Moles, Defectors, and Deceptions: James Angleton and His Influence on US Counterintelligence

A Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Georgetown University Center for Peace & Security Studies joint conference.

[@quig66]

Little know fact about James Angleton; he danced with my mother on a table a cocktail party in Washington. Much to the embarrassment of my dad. Seems my mother was over her glasses of punch limit!

[@kxkxkxkx]

No big deal... Everybody was an alcoholic back then ☺️🍸

[@maxsmith695]

@@kxkxkxkx And chances are good, nobody could name a friend who got a DUI. Those type of arrests were never made. Cops had people take a cab or bus home or called a relative to pick up a drunk relative. Unless you killed someone in an accident, DUI was never a worry.

[@cobar5342]

So he had a light side... to balance the very dark side

[@garfieldfarkle]

Excellent presentations. Thank you, Woodrow Wilson International Center. Angleton had much power and renown, but not because of extraordinary accomplishment, other than empire-building.. Angleton turned the Agency upside down looking for a major Soviet mole and only found Kopatsky, and even then was unable to really nail him, much less turn him. By his own standard, Angleton was a failure, because he did not uncover the mole he was certain had penetrated the CIA. Angleton ruined many careers and stopped important operations. Had he been a mole, Angleton could hardly have done more damage. Angleton's disruption of the Agency deprived it of a large amount of production it would have received from the officers he ruined and operations he disrupted. Angleton spent all those years in CI, but did not develop the skill such experience suggests. This is hardly surprising, given his consumption of alcohol. He was led by the nose by Philby and Golitsin. His CI shop failed against the Cubans, East Germans and North Koreans/Chinese. That the CIA over-corrected in CI following Angleton's forced retirement does not justify Angleton's errors.

[@maxsmith695]

"Had he been a mole, Angleton could hardly have done more damage.". Survey says !

[@LRRPFco52]

CIA was mass-penetrated by at least 200 double agents/moles. The NKVD turned hundreds of Germans at the end of the war to be doubles in the new OSS, who then became key operators in Berlin Base and Langley in 1947. These were the guys Angleton was trying to expose, but was prevented from doing so by Donovan and Dulles.

[@garfieldfarkle]

@@LRRPFco52 I have researched the subject extensively and need to see evidence that, to date, I've not come across for over 200 NKVD moles in the CIA, recruited by the OSS. My library contains works by two of the speakers, John Prados and David Wise, by the way. You can forget them as sources, as well as CIA critics like Tim Weiner and Joseph Trento, or even Frank Snepp or Victor Marchetti. I don't think you'll find verification of your claim in the Venona decrypts, the Mitrokhin archives or Vassiliev's notebooks. I don't think you have anything, not only because of my own research, but you don't seem familiar of what happened to the OSS and the RIFs and turnover in personnel in the SSU and CIG before the CIA was founded. That said, I'll be pleased to consider what you can document - if anything.

[@LRRPFco52]

@@garfieldfarkle I’ve been studying the OSS since the 1980s. There is a lot more defector literature and Russian archival information available now. NKVD recruited/turned the Germans at the end of the War. OSS loved them because they were area authorities with language and immersion/familiarity with the AORs of the Eastern European states. Russia had several moles within the Manhattan Project, and a lot of information has surfaced about how thoroughly that was penetrated and exploited. That all correlates with what Major Jordan exposed with Lend Lease’s transfer of enriched Uranium, Beryllium triggers, and 2/3 of material that was never reported publicly, and delivered to Stalin during the War. How much time have you spent in Russia?

[@takietamtu3099]

A very good summary of most of the myths and half-truths about Angleton. Thank you.

[@grizzlee358]

that was hella interesting. thx for the upload!

[@ronaldbarnes1746]

What gave him his power was that it was known he had assasination teams that were off the books that only he knew about, but they knew he used them. No one dare messed with him. I saw an interview where he said with 100% conviction that if anything has to do with national security then it is not illegal.

[@maxsmith695]

Very believable.

