THE WAR OF THE MOLES, CONTINUED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R002000090048-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 4, 2004
• Sequence Number: 48
• Publication Date: March 13, 1978
• Content Type: NSPR

,'ARTICLE APP"M, REDi YORK MAGAZINE
ON PA( `' . 13 MARCH 1978
Approved For Release 2004/10/12 : CIA-RDP81 M00980R002000090048-9
he W, ar ol the Moles, Catm*ued
In the two weeks since "New York" began publishing the two-part article "The War of the Moles," by Edward
Jay Epstein, Intelligencer has come into possession of new information which throws into even sharper focus the
spirited war between the intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union and the United States.
The Capture of Agent X
Though it is still a closely
guarded secret in Washing-
ton, the CIA is now reeling
from the capture within the
last few months of its most
important agent in the Soviet
Union. The documents passed
by this "mole" to the CIA
were regarded as the most
valuable intelligence on So-
viet plans since the material
furnished by Colonel Oleg
Penkovsky before his ex-
posure in 1962.
According to ' a Senate
source with access to intelli-
gence oversight, the CIA has
been hoping that the capture
L of this valued "mole" (re-
ferred to hereafter as Agent
X) would remain secret. But
within the CIA, this disaster
poses once more the enigma
that has haunted it for
twenty years: How has the
KGB been able to ferret
out every important western
"mole" since 1959?
As a former deputy direc-
tor of the CIA's Soviet Rus-
sia section has pointed out,
"It takes a mole to catch a
mole." By this he meant that
the Soviets could only have
caught Agent X and his pre-
decessors by having their own
man (or men) planted in U.S.
intelligence.
Is this conceivable? Many
U.S: intelligence officials put
the question the other way
around. The Soviets have
demonstrably infiltrated ev-
cry other western intelligence
service. Their triumphs have
included emplacement of
such moles as Kim Philby
in Great Britain, Heinz Felfe
in West German counterin-
telligence, and the Topaz ring
in French intelligence. To
many top CIA officials, it
seems inconceivable that the
Soviets have not made every
effort to infiltrate U.S. spy
Caught: How did the KGB sniff out our mole in Moscow?
the main enemy. The recent
capture of Agent X seems to
be just one more link in a
long chain of evidence that
the Soviets have been success-
ful in such efforts.
Did the FBI Betray Popov?
In 1959, the CIA was
stunned by the capture of
its only mole in the Soviet
Union-Colonel Peter S.
Popov. In the postmortem
on this disaster, the CIA is
known to have focused some
suspicion on the FBI's New
York office.
One of Popov's last mes-
sages concerned the arrival
by plane in New York of a
female Soviet agent. The CIA
turned this information over
to the FBI, whose preroga-
tive of maintaining security
within U.S. borders had al-
ways been zealously guarded
by J. Edgar Hoover. But soon
after Popov's news had been
routed to the FBI, Popov
agencies, which they (APO I iij ' ebPs%u26@4/10/12
To this day, the suspicion
in the CIA persists that a
person (or persons) in the
FBI's New York office be-
trayed Popov on receipt of
his information.
The Man From the KtJB
Into this atmosphere of
suspicion came the crucial
figure of Anatoli M. Golitsin.
(Details of this case were
outlined by Edward Jay Ep-
stein in New York, February
27.) In brief, this high-
level defector from Moscow
stated that there were Soviet
moles already in place, not
only in the -FBI but also in
the CIA.
was as though James Angle-
ton had been sent on a per-
sonal visit to the Soviet
Union.)
Golitsin's good faith was
buttressed by his disclosure
that the Soviets had a minor
mole in the CIA, code-named
Sasha. Sasha was subsequent-
ly identified as a contract
employee working out of
Germany. Soon after, he was
photographed in contact with
the Soviets and then rapidly
retired out of the service.
Sullivan's Last Suspicions
At the same time, the
FBI received indisputable evi-
dence that it had been pene-
trated. Three top-secret doe-;
uments had vanished from
its Washington office. Hopes
that they had merely been
mislaid were shattered when
a Soviet diplomat offered to,
sell back these same docu-
ments to a United States
naval attache for $10,000.
This episode convinced Wil-
liam C. Sullivan, deputy di- I
rector of the FBI, that Soviet
moles were in place in the
FBI.
