ffi*Netu ink Onus Magnin./ SEPTBABER 28,19e0 THE Sri WAR Critics within the intelligence community are concerned that the C.I.A. has failed to spy effectively on its principal adversag, the Soviet bloc, but has instead' been penetrated — along with its NATO counterparts — by the K.G.B., with a resulting exposure of its spies and a growing 'intelligence gap.' By Edward Jay Epstein In a dispute over whether the K.G.B had penetrated the C.I.A., counterintelli- gence chief James Angleton (left) was fired by Director William Colby in 1974. C.I.A. executives and a staff member of the Senate Select Committee on in- telligence. In July 1977, President Carter's se- The only exceptions mentioned by cret Special Coordinating Committee— these sources were two Soviet United the White House unit that oversees the Nations diplomats — code-named "Top clandestine activities of the C.I.A. — Hat" and "Fedora" — recruited by the received a piece of dismaying news: A F.B.I. in New York and a Soviet diplo- Central I Iligence Agency spy in the mat — code-named "Igor" — recruited Kremlin, ' " had been appre- by the C.I.A. in Washington, during the hended by the K.G.B., the Soviet intelli- 1960's. In all three cases, however, gence service. In 1978, the Soviet press concern to American intelligence. Was and the agency's "liaison relation- C.I.A. counterintelligence determined reported that this American spy had he detected through routine Soviet sur- ships" with these services have deterio- that the "moles" were double agents, been tried for treason and sentenced to veillance? Was he exposed by an acci- rated. In addition, the C.I.A.'s inability working for the K.G.B., and all three death. • dental leak from American intelli- to prevent leaks has made it far more returned to Moscow. "Trianon" was the code name for gence? Or was he betrayed by a Soviet difficult for the agency to recruit spies It is, of course, impossible to state Anatoly N. Filatov, a 37-year-old aide spy in the C.I.A.? To date, this question and defectors abroad. with certainty that the C.I.A. had no in the Soviet Foreign Ministry. The remains unanswered. Currently, in re- When the Senate Select Committee on productive spies in the Soviet Union C.I.A. had caught him in a sex trap in sponse to a request from Senator Dan- Intelligence was briefed on the Filatov during the period between 1962 and Algiers in 1976, when he was attached to iel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of case shortly after his arrest in 1977, ac- 1976. Deception and lies are common the Soviet Embassy in Algeria. After New York, and Senator Malcolm Wal- cording to one staff member of the com- and necessary tactics in the spy war. being confronted with compromising lop, Republican of Wyoming, the Sen- mittee, it found that the case had However, the consistent failure of the photographs, Filatov was persuaded - ate Select Committee on Intelligence is thrown the American intelligence com- C.I.A. to resolve its most vexing intelli- or blackmailed, as he is reported to conducting a preliminary investigation munity into confusion. Consternation gence problems since the early 1960's have claimed at his trial — to work as a into the circumstances that led to File- arose because Filatov was apparently supports the contention that the C.I.A. spy for the C.I.A. when he was reas- tov's exposure. Even after a three-year the only United States agent in a posi- has not established a dependable signed to the Foreign Ministry in Mos- hiatus, this Senate investigation threat- tion of access to secrets in the Soviet source in the Soviet Union. cow. He was supplied with all the neces- ens to open up a Pandora's box of se- Union — he was, in the language of the The primary task of any clandestine sary paraphernalia for espionage: a crets about the spy war — secrets that intelligence world, a "mole." More- intelligence service — whether the miniature camera for photographing the C.I.A. has managed to preserve over, incredible as it may seem, he C.I.A. or the K.G.B. — is to establish secret documents, a "burst" transmit- until now. may have been the only mole that the moles within the enemy's inner sanc- ter for signaling his contact in the In recent years, the C.I.A. has been C.I.A. had established inside the Krem- tum who are in a position to warn of American Embassy in Moscow, and a hamstrung by restrictions on its secret lin in more than a decade. According to changes in its plans and intentions. "No "dead