in the counterintelligence field, appeared to check out, this very fact gave rise to consternation, as Loginov did not conform to SB Division's conception of the type of man the KGB would select to train and dispatch as an illegal. Nor did the instructions Loginov received from the KGB while in the West conform to SB Division ideas of how the KGB would handle such an agent. [...] The decisive evidence that condemned Loginov, however, was his reporting that supported the bona fides of both Cherepanov and Nosenko. Loginov's father had a dacha next door to Cherepanov, and Loginov reported that, in the fall of l963, he witnessed the KGB search of Cherepanov’s dacha. Nosenko had reported participating in this search. Loginov's story seemed to confirm the reality of Cherepanov’s flight and capture, but the coincidence of the neighboring dacha that justified his knowledge seemed extraordinary. Loginov also reported on KGB reactions to Nosenko's defection, and said that, because of the defection, his own dispatch to Canada on a new mission had been canceled. (Unbeknownst to Loginov, Nosenko knew about another illegal also being readied for dispatch to Canada, which undoubtedly persuaded the KGB it would be prudent to delay sending Loginov.) As a result of these two reports, Loginov was immediately labeled part of the Master Deception Plot, with the role of supporting the bona fides of Cherepanov’s and Nosenko. The document on KGB operational doctrine for recruitment of Americans was judged authentic and was exploited extensively to improve the security of American installations and businesses abroad. This was considered the price the KGB was prepared to pay to support Loginov's bona fides and, thus, make him more effective in his role as a deception agent. When Loginov traveled West again, on a Canadian passport with a mission to legalize himself in South Africa before moving permanently to Canada, CIA arranged for him to be arrested in South Africa. Under questioning by the South Africans, he admitted to being a KGB illegal doubled by the Americans. After Loginov spent six months in solitary confinement, two CIA officers interrogated him for over three months in an effort to force an admission that he had been directed by the KGB to contact CIA and pass disinformation. Despite optimal interrogation conditions, Loginov refused to change his story, so the South Africans were left with the same problem that CIA Originally had with Nosenko-what to do with a Soviet who was not trusted but against whom one had no juridical evidence.


A fortuitous solution to this problem appeared when East Germany claimed Loginov as an East German citizen (a common ploy in such cases) and suggested he be included in an East-West German prisoner exchange. CIA encouraged the idea despite Loginov's pleas not to be exchanged. At the ex- change point, in July 1969, Loginov resisted repatriation for four hours until he was forcibly turned over to the waiting KGB officers. Subsequent reporting indicates he may have been executed.

There is every reason to believe that both Cherepanov and Loginov were bona fide sources, not under KGB control. They produced valuable intelligence consistent with their access [note: LOL!] but they failed the Master Plot Litmus Test. Consideration of other anomalies in these cases or the value of information supplied were all subordinated to the overwhelming importance attributed to the fact that both sources supported themes considered to be part of the master deception plot.

These clear examples of The Litmus Test strategy illustrate the major weakness of this strategy for analyzing deception. The strategy presupposes certainty about the information or source used as a basis for the test. In this instance, the analysts were certain about Nosenko being under control, but their certainty was unjustified and led to wrong conclusions in about a dozen cases, with immense consequences for CIA in lost operational opportunities, and often with adverse personal consequences for the Soviets involved.

...

Preface To My Post


IF THERE'S ANYTHING THAT'S ANATHEMA to James "Jumbo Duh" DiEugenio and his ilk at the so-called Education Forum, it's the idea that the beloved-by-them human rights organization known as the KGB took de facto control of CIA Counterintelligence in 1968 when certain "spiteful and underendowed" (to use Tennent H. Bagley's terminology) officers in said agency not only contrived to pronounce KGB captain (cum major cum lieutenant colonel) Yuri Nosenko a true defector, but remunerated him quite graciously for his troubles (three years of confinement and non-tortuous interrogations), and, well ... had him put on the payroll as a lecturer and consultant, as well.

In the remainder of this post, I will, as mentioned above, analyze a section of the highly flawed essay that was written several years ago by CIA officer Richards J. Heuer, a gullible, overly-intellectual, and not-too-concerned-with-the-facts apologist for those poor underendowed (or worse) souls, and, as threatened above, do so by quoting and referring to some of the things Tennent H. Bagley, a former CIA Soviet Block (aka Soviet Russia) Division counterintelligence chief and occasional handler/ interrogator of Nosenko, wrote about KGB-types Aleksandr Cherepanov and Yurily Loginov, especially vis-a-vis the uncovering of Pyotr Popov and the establishing of the so-called bona fides of Yuri Nosenko, in his 2007 book, Spy Wars.