[@muffin6369]

Yep CIA Director....William Colby!!! Drown on the Potomac?? For sure AND Mary sister in law of Ben Bradless who was having an afffair with JFK and you guessed iy.....she had a diary.

[@muffin6369]

Meant Ben Bradlee.

[@nalinghai5688]

Hats off to wilson international center ..for outlining platform to engage the disengaged for their engagements in counter intelligence with James s disengagment plans in Europe to push European for engaging the divorced from income tax clauses that protects under privacy clauses..

[@j.vonhogen9650]

38:43 What information on the friendship between Angleton and Dulles got spliced out here and why was it spliced out?

[@DangRockets]

Naturally something he regretted disclosing.

[@Holy_hand-grenade]

Woodrow Wilson center... no fucking thanks. Couldn’t think of many people worse than Woodrow to name an organization after.

[@maxsmith695]

You mean because he agreed to WW1, when blackmailed by certain factions, who knew about his affairs. I wonder if that was not the genesis of what Epstein and his handlers created, but on a much bigger scale.

[@PRAIRIEGH0ST]

@@maxsmith695 where'd you get this from?

[@stacyMighty]

I'm glad the truth is coming out. I don't think my grandfather knew any of this as well.

[@cleethorphesdave852]

Once had a meeting with Mr Angelton at Pepper Pig World.

[@pariahpeter7118]

(1:26:00) Speaker references the subject of our show, J.j.Angleton, and another lower-wattage star, as ORCHID FANCIERS. UNMENTIONED is perhaps the greatest O.F. of all, NERO WOLFE.

[@christopher-tipstrumleslie6307]

The least among you shall be the greatest, and the greatest shall be least.

[@jkjfhgkjhdflgfd]

Where is part 2 of these panels? Your channel only shows this and part 3

[@StellarFella]

The 'us versus them' emotionalism has been used successfully again and again. Angleton rode a horse called fear.

[@cobar5342]

I think he was the mastermind of Kennedy's assassination - along with Dulles and with the approval of LBJ and Hoover. This notion deserves analysis

[@bombatta1544]

"The world needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door." We needed Angleton in Italy. What he did there was brilliant. The west would never let Italy become communist. He just lost his marbles after the betrayal of Philby. Was he an Israeli spy? Perhaps. However, he also loved his country. We will just never know. The new history coming out of the KGB, CIA and the Stazi is amazing.

[@richarddemuth7077]

The "Mole" in the CIA was the MEXICAN with the three moles: Alonzo Esquirdo. HEY hey L.A.!!

[@mexicanamerican6689]

Secrets disclosed become conspiracy theories.

[@Holy_hand-grenade]

Mexican American and conspiracy theories proven true become history.

[@JosephKulik1949]

Dear Mexican: Can you precisely define what "conspiracy theory" even means ? I've NEVER heard such a definition. I once saw a 55 min lecture by a professor who wrote a whole book on the topic, yet he never even defined what he meant by "conspiracy theory". As I remember it, "conspiracy theory" was 1st used by Bush Jr to simply denounce any explanation that disputed an "official" version of events. In other words, an adequate definition of "conspiracy theorist" seems to be "anyone who disagrees with the American government". ... [e-mail]

[@seoulkidd1]

You can't trust a defector. You don't know if a defector is genuine to your cause unless they are pilots or anyone who brings tech with them and even they can't be fully trusted.

[@garfieldfarkle]

Defectors and/or moles are the most common way of discovering moles in one's own intelligence services, but they do have a shelf life.

[@kxkxkxkx]

Yes... The KGB did not trust Lee Oswald until he gave them secret U2 flight data, among other things. After that the KGB was happy to recruit Oswald in Japan, then train him in Russia and give him a KGB wife 🇺🇸

[@garfieldfarkle]

@@kxkxkxkx I have seen no evidence the KGB ever trusted Oswald. Hell, they didn't trust Philby years after he defected. They abandoned him and he became a drunk waste-case when they could have exploited his knowledge and talents to train KGB officers how to operate in the UK and against MI-6. Other Western defectors who were there much longer than Oswald, such as Bruno Pontecorvo, Noel Field, Sean Bourke, Victor N. Hamilton, and Guy Burgess were regarded with great suspicion and tended to have miserable lives because of it. Also, if Oswald had taken anything significant to the Soviets on the U-2 or anything else, it would have turned up in the Mitrokhin archives, Vassiliev's notebooks or the RTsKhIDNI records; not to mention the numerous Soviet intelligence defectors during the Cold War. With nothing to be found from all those high quality sources, we should doubt Oswald gave the Soviets much of intelligence value.

