James Angleton | |
|---|---|
 Angleton c. 1960 | |
| Born | James Jesus Angleton (1917-12-09)December 9, 1917 Boise, Idaho, U.S. |
| Died | May 11, 1987(1987-05-11) (aged 69) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Education | |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3 |
| Awards | Distinguished Intelligence Medal |
| Espionage activity | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Service branch | Central Intelligence Agency United States Army |
| Service years | 1943–1947 (U.S. Army) 1947–1975 (CIA) |
| Rank | Counterintelligence (CI) Chief (1954–1975) |
| Operations | Operation CHAOS |
James Jesus Angleton (December 9, 1917 – May 11, 1987)[1] was an AmericanCIA officer who served as chief ofthe counterintelligence department of theCentral Intelligence Agency from 1954 to 1975. According toDirector of Central IntelligenceRichard Helms, Angleton was "recognized as the dominant counterintelligence figure in the non-communist world".[2]
Angleton served in theOffice of Strategic Services, a wartime predecessor to the CIA, in Italy and London duringWorld War II. After the war, he returned to Washington, D.C. to become one of the founding officers of the CIA. He was initially responsible for the collection of foreign intelligence and liaison with counterpart organizations in allied countries. In 1954,Allen Dulles promoted Angleton to chief of the Counterintelligence Staff. As chief, Angleton was significantly involved in the defection of Soviet KGB agentsAnatoliy Golitsyn andYuri Nosenko. Through Golitsyn, Angleton became convinced the CIA harbored a high-ranking Sovietmole and engaged in an intensive search. Whether this was a highly destructive witch hunt or appropriate caution remains a subject of intense historical debate.[3]
Investigative journalistEdward Jay Epstein agrees with the high regard in which Angleton was held by his colleagues in the intelligence business, and adds that Angleton earned the "trust of six CIA directors—including Gen.Walter Bedell Smith,Allen W. Dulles and Richard Helms. They kept Angleton in key positions and valued his work."[4]
James Jesus Angleton was born December 9, 1917, inBoise, Idaho, the eldest of four children of James Hugh Angleton (1888–1973) and Carmen Mercedes Moreno (1898–1985).[1][5] His parents met inNogales, Arizona, while his father was aU.S. Armycavalry officer serving underGeneral John Pershing. Carmen Moreno was born inMexico but was already anaturalized American citizen before she married James H. Angleton in December 1916.[6]
James Hugh Angleton joined theNational Cash Register Corporation, rising through its ranks until in the early 1930s he purchased theNCR franchise in Italy. In Italy, he became head of the American Chamber of Commerce.[1]
Angleton's boyhood was spent inMilan,Italy. He studied as a boarder atMalvern College in England before attendingYale University.As a Yale undergraduate, Angleton edited the Yale literary magazineFurioso withReed Whittemore.Furioso published many of the best-known poets of theinterwar period, includingWilliam Carlos Williams,E. E. Cummings andEzra Pound.[7] Angleton carried on an extensive correspondence with Pound, Cummings andT. S. Eliot, among others, and was particularly influenced byWilliam Empson, author ofSeven Types of Ambiguity.[8] Angleton was trained in theNew Criticism at Yale byMaynard Mack and others, chieflyNorman Holmes Pearson, a founder of American Studies. He briefly studied law atHarvard, but did not graduate.[9]
In 1943, Angleton joined the U.S. Army. DuringWorld War II, Angleton served in theOffice of Strategic Services (OSS) and led its Italian branch.[1] He also served in London underNorman Holmes Pearson in theX-2 Counter Espionage Branch of the OSS. By February 1944, he was chief of the Italy desk for X-2 in London. While in London, Angleton met the famousdouble agentKim Philby. In November 1944, Angleton was transferred to Italy as commander of Secret Counterintelligence Unit Z, which handledUltra intelligence based on the British intercepts of German radio communications.[citation needed]
By the end of the war, Angleton was head of X-2 for all of Italy. In this position, Angleton helped prevent the execution of Italian naval commanderJunio Valerio Borghese, whose elite unitDecima MAS had collaborated with theSchutzstaffel during the war.[10] Angleton was interested in the defense of installations such as ports and bridges and offered Borghese a fair trial in return for his collaboration.[11] He dressed him up in an American uniform and drove him from Milan to Rome for interrogation by the Allies. Borghese was then tried and convicted by an Italian court of collaboration with the Nazi invaders but not of war crimes.[citation needed]
Angleton remained in Italy after the war, establishing connections with other intelligence services and playing a major role in the1948 Italian general election. The election was won by the US-backedChristian Democratic Party over the Soviet-backedItalian Communist Party.[6] Angleton's tour in Italy as an intelligence officer is regarded by biographerJefferson Morley as a critical turn not only in his professional life. His personal liaisons withItalian Mafia figures helped the CIA in the immediate postwar period.
