The Zip ['Actor the War Within The

4-1 • volved in 1961, the CIA sur- the head was exonerated. case before the latter's cap- The Zip ['actor mised that the Russians had Mutual suspicion between ture? In 1962 came another dis- Penkovsky under close sur- the CIA and FBI of each Admiral Stanstield Turner, aster: the capture of Colonel veillance well before the other's moles and sources director of the CIA, confided Oleg Penkovsky. The official time he had officially come became so intense that in last month in a secret session account put out by the So- under suspicion. This once 1971 Hoover broke oil' rela- of the Senate Intelligence viets was that Penkovsky had again suggested the existence tions with the agency. The Oversight Committee that he been detected through rou- of a Soviet mole somewhere war within the CIA itself considered • the disclosures tine surveillance. Such a ver- in the CIA. came to a head with Director made by Frank Snepp, the sion would evidently provide William Colby's summary author of the CIA exposd a protective umbrella for a The War Within the CIA firing of Angleton and forced Decent Interval, one of the betrayer of Penkovsky, work- resignation of his three top most serious problems fac- ing for the Russians within It is hard to overestimate aides at the end of 1974. ing the agency. Turner now the CIA for any other intelli- the fears, suspicions, and In the wake of the Colby might ask himself if the gence service). Indeed, CIA paranoia generated within the massacre, the notion of a So- prosecution of Snepp for his counterintelligence still had U.S. intelligence agencies by viet mole within the CIA was innocuous revelations is really some doubts on the case. the hunt for the Soviet moles. dismissed as "sickthink." Rut as pressing a problem as Its reasoning displays the At the height of the debate the capture of Agent X has detection of the presuined Byzantine workings of coun- over the credentials of Yuri once again brought the issue betrayer of Agent X. terintelligence. On his re- Nosenko (who defected in to the fore. Now that it is Over at the FBI, its new lease from the Soviet Union 1964, claiming that Oswald known that Nosenko, actual- head, fudge William Webster, in 1962, the British agent had had no contacts with the ly indicted by the CIA's So- might also inquire why the Greville Wynne reported that KGB). no less a person than viet Russia Division as a So- bureau. which has spent so the KGB in the course of the head of the Soviet Russia viet spy. has been rehabili- many years harrying pre- interrogation had quizzed Division within the CIA was tated and is handling 120 sumed Communist subver- him about someone named accused by one of his own cases for both the CIA and sives in other organizations, "Zee." Since Zep was a girl men of being a Soviet agent. the FBI, the simple question has yet to ferret out the cause in London with whom Pen- It was only after a full in- has to be asked: Did he have of so much suspicion within kovsky had been briefly investigation by the FBI that any access to the Agent X its own New York office. to The house on 69th Street: Does a Russian agent go through these doors every day to work for the FBI? Suspicion exists that an FBI agent. working for the Soviets, may have been responsible for the capture of our mole within the KGB. The "Agent X" case has a precedent in the apprehension of Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, The circumstances surround- ing his arrest indicated the presence of a Soviet mole within the CIA. MARCH 13, 1978/NEW YORK 13 The War of the Moles, Continued In the two weeks since "New York" began publishing the two-part article "The War of the Moles," by Edward fay 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. was as though lames Angle- The Capture of Agent I ton had been sent on a per- Though it is still a closely sonal visit to the Soviet guarded secret in Washing- Union.) ton. the CIA is now reeling Colitsin's good faith was From the capture within the buttressed by his disclosure last few months of its most that the Soviets had a minor important agent in the Soviet mole in the CIA, code-named Union. The documents passed Sasha. Sasha was subsequent- by this "mole" to the CIA ly identified as a contract were regarded as the most employee working out of valuable intelligence on So- Germany. Soon after, he was viet plans since the material photographed in contact with furnished by Colonel Oleg the Soviets and then rapidly Penkovsky before his ex- retired out of the service. posure in 1962. According to a Senate Sullivan's Last Suspicions source with access to intelligence oversight, the CIA has At the same time, the been hoping that the capture FBI received indisputable evi- of this valued "mole" (re- dence that it had been pene- ferred to hereafter as Agent trated. Three lop-secret doc- X) would remain secret. But uments had vanished from within the CIA. this disaster its Washington office. Hopes poses once more the enigma that they bail merely been that has haunted it For mislaid were shattered when if, twenty years: How has the a Soviet diplomat offered KGB been able to ferret sell back these same documents to a United States out every important western Caught: How did the KGB snit/ out our mole in lt4uscow7 "mole" since 1959? naval attachd for $10,000. the main enemy. The recent To this day, the suspicion This episode convinced Wil- liam C. Sullivan. deputy di- To Catch a Mehl capture of Agent X seems to in the CIA persists that a 1 be just one more link in a person (or persons) in the rector of the FBI, that Soviet As a former deputy direc- long chain of evidence that FBI's New York office be- moles were in place in the tor of the CIA's Soviet Rus- the Soviets have been success- trayed Popov on receipt of FBI. sia section has pointed out. ful in such efforts. his information . For fifteen years, Sullivan It takes a mole to catch a came to believe. the Soviets mole." By this he meant that Did the FBI Betray Popov/ The Man Prom the KGB had been passing misinfor- tt the Soviets could only have mation to the FRI through caught Agent X and his pre- In 1959. the CIA was Into this atmosphere of Agent "Ftnli wit.- a person re., decessors by having their own stunned by the capture of suspicion came the crucial trusted by Hoover as in asset man for men) planted in 1.1S. its only mole in the Soviet figure of Anah.li M. Colilsin. of cxirnordinary valr•e. Nut intelligence. Union—Colonel Peter S. (Details of this case %fel.: only did Sullivan consider Is this conceivable? Many Popov. In the postmortem outlined by Edward lay Ep- that Fedora, working in the U.S. intelligence officials poi on this disaster, the CIA is stein in New York. February Soviet U.N. delegation in the question the other way known to have focused some 27.) In brief, this high- New York, was a pram: he around. The Soviets have suspicion on the FBI's New level defector from Moscow also inferred that Fedora demonstrably infiltrated ev- York °Mee. stated that there were Soviet num he receiving support ery other western intelligence one of Popov's last mes- mules already in place. not from another Soviet agent ac- service. Their triumphs have sages concerned the arrival only in the FBI hut also in tually employed by lhe 1131 included emplacement of by plane in New York of a the CIA. in New York. Sullivan was such In..les its Kim Phithy female Si 1,1ici arm. The CIA Golitsin added dim the openly avowing those con- in Great Britain. I leinz Folk turned this information over mole within the CIA Ittal clusious to hpstein shindy in West German counterin- to the FBI, whose preroga- been activated in 1957 by before his death in a hunting telligence. and the Topaz ring tive of maintaining security V. M. Kcivshuk. one of the accident in the fall of 1977. in French intelligence. To within U.S borders had al- highest-oinking Soviet execii- (At one point Sullivan be- ninny top CIA officials. it ways been zealoosly guarded lives in the KGB, who paid a lieved he had identified the seems inconceivable that the by I. Edgar I louver. But soon personal visit el the United Soviet operative inside the Soviets have not made every after Popov's news had been States using a fake diplomat- FRI. hut the investigation effort to infiltrate U.S. spy routed to the FIST. Popov ic passport for cover. (Given was terminated cm orders agencies. which they consider was caught in Russia. Kovshules high position. it from Washington.) 12 NEW YORK/MARCH 13. 1976 .

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