When one reads Bagley's observations and analysis of this Tip of the Cold War counterintelligence Iceberg, one realizes, once again, just how devious and multi-layered and ultimately successful KGB's efforts were in shielding its agents in the CIA and the FBI (e.g., Edward Ellis Smith or someone he helped KGB to recruit in the former, and Aleksey Kulak aka "Fedora" in the latter), and in the intelligence services of our allies.

---


Number One:

If, as Heuer suggests, Cherepanov was truly chased, caught, and executed in Russia by the KGB, there is no reason to believe it was for his passing of documents that were already four years old and whose only "value" to CIA was in suggesting to wishful thinkers in it what they wanted to hear -- that a true defector to the West, GRU colonel Pyotr Popov, had been uncovered by superior KGB surveillance in Moscow rather than by a mole (e.g., Edward Ellis Smith; see below) in the CIA.

Number Two:

Heuer seems to encourage the reader to believe Loginov was executed for having betrayed the USSR.

According to Bagley, however, Loginov was alive and well and doing business in Moscow as recently as 2004.

Number Three:

Heuer: "Cherepanov was a former officer of the American (Embassy) Department of the KGB's
Second Chief Directorate, the same department in which Nosenko had served for a time.

Factoid -- As evidenced by the following few examples of "holes" in Nosenko's narrative, it's apparent that Nosenko never served in the American Embassy section of KGB's Second Chief Directorate, or at least did not serve there when he said he had:

Under interrogation in the U.S., he didn't know how many floors the American Embassy building in Moscow had.

In the U.S. in 1964, Nosenko claimed to have worked in the American Embassy section of KGB's Second Chief Directorate in 1960 and 1961, yet in early 1962 in Geneva he had implausibly "forgotten" to tell Bagley (in a recorded conversation) that an embassy security official whom Nosenko's surveillants were allegedly closely monitoring at the time (John Abidian) had been observed checking on a dead drop (for GRU colonel Oleg Penkovsky) in December of 1961. Nosenko claimed, in 1964, that his agents had observed Abidian's checking Penkovsky's dead drop at a time in (in late 1960) when Nosenko wasn't even working in that department, as evidenced by Nosenko's self-described "work history," and Nosenko's having not said anything about it to Bagley during their recorded conversations in 1962 in Geneva (although Bagley's "helper at the time -- probable mole George Kisevalter -- claimed that he had).

Further evidence that Nosenko didn't work in the American Embassy section when he claimed he did is the fact that he didn't know that the "closely-monitored-by-him" American Embassy security officer, John Abidian, had taken a long vacation to Armenia during the pertinent period of time.

Number Four:

Heuer:  "[Retired KGB officer Cherepanov] was known to CIA from an abortive attempt to contact the American Embassy in Yugoslavia."

Comment: The above statement is misleading due to multiple errors of omission by Heuer.

Bagley: "We knew Cherepanov  ... as an earlier provocateur. Under diplomatic cover in Yugoslavia five years earlier [i.e., in 1959] this KGB officer had led a British intelligence officer to think he was contemplating defection and might cooperate secretly. His behavior finally persuaded the British that he was provoking them on behalf of the KGB and they backed off -- whereupon Cherepanov abruptly disappeared from the scene. Nosenko told straight-faced an impossible story perhaps designed to explain away Cherepanov's earlier -- provocative -- brush with Western intelligence (though we had not mentioned it to him). The KGB, he said, had detected an effort by Cherepanov to defect to the West from his KGB post in Belgrade. They recalled him to Moscow and, to punish his treasonous act and remove him from the temptations of the West, General Gribanov moved him out of foreign operations -- into the Counterintelligence directorate to work in Moscow against the top-priority American Embassy target. Nosenko's story was not only ludicrous, but also demonstrably false. Those in Soviet enterprises, like International Book, who are allowed to deal with Westerners -- as Cherepanov was -- were not only fully trusted by the KGB but often KGB officers or reservists, themselves. Moreover, Nosenko could not have been supervising Cherepanov in the first place because, as pointed out in the previous chapter, he had not held the American Embassy position that he claimed to have held."

Number Five:

Heuer: "[Retired KGB officer] Cherepanov gave a packet of documents to an American couple visiting Moscow to purchase books and asked that it be delivered to the American Embassy. The package, which contained KGB reports dealing mainly with surveillance techniques and operations against the American Embassy ..."

Bagley: "On 4 November 1963 -- after Nosenko (in Geneva in 1962) had told CIA about the power of KGB surveillance in Moscow and how that surveillance had discovered CIA's contact with Pyotr Popov -- another Moscow source chimed in to confirm the story. A KGB retiree named Alexandr Cherepanov handed a newspaper-wrapped bundle of papers to an American visitor to his office at the book concern, International Book (Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga), asking him to pass it to the American Embassy. Opened there, it disgorged a stack of reports and drafts from inside the KGB."