drop" on a Moscow bridge, operations. It must now report to a host one high Government official, who was intelligence service can function unless where he could inconspicuously leave of Congressional committees, answer in a position to be familiar with all the it has secret sources," Richard Helms, his microfilm for American intelli- Freedom of Information Act requests major C.I.A. operations between 1969 a former Director of Central Intelli- gence agents to pick up. and contend with frequent leaks to the and 1977, the C.I.A. failed to establish a gence, pointed out to me. There are, to How he was so quickly caught by the press. The exposure of C.I.A. sources single productive mole in the Soviet be sure, other profitable ways of gath- K.G.B. has been a mystery of immense and methods by Congressional investi- Union between the arrest of Col. Oleg ering intelligence, such as satellite sur- gations and the press has made other Penkovsky in Moscow in 1962 and the veillance and the interception of com- Western intelligence services reluctant recruitment of Filatov in 1976. This in- munications by powerful antennae, but Edward Jay Epstein is currently writ- these do not require the operation of a ing a book on international deception. to share their secrets with the C.I.A., telligence gap was also cited by former 34 Col. Oleg Padmvsky, who served as one of the C.1.A.'s most important spies in the In 1963, Jack E. Dunlap, a Soviet spy hi the National Security Agency, was found dead Soviet Union, was caught in 1962 and sentenced to death in Moscow a year later. of carbon-monoxide poisoning — an apparent suicide — Just after being Interrogated. clandestine service. The spotting, com- successfully established Its own moles in promising, recruiting and handling of American intelligence, and that these E2311.5111111111M moles on a regular basis requires a highly agents report to Moscow the secret plans professional secret service. And, even in and sources of the C.I.A., thereby making the age of satellites and electronic wizar- it impossible for the C.I.A. to recruit—or dry, moles who can report on the strate- keep secret — its own moles. Tennant Cat and Mole: gic thinking of an adversary remain a Bagley Jr., who was the deputy chief of crucially important part of the continuing the C.I.A.'s Soviet Bloc Division in the intelligence war. mid-1980's and was responsible for coun- A Dangerous While public debate over the C.I.A., tering the activities of Soviet intelligence, fueled by Presidential inquiries and Con- explained In a series of interviews that "it gressional investigations, has narrowly takes a mole to catch a mole." According Game focused on the charge that the agency has to his view, the two most successful moles abused its power by spying on domestic that the C.I.A. ever recruited, Col. Peter A crucial role in the groups outside its legal purview. the se- Popov (1953-59) and Colonel Penkovsky cret concern in intelligence circles, which (198142), were both caught by Soviet in- intelligence war is has not surfaced in any of the many pub- telligence because they had been be- lic hearings, is that the C.I.A. is not trayed by a K.G.B. mole, or moles, work- played by moles, but spying effectively on its principal adver- ing in American intelligence. Bagley sary: the Soviet bloc. As one counterintel- claimed, moreover, to have seen during their longevity is ligence expert from the RAND Corpora. his tenure in the C.I.A. direct evidence of lion put the question: "Why has the C.I.A. a mole "feeding back," as he put it, limited. The men shown repeatedly failed to penetrate the Soviet operational plans of the C.I.A. to the system by recruiting agents?" K.G.B. "In one case, Soviet intelligence here all were caught, Within the C.I.A. itself, this question clearly knew about an elaborate C.I.A. has been the center of a bitter and de- plan to recruit a Soviet-bloc diplomat in were killed, or fled. structive debate that has persisted Imre- Switzerland," he pointed out. He knew of With C.I.A. prodding, British intelligence Eiimmumi. solved for some 20 years. On one side of no productive mole that the C.I.A. had re- caught K.G.B. spy George Blake, who . the issue, It is argued that the K.G.B. has trotted in the (Continued on Page 102) later escaped from prison to Moscow. 38 Michael Goleniewski, the most productive agent hi the history of the C.I.A., claimed to be the heir to Czar Nicholas of Russia. The agency broke off with him in 1964.