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Upon his return to Washington after World War II, Angleton was employed by the various successor organizations to the OSS and eventually became one of the founding officers of theCentral Intelligence Agency in 1947.[1][12]
In May 1949, he was made head of Staff A of theOffice of Special Operations, where he was responsible for the collection of foreign intelligence and liaising with counterpart intelligence organizations in foreign countries.[citation needed]
Beginning in 1951, Angleton was responsible for "the Israel desk" as liaison withIsrael'sMossad andShin Bet agencies.[6] Angleton retained an active interest in Israeli intelligence and maintained connections there throughout his career, believing that émigrés to Israel from theSoviet Union andWarsaw Pact nations could be a valuable source of information on their countries of origin. He also believed that Israeli foreign intelligence services could be used for proxy operations in third countries. For instance, Shin Bet was crucial in obtaining a transcript ofNikita Khrushchev's1956 speech to theCommunist Party of the Soviet UnionCongress that denouncedJoseph Stalin.[13] Author Samuel Katz has claimed that Angleton directed CIA assistance to theIsraeli nuclear weapons program.[14]
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As head of Staff A, Angleton worked particularly closely with Kim Philby, the apparent future head ofMI6, who was also in Washington.[15] The Israeli intelligence officerTeddy Kollek claimed years later that in 1950 he warned Angleton that Philby was a soviet agent in the 30s.[16][17] In 1951, Philby's colleaguesGuy Burgess andDonald Maclean defected toMoscow. Philby was expelled from Washington, suspected of having tipped them off based on decoded Soviet communications from theVenona project. Philby was confirmed to be a Soviet mole but eluded those sent to arrest him. He defected to Moscow in 1963. Philby called Angleton "a brilliant opponent" and a "fascinating" friend who seemed to be "catching on" before his defection. CIA employeeWilliam King Harvey, a formerFBI agent, had voiced his suspicions regarding Philby and others Angleton suspected were Soviet agents.[18]
In 1953,Allen Dulles becameDirector of Central Intelligence. He soon named Angleton chief of the Counterintelligence Staff, in which position Angleton served for the remainder of his career.[1] Dulles also assigned Angleton responsibility for coordination with allied intelligence services.[citation needed]
As chief of Counterintelligence, Angleton oversaw a ring of informants organized byJay Lovestone, a trade union leader and former head of the Communist Party of the United States. It was informally called the "Lovestone Empire". Lovestone worked with foreign unions and used covert funds to establish a global system of anti-communist union organizers.[19]
During theVietnam War and Soviet-Americandétente, Angleton remained convinced of the necessity of the war. During this period, Angleton's counter-intelligence staff undertook a most comprehensive domestic covert surveillance project (calledOperation CHAOS) under the direction of PresidentLyndon Johnson. The prevailing belief at the time was that the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s had foreign funding and support. None was found by them, although the Soviet Union didinfluence the movements.[20][additional citation(s) needed]
Angleton also believed that the strategic calculations underlying theresumption of relations withChina were flawed based on a deceptive KGB staging of the Sino-Soviet split. He went so far as to speculate thatHenry Kissinger might be under KGB influence.[21]
Angleton held a general belief that all secret intelligence agencies should be assumed to be penetrated by others, or at least that a reasonable chief of counterintelligence should assume so.[citation needed] Angleton's view was influenced by his direct experience with the manipulation of German intelligence during World War II, theCambridge Five, and the success of American infiltration efforts in the Third World. In particular, Angleton's close association with Philby heightened Angleton's suspicions and led him to double-check "potential problems".[citation needed] Angleton's position in the CIA and his close relationship with DirectorRichard Helms in particular expanded his influence, and as it grew, the CIA split between Angletonians and anti-Angletonians.[citation needed] This conflict rose in particular regard toAnatoliy Golitsyn andYuri Nosenko, who defected from the Soviet Union to the United States in 1961 and 1964, respectively.