Note: The top American diplomat at the time at the Moscow embassy thought the papers were "too hot to handle," and ordered that they be returned to the Kremlin. They were returned, but not before the CIA officer at the embassy, Paul Garbler, photographed them. He then had them sent to CIA headquarters for further analysis.

Bagley: "When the photos arrived in Langley, we recognized the handwritten and typed KGB drafts as having originated, about four years earlier, in the American Embassy section of the KGB's Second Chief Directorate (today's FSB) -- where our new source Nosenko, still in place in Moscow, had (allegedly) worked. ... The papers were outdated but their source had obviously been in the KGB and was willing to cooperate with us. Now, before we could even contact him, Cherepanov would have been identified and arrested. Our examination of the documents (... raised many questions). Until two years ago (i.e., in 1962), when Golitsyn had told CIA of the organization and activities of the KGB's Second Chief Directorate -- handling counterintelligence inside the USSR -- the West had gleaned only fragmentary information about it from its victims, refugees, and informants, but had never had a source from inside. Now in rapid succession we had Nosenko, Yuri Krotkov, and Cherepanov. Krotkov had just reported on the same French operation (the 1958 sexual entrapment in Moscow of the French ambassador, Maurice Dejean) as had Nosenko. Cherepanov and Nosenko had worked in the same section, reported on the same time period, told about KGB observation of the same American officials, and volunteered information about the same KGB surveillance techniques. And these "Cherepanov Papers" ... (redundantly) told the same story of how the KGB had caught Popov: a routine street surveillance in January 1959 had chanced to see American Embassy employee George Winters post a letter to Popov. In fact, Popov was the focus of Cherepanov's packet. No fewer than half of its documents dealt with him, with his Moscow contact Russell Langelle, and with the letter mailer George Winters. These were the ONLY raw surveillance reports among the Cherepanov Papers ..."
.....

Note:  When Nosenko returned to Geneva from Moscow in January 1964 to "defect" to the U.S., he volunteered information about the putative Cherepanov Affair to the CIA, including the alleged nation-wide search for Cherepanov, and his alleged part in it.  BOTTOM LINE: The effect of Cherepanov's little bundle of horrors was to suggest that GRU colonel Pyotor Popov had not been betrayed by a mole in CIA (i.e. Edward Ellis Smith or someone in the SB Division he'd helped KGB to recruit), but rather to "substantiate" what Nosenko's false narrative had claimed -- that Popov had been uncovered by ... gasp ... a combination of really good luck and superior KGB surveillance in Moscow.  (LOL)

...

Number Six:

Heuer: "Nosenko reported that when the documents were returned the KGB immediately identified Cherepanov as their source. A quick check revealed that Cherepanov had disappeared. Nosenko himself then became part of a team of KGB officers hastily organized to find and arrest him."

Comment:  It's "strange" that a KGB authorization-for-unlimited-travel-within-the-USSR document Nosenko showed to Bagley and Kisevalter in 1964 (and which should have been turned in to KGB after the search for Cherepanov was over) was signed by the head Department 14 of the Second Chief Directorate, Gribanov, and made it look as though Nosenko was a lieutenant colonel in the KGB. Over the years Nosenko was to lead CIA to believe he was, at the time of his "defection," a lieutenant colonel, a major, and ... gasp ... a lowly captain.

Number Seven:

Heuer: "The legitimacy of the Cherepanov documents was questioned at the time they were first received and analyzed at CIA Headquarters, but no firm conclusion was reached. In 1962, Nosenko had reported that CIA's first penetration of the GRU, Colonel Popov, had been arrested in 1959 as a result of surveillance of an American diplomat in Moscow. This comfortable explanation deflected suspicion of a KGB penetration of CIA as the cause of Popov's demise. One of the Cherepanov documents, plus a note from Cherepanov that accompanied the documents, confirmed Nosenko's earlier report and provided additional plausible details."

Bagley: "And these 'Cherepanov Papers,' as we came to call them, told the same story  [as other KGB false defectors and triple-agents had told CIA] of how the KGB caught Popov: a routine street surveillance in January 1959 had chanced to see (American Embassy employee) George Winters posting a letter to Popov.  In fact, Popov was the focus of Cherepanov's packet.  No fewer than half its documents dealt with him, with his Moscow contact Russell Langelle, and with the letter mailer George Winters.  They included 1) a summary of the KGB's arrest of Popov and his use as a double agent against Langelle, 2) a short handwritten note stating explicitly -- in case the first document had not made the point clearly enough -- that Popov had been caught by surveillance of Winters, and 3) a bundle of surveillance and operational reports on Winters, dating from the summer of 1959 (i.e., four years old). These were the only raw surveillance reports among the Cherepanov papers and somehow -- I thought strangely -- did not include the allegedly fatal January observation of his letter mailing. But they made the point: Winters was routinely tailed."