[@kxkxkxkx]

@@garfieldfarkle you sure put a lot of faith in the stories coming directly out of the KGB 🤔 Oswald was run by the first chief directorate and the inner circle of the communist party, not the broader KGB - which is why most KGB agents never heard of him. But the facts are plain, and there is no other possible explanation for Oswald 3 years living in Russia or his secret meeting in Mexico City with Valery Kostikov, KGB assassinations chief for the Western hemisphere☝️ There is plenty of evidence, if only you are able to recognize it. Familiarize yourself with KGB sleeper operations and DGI penetration of Operation Mongoose (Rolando Cubela) then everything becomes perfectly clear 💯

[@garfieldfarkle]

​@@kxkxkxkx The FCD was part of the KGB. Compartmentation kept their activities from the rest of the KGB, but NOT FCD records, three different sources of which I referenced. Neither those records, nor defectors from the FCD, nor any of the better sources on KGB operations during the Cold War I am aware of support your claims. You're just not well-informed on the subject if you think Christopher Andrew is a KGB source. Other than official records, there is no better authority today on Cold War Soviet intelligence operations. I have been researching intelligence matters for decades and have a pretty extensive library. None of the better sources indicate anything to support your claims. I am well aware of Kostikov, but see no indication he dealt with Oswald outside his cover role as a consul at the Mexican embassy. I am also aware of how such stories get built on suppositions and coincidences, usually put together by conspiracy theorists who illogically begin with a conclusion and bend or discard facts in order to arrive at their conclusions. Having multiple references from the better intelligence sources is preferable. What have you got?

[@texasveteran5304]

this conference is classic Jesuitical "learning against learning"

[@cjmoor6]

For me as a blue-collar taxpayer, it seems misguided to juxtapose protecting the security of the United States with ensuring elite CIA officers maintain their careers. Those guys always land on their feet. So Angleton read a few letters and cut a few careers short…I prefer that to having an Ames, a Walker, a Hanssen.

[@Daniel24445]

Does Federal Reserve Act ring a bell?

[@ShikataGaNai100]

No, it does not; at least in this situation.

[@burnsloads]

@@ShikataGaNai100 who signed the federal reserve act into law? Woodrow Wilson. It's nominally relevant.

[@pdd60absorbed12]

Mossad always had the inside track on Soviet and now, Russian intelligence. I would expect nothing less than an avalanche of paid and unpaid Russian disinfo on such a thread. Sclerotic, juvenile.

[@robertrussell8965]

Angleton had his share of flak. To be expected when countering the slogan masters that deemed his analysis as 'sick think.'

[@lynnhauenstein4136]

I've looked at many replies and listened, so where is Kim Philby mentioned, the downfall of Angleton.

[@naimeshpatel7178]

philby was there with him in his early years ..... after many years angelton did best for cia and he was one of the most important character for soviet union's fall

[@kaileeodumsone3235]

I know a couple rings of busy bodies that need some CONTRAS up their wahoos!

[@stacyMighty]

Very interesting

[@jamesmartin3751]

For your records: On about 1960 - 62? My mail was automatically opened AFTER I had subscribed to a beautiful Russian magazine, offered by a very cheap subscription price. Effect on me? Distrust of my government. I was a youth in high school, reaching out to learn about my world.

[@MsVanorak]

entrapment? who published the magazine in the background?

[@Caleb_Mandrake872]

1:52:00 - Clare Petty, not James Angleton!

[@lynnhauenstein4136]

It bugs me that he was half Hispanic. Jesus, is HEY SUS but so many ignorant, call him James Jesus like jesus christ. Just saying

[@kxkxkxkx]

It's English you dum ho

[@IM-dt3fc]

His second surname was Moreno, right?