Golitsyn defected viaHelsinki on December 15, 1961. He and his family flew with a CIA escort to Sweden and then to the United States, where he was interviewed by Angleton personally.[22][23] Golitsyn limited his initial debriefing to a review of photographs to identify KGB officers and refused to discuss KGB strategy. After Golitsyn raised the possibility of serious infiltration with MI5 in a subsequent debriefing, MI5 shared the concern with Angleton. He responded by asking Helms to allow him to take responsibility for Golitsyn and his further debriefing. Golitsyn ultimately informed on many famous Soviet agents, including theCambridge Five, which led to their apprehension.[23] Angleton identified Golitsyn as "the most valuable defector ever to reach the West".[24][25]
However, other allegations Golitsyn made, including that Prime Minister of the United KingdomHarold Wilson was a Soviet agent and that theSino-Soviet split was a "charade," were ultimately found to be false.[23] Golitsyn also claimed that a mole who had been stationed in West Germany, was of Slavic descent, had a last name that might end in "sky" and definitely began with a "K", and operated under the KGB codename "Sasha".[26] Angleton believed this claim, with the result that anyone who approximated this description fell under his suspicion.[27]
Angleton became increasingly convinced that the CIA was compromised by the KGB.[28] Golitsyn convinced Angleton that the KGB had reorganized in 1958 and 1959 to consist mostly of a shell, incorporating only those agents whom the CIA and the FBI were recruiting, directed by a small cabal of puppet masters who doubled those agents to manipulate their Western counterparts. Although Golitsyn was a questionable source, Angleton accepted significant information obtained from his debriefing by the CIA.[12]
In 1964, Yuri Nosenko, a KGB officer based inGeneva, insisted he needed to defect to the United States, as his role as a double agent had been discovered, and he was being recalled to Moscow.[29] Nosenko was allowed to defect, although the CIA was unable to verify a KGB recall order. Golitsyn had said from the beginning that the KGB would try to plant defectors in an effort to discredit him. Under great duress, Nosenko failed two highly questionablelie detector tests but passed a third test monitored by several Agency departments.[30] Judging his claim (as well as additional claims regardingLee Harvey Oswald) improbable, Angleton permitted David Murphy, head of the Soviet Russia Division, to hold Nosenko in solitary confinement for over three years. This confinement included 16 months in a small attic with no windows, furniture, heat or air conditioning. Human contact was completely banned. Nosenko was given a shower once a week and had no television, reading material, radio, exercise, or toothbrush. Interrogations were frequent and intensive. Nosenko spent an additional four months in a ten-foot by ten-foot concrete bunker inCamp Peary.[25] He was told that this condition would continue for 25 years unless he confessed to being a Soviet spy.[31] Nosenko did not appear to have shaken Angleton's faith in Golitsyn, although Helms andJ. Edgar Hoover thought otherwise. Hoover's objections are said to have been so vehement as to severely curtail counterintelligence cooperation between the FBI and CIA for the remainder of Hoover's service as FBI director. Nosenko was found to be a legitimate defector, a lieutenant colonel. He became a consultant to the CIA.[25] Golitsyn, who had defected years before, was unable to provide concrete support for his views of the KGB.