Number Eight:

Heuer:  "A different Cherepanov document concerned another area of concern relating to Popov's compromise. It was a detailed KGB analysis of movements by FBI surveillance teams in New York City. It showed KGB awareness of a special FBI surveillance at precisely the time an illegal agent dispatched by Popov had arrived in New York City. CIA had given the FBI information on this illegal's arrival. A compromised FBI surveillance would have drawn suspicion to Popov, and there was speculation that it was a possible cause of Popov's compromise. The Cherepanov document could have been planted to exacerbate the already difficult relationship between CIA and the FBI."

Comment:  According to Bagley, the "illegal's" name was Margarita Tairova, and she was escorted from Moscow to East Berlin (whence she was forwarded to NYC by Popov) by none other than future triple-agent to the U.S., GRU colonel Dimitri Polyakov, whom Popov, unaware that he (Popov) had already been betrayed by Edward Ellis Smith or someone in SR Division he'd helped KGB to recruit, did not know.

What Heuer doesn't realize here is that the KGB wanted and expected Tairova to be detected by the FBI in NYC so that Popov could be "plausibly" suspected by KGB of having betrayed her, and so that he could be arrested and prosecuted in such a way that wouldn't cause CIA to suspect the existence of a KGB mole in CIA (e.g., the aforementioned Edward Ellis Smith). Two clues (among many) that this so are: 1) Polyakov was involved, and 2) that Tairova later claimed she'd been monitored by the FBI all the way from Germany to NYC, when in fact the FBI didn't notice her and start tailing her until she'd arrived in The Big Apple.

Number Nine:

Heuer: "The information from Nosenko and Cherepanov was mutually reinforcing. The documents Cherepanov delivered in 1963 confirmed Nosenko's earlier report that Popov had not been compromised through penetration of CIA (i.e., by honey-trapped mole and Popov's former inept dead drop setter-upper in Moscow, Edward Ellis Smith, or someone  in CIA's Soviet Russia Division he helped KGB to recruit). Then, when the Cherepanov documents were questioned at CIA Headquarters, Nosenko came out in (January) 1964 to confirm their authenticity. If a KGB team had been sent out to apprehend Cherepanov, then obviously the documents he provided were genuine rather than a KGB provocation. When Nosenko was judged to be under KGB control, it seemed clear that Cherepanov must have been under control as well, and that both were confirming each other's bona fides while pushing the view that Colonel Popov had not been compromised through penetration (i.e., Edward Ellis Smith, etc) of CIA.

Comment: Yes, Richards, that's exactly how the "KGB" does things. It's called "active measures counterintelligence operations," and ever since triple-agent GRU colonel Dimitri Polyakov "volunteered" to secretly work for the FBI and CIA in New York City in 1961, it's been artfully interwoven with "strategic deception" (aka "operational deception") counterintelligence operations.

Number Ten:

Heuer: "Loginov also reported on KGB reactions to Nosenko's defection (in January 1964) ...

Comment:  You are correct, sir.

The problem is, Loginov claimed to have been in a Moscow KGB radio operators' training course for "illegals" at the time, and claimed that news of Nosenko's defection to the U.S. was so earth shaking to the KGB, that they shut down the school for several weeks.

As Bagley points out, "This story makes no sense. The KGB need not interrupt the training of an Illegal -- outside the headquarters building and walled off even from other parts of the foreign directorate ..." (KGB's First Chief Directorate, today's SVR) "... because someone defected from an entirely separate directorate. Like Kulak's (FBI's "Fedora") bizarre exaggerations of Nosenko's importance, Loginov's story smelled of an effort to build up Nosenko in CIA's eyes."

Number Eleven:

(LOL)


I could go on and on, but I'm not going to. If you've read all of the above and you're open-minded, I'm confident that you realize now that Richards J. Heuer was "blowing it out of his you-know-what" in his essay.

Interested students can continue comparing and contrasting Heuer's misguided ideas and "alternate facts" with Bagley's spot-on and real ones by simply reading Five Paths to Judgement side-by-side with Spy Wars.

Here are the links:

http://intellit.muskingum.edu/alpha_folder/H_folder/Heuer_on_NosenkoV1.pdf

https://archive.org/details/SpyWarsMolesMysteriesAndDeadlyGames/page/n178

--MWT  ;) 

PS  And what the heck, to help you get a grip on all this, you probably ought to read this, too:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08850607.2014.962362

PPS

Michael,

You do realize, don't you, that last year John Newman convinced none other than Peter Dale Scott, based on his (Newman's) literal and figurative reading of Bagley's Spy Wars and Spymaster, that Nosenko was a false defector sent to the U.S. to try to discredit (true) defector Anatoliy Golitsyn?

Have you watched this youtube video, yet? 

Professor Scott's somewhat grudging "conversion confession" comes at 34:48 .

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