[@StellarFella]

Conspiracy = Group and individual lust for POWER. Follow the money.

[@DouglasMoran]

Poor. Low info content. Definitely skip the last speaker (Wise): He seems to be descending into senility, rambling all over the place about trivialities and irrelevant details (eg what shelf a book was on) while not getting to anything interesting.

[@StellarFella]

Checks and balances were not in place within the CIA. Insular dysfunction = James Angleton

[@Andrew-jf5dq]

Is there a reason this video hasn’t been deleted

[@levgindin]

what about the cooperation with the mossad

[@aquilanoncaptatmuscas1731]

There's a cut at 38 min why?

[@npmerrill]

Take a wild guess.

[@erikchavez788]

Yo no vengo a buscar 👀 pasados. Vengo. A Buscar 👀 un presente Sin. Dudarlo. Mucho. Puse mis cartas. 🃏 sobre las mesa. Ustedes buscan pasado. 🤔. Futuro. Por donde empezamos. Queremos. Saber. Como se puede dialogar. Con. Negativa. 🙅‍♀️ desesperación de Buscar 👀 dudas. Algo q nosotros jamás pondremos. Dudas entre nosotros mismo. 🪦☠️👈🫸🤔

[@SargNickFury]

Got his education at Columbia.....why not just say he's a student from the Frankfurt School. Cultural Marxism is his trade, bread, butter, and only possible filter for processing information. His opinion on American intelligence, is like asking a Nazi SS officer on how he feels about the OSS, or later the Mossad. Worse in that even the SS officer might choose to argue from a point of view of radical idealism, vs disinformation, and calculated revisionism. Columbia/Frankfurt School thought doesn't actually debate anything, reason, logic, and or facts mean nothing, only ideals absent of facts, they are modern day Jesuits, marching western civilization into a new dark ages. I don't care how many books he's printed, a ideologue is worthless for serious study.

[@SargNickFury]

+Kevin J clearly you have no experience with Columbia university. Everything is political there, there is nothing scholarly about it. It's not paranoia its in fact the basis as to who founded that school.

[@maxsmith695]

Jesuits are the big bad boogieman ? Oh wait, Jesuits taught the people of South and Central America about Liberation Theology - so they are bad bad bad. Liberation Theology teaches that poor people have rights. And taking it one step further in the work place, those rights can translate to the right of workers to organize labor unions. The illegal terrorist group, the Contras, a proud creation of the Reagan -Casey - North cabal, sought to wipe out such thinking in free nations, like Nicaragua. Murdering priests, nuns and mothers were all blessed by Reagan and his short little little thug master in chief.

[@veritas6335]

Dumb remarks. You must have some axe to grind against Jesuits, who have nothing to do with any of this.

[@SargNickFury]

@@veritas6335 Educated remarks by someone who knows the factual history of the Jesuit movement in Europe, and how that fit into many other groups they preceded and inspired in modern day. Their constant attacks on rationalism in either science or economics. The idealist step children that dropped the theology but kept their radicalism like Adam Weishaupt, and his plagiarist disciple Karl Marx. My statement is based on my reading, education, and understanding, but it is not my responsibility to educate you.

[@shiner3lima892]

Rheinhard Ghelen.

[@Romany1111]

Can anyone imagine Drumpf being able to understand ANY of Colby's info in the Oval Office? Gerry Ford was a true genius when compared to the current (2020) "president."

[@ronbaldwin3195]

TDS

[@Romany1111]

@@ronbaldwin3195 Typical sheep bleat.

[@maxsmith695]

@@DrJohnTaylorKent 98% of the case is solved. The reveal of James Files filled in many details, as he then exposed a big piece of the puzzle.

[@njswampfox474]

Thanks for that deep thought, Sleepy Joe.

[@njswampfox474]

Gerry Ford thought Poland was a free and independent country. Yeah, he was a real genius.

[@Caleb_Mandrake872]

1:42:05 So unprofessional of the panelist.