Angleton came into increasing conflict with the rest of the Agency, particularly theDirectorate of Operations, over the efficacy of their intelligence-gathering efforts. He questioned this without explaining his broader views on KGB strategy and organization.[citation needed]
In his 2022 book,Uncovering Popov's Mole, researcherJohn M. Newman argues that Bruce Solie of the Office of Security was very probably the mole and that he misled Angleton, his protégé, into believing the traitor was in the Soviet Russia Division.[32]
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Angleton privately accused various foreign leaders of being Soviet spies. He twice informed theRoyal Canadian Mounted Police that he believedPrime MinisterLester Pearson and his successorPierre Trudeau were agents of the Soviet Union. Angleton accused SwedishPrime MinisterOlof Palme,West GermanChancellorWilly Brandt, and British Prime MinisterHarold Wilson of being assets for the Soviet Union.[29]
Australian journalist Brian Toohey claimed that Angleton considered Australian Prime MinisterGough Whitlam a "serious threat" to the US. Angleton was concerned after the Commonwealth policeraidedASIO headquarters in Melbourne in 1973 at the direction ofAttorney GeneralLionel Murphy. In 1974, Angleton sought to instigate the removal of Whitlam from office by having CIA station chief in Canberra, John Walker, askPeter Barbour, then head of ASIO, to make a false declaration that Whitlam had lied about the raid in Parliament. Barbour refused to make the statement.[33]
In 1973,William Colby was named Director of Central Intelligence byRichard Nixon. Colby reorganized the CIA in an effort to curb Angleton's influence and weaken the Counterintelligence branch, beginning by stripping him of control over the Israel desk. Colby demanded Angleton's resignation.[34]
Angleton came to public attention when theChurch Committee (formally theSenate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) probed the CIA for information on domestic surveillance, specifically the operation known asHT Lingual, as well as assassination plots and thedeath of John F. Kennedy.[35][36]
In December 1974,Seymour Hersh published a story inThe New York Times about domestic counter-intelligence activities against anti-war protesters and other domestic dissidents. Angleton's resignation was announced on Christmas Eve 1974, just as PresidentGerald Ford demanded Director Colby report on the allegations and various Congressional committees announced that they would launch their own inquiries. Angleton told reporters fromUnited Press International that he was resigning because "my usefulness has ended" and the CIA was getting involved in "police state activities".[37] Three of Angleton's senior aides retired within a week after it was made clear that they would be transferred elsewhere in the Agency rather than promoted. The Counterintelligence staff was reduced from 300 to 80 people.
In 1975, Angleton was awarded the CIA'sDistinguished Intelligence Medal.[38] By this time, Angleton had been quietly rehired by the CIA at his old salary through a secret contract. Until September 1975, "operational issues remained solely the preserve of Angleton".[39]
The late 1970s were generally a period of upheaval for the CIA. DuringGeorge H. W. Bush's tenure as Director, President Ford authorized the creation ofTeam B, a project concluding that the Agency and the intelligence community had seriously underestimated Soviet strategic nuclear strength inCentral Europe. AdmiralStansfield Turner, on his appointment as DCI by PresidentJimmy Carter in 1977, used Angleton as an example of the excesses in the Agency that he hoped to curb. He referred to this during his service and in his memoirs.[40]
Because of their suspicions, Angleton and his staff ultimately impeded the career advancement of numerous CIA employees. Forty employees are said to have been investigated and fourteen were considered serious suspects by Angleton's staff. The CIA paid compensation to three under what Agency employees termed the "Mole Relief Act".[41]
With Golitsyn, Angleton continued to seek out moles. They sought the assistance ofWilliam F. Buckley, Jr. (himself a former CIA asset) to writeNew Lies for Old, which argued that the Soviet Union planned to fake a collapse to lull its enemies into a false sense of victory, but Buckley refused. In his 1994 bookWedge: The Secret War between the FBI and CIA, author Mark Riebling claimed that of 194 predictions made inNew Lies For Old, 139 had been fulfilled by 1993, nine seemed "clearly wrong", and the other 46 were "not soonfalsifiable".[42]
Angleton met Cicely Harriet d'Autremont, aVassar alumna fromTucson, Arizona and granddaughter ofChester Adgate Congdon, inCambridge in 1941.[29] They married on 17 July 1943, shortly after he enlisted in the Army. Together, they had three children:
The Angletons lived in the Rock Spring neighborhood ofArlington, Virginia until Angleton's death.[46][43] The Angletons had an at times tumultuous marriage,[47] but developed a varied social set in Washington, including professional acquaintances in intelligence, poets, painters and journalists.[citation needed]
Angleton's wife and his daughters exploredSikhism,[43] and both of Angleton's daughters became followers ofHarbhajan Singh Khalsa.[48]
Angleton died from cancer in Washington, D.C., on 11 May 1987.[1]
Angleton's responsibilities as chief of Counterintelligence have given rise to a considerable literature focused on his efforts to identify Soviet orEastern Bloc agents working in American secret intelligence agencies.