For fifteen years, Sullivan
came to believe, the Soviets
had been passing misinfor-
mation to the FBI through
Agent "Fedora," a person
trusted by Hoover as an asset
of extraordinary value. Not
only did Sullivan consider
that Fedora, working in the
Soviet U.N. delegation in
New York, was a plant; he
also inferred that Fedora
must be receiving support
from another Soviet agent ac-
tually employed by the FBI
in New York. Sullivan was
Golitsin added
that
the
openly avowing these con-
mole within the
CIA
had
clusions to Epstein shortly
been activated in
1957
by
before his death in a hunting
V. M. Kovshuk, o
ne of
the
accident in the fall of 1977.
highest-ranking Sov
iet ex
ecu-
(At one point Sullivan be-
tives in the KGB. w
ho pa
id a
lieved he had identified the
personal visit to th
e Un
ited
Soviet operative inside the
States using a fake
diplo
mat-
FBI, but the investigation
ic passport for cover. (Given
was terminated on orders
:XMALRDP8r1MOO(SoRO0i266019d$ 8gton.)
cQ-ty - ED
 The Zep Factor
Approved For Release 2004/10/1-2-: CIA-RDP81 M00980R0 000,90048-9
In 1962 came another dis-
aster: the capture of Colonel
Oleg Penkovsky. The official
account put out by the So-
viets was that Penkovsky had
been detected through rou?
tine surveillance. Such a ver-
sion would evidently provide
a protective umbrella for a
betrayer of Penkovsky, work-
ing for the Russians within
the CIA (or any other intelli-
gence service). Indeed, CIA
counterintelligence still had
some doubts on the case..
Its reasoning displays the
Byzantine workings of coun-
terintelligence. On his re-
lease from the Soviet Union
in 1962, the British agent
Greville Wynne reported that
the KGB in the course of
interrogation had quizzed
him about someone named
"Zep." Since Zep was a girl
in London with whom Pen-
kovsky had been briefly in-
volved in 1961, the CIA sur-
mised that the Russians had
Penkovsky under close sur-
veillance well before the
time he had officially come
under suspicion. This once
again suggested the existence
of a Soviet mole somewhere
in the CIA.
The War Within the CIA
It is hard to overestimate
the fears, suspicions, and
paranoia generated within the
U.S. intelligence agencies by
the hunt for the Soviet moles.
At the height of the debate
over the credentials of Yuri
Nosenko (who defected in
1964, claiming that Oswald
had had no contacts with the
KGB), no less a person than
the head of the Soviet Russia
Division within the CIA was
accused by one of his own
men of being a Soviet agent.
It was only after a full in-
vestigation by the FBI that
case before the latter's cap-
ture?
Admiral Stansfield Turner,
director of the CIA, confided
last month in a secret session
of the Senate Intelligence
Oversight Committee that he
considered the disclosures
made by Frank Snepp, the
author of the CIA expose
Decent Interval, one of the
most serious problems fac-
ing the agency. Turner now
might ask himself if the
prosecution of Snepp for his
innocuous revelations is really
as pressing a problem as
detection of the presumed
betrayer of Agent X.
Over at the FBI, its new
head, judge \V illiam Webster,
might also inquire why the
bureau, which has spent so
many years harrying pre-
0
sunZed Communist subver-
sives in other organizatio: s,
has yet to ferret out the cause
of so much suspicion within
its own New York office. raja
the head was exonerated.
Mutual suspicion between
the CIA and FBI of each
other's moles and sources
became so intense that in
1971 Hoover broke off rela-
tions with the agency. The
war within the CIA itself
came to a head with Director
William Colby's summary
firing of Angleton and forced
resignation of his three top
aides at the end of 1974.
In the wake of the Colby
massacre, the notion of a So-
viet mole within the CIA was
dismissed as "sickthink." But
the capture of Agent X has
once again brought the issue
to the fore. Now that it is
known that Nosenko, actual
ly indicted by the CIA's So-
viet Russia Division as a So-
viet spy, has been rehabili-
tated and is handling 120
cases for both the CIA and
the FBI, the simple question
has to be asked: Did he have
any access to the Age.-.it X
that an tail agent, working for we ouvir,a, ""'y ~~..~~ ~~~?? r .. -
The "Agent X" case has a precedent . in the apprehension of Colonel Oleg Penkovsky,The circumstances surround-
ing his arrest indicgiq p LVTF6F 1dh ~8 t!?'tklRFJ8I M00980R002000090048-9