In time, Angleton's zeal and suspicions came to be regarded as counterproductive, if not destructive. In the wake of his departure, counterintelligence efforts were undertaken with far less enthusiasm. Some[who?] believe this overcompensation was responsible for oversights which allowedAldrich Ames,Robert Hanssen and others to compromise American intelligence agencies after Angleton's resignation. Although the American intelligence community quickly recovered from theChurch Committee, it found itself uncharacteristically incapable of policing itself after Angleton's departure.Edward Jay Epstein has argued that the positions of Ames and Hanssen—both well-placed Soviet counter-intelligence agents, in the CIA and FBI respectively—would enable the KGB to deceive the American intelligence community, in the manner that Angleton hypothesized.[49]
Despite misgivings over his uncompromising and often obsessive approach to his profession, Angleton is highly regarded by a number of his peers in the intelligence business. Former Shin Bet chiefAmos Manor, in an interview inHa'aretz, revealed his fascination with the man during Angleton's work to forge the U.S.–Israel liaison in the early 1950s. Manor described Angleton as "fanatic about everything", with a "tendency towards mystification". Manor discovered decades later that the real reason for Angleton's visit was to investigate Manor, being an Eastern European Jewish immigrant, for Angleton thought that it would be prudent to "sanitize" the U.S.–Israeli bridge before a more formal intelligence relationship was established.[50]
Three books dealing with Angleton take foreign intelligence activities, counterintelligence and domestic intelligence activities as their central theme:Tom Mangold'sCold Warrior, David C. Martin'sWilderness of Mirrors, andDavid Wise'sMolehunt.Tim Weiner'sLegacy of Ashes paints Angleton as an incompetent alcoholic.[51]
These views have been challenged byTennent H. Bagley in his 2007 book,Spy Wars, andMark Riebling in his 1994 book,Wedge. John M. Newman, in his 2022 book,Uncovering Popov's Mole, characterizes Angleton as a man lacking self-confidence and who required a father figure. Newman claims that Angleton was duped by at least two KGB moles:Kim Philby inMI6 and Bruce Solie in the Office of Security. Newman also suggests that Leonard V. McCoy in the Soviet Russia Division's Reports & Requirements section may have been a mole.[52]
A set of highly sensitive Agency documents, referred to as the "Family Jewels," was publicly released on June 25, 2007, after more than three decades of secrecy.[53][54] The release was prompted by an internal CIA investigation of the 1970sChurch Committee which verified the far-ranging power and influence that Angleton wielded during his long tenure as counter-intelligence czar. The exposé revealed that Angleton-planned infiltration of law enforcement and military organizations in other countries was used to increase the influence of the United States. It also confirmed past rumors that it was Angleton who was in charge of the domestic spying activities of the CIA underOperation CHAOS.[55]
Angleton's heavily-redacted testimony before the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities in 1975 was finally released on March 18, 2025. The 50-year-old Top Secret report covers several topics, particularly clandestine, intelligence-sharing agreements with Israel, nuclear secrets,Yuri Nosenko,George Blake,signals intelligence,Anatoliy Golitsyn, the Warren Commission, and Lee Harvey Oswald. The 113-page fully unredacted document discloses several matters, including leaks to newsmenSeymour Hersh andTad Szulc and their information about Watergate, Cuba,Project Azorian, andSidney Gottlieb.[56]
In the previously-redacted sections, the document is full ofNBR markings from theAssassination Records Review Board, meaningNot Believed Relevant.
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