B-10 Sunday, Match 8, 1992 * ** * * SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER Book reveals follies of CIA's 20-year wild 'mole' hunt Each CIA officer who suffered said the agency does not comment secretly later received compensa- on books or movies. Paranoid searches tion from the agency under a Wise, who has written earlier so-called "Mole Relief Act." • books about the CIA, compiled reportedly ruined In "Molehunt: The Secret "Molehunt" over 10 years through Search for Traitors That Shat- interviews with 200 people, includ- agency careers tered the CIA," Wiae blames the ing past and current CIA staff. '.. By Barbara Novovitch late CIA counterintelligence chief Among his contentions: REUTER Controversial KGB agent Fe- l James Angleton for starting the ► destructive purge in ■ hunt for a dora, a trained chemist and scien- NEW YORK — The Central phantom Soviet spy whose name tific attache at the Soviet U.N, Intelligence Agency conducted a began with the letter K. A defector mission, also known as Fatso, 20-year search for moles within its who had Angleton's ear had told worked as a double-agent for the own ranks that bordered on para- him he believed there was a mole. FBI and was fed information by J. ASSOMIED MEW/ 1076 noia and paralyzed the spy agency Edgar Hoover to advance his KGB lames Angleton, former CIA coun- throughout the Cold War era, ac- According to the book, Angleton forced the resignation in 1963 of career. Fedora, says Wise, was terintelligence chief, is blamed for cording to a new book by intelli- Aleksei Isidorovich Kulak, who starting the destructive purge. gence expert David Wise. Peter Karlow, a World War II hero who was the top suspect in the was never exposed. He died in Rus- The CIA found no moles, and sia of natural causes. FBI never proved that Orlov was a Wise said there probably were hunt for the mole. In 1989, Karlow secretly received close to $500,00e ► Adolf Tolkachev, a Soviet de- spy. none. But the careers of more than fense researcher who was the most. Further, said Wise, "Because of 120 people were either damaged or along with a secret medal. The CIA declined comment important spy for the United pervasive suspicions that prevailed destroyed, he wrote. about Wise's book. A spokesman States in the 1980s, was turned at the time, the CIA was paralyzed down three times in his efforts to at the height of the Cold War. work for the CIA because of the They stopped trying to recruit in- paranoia about Soviet agents that side the Soviet Union because of was a holdover from the Angleton the belief that everybody was a years. double agent ► Angleton believed the KGB "This brought the operations of had poisoned his bourbon on a trip the CIA to a screeching halt when to Israel and the local station chief they should have been gathering believed Angleton was on the verge information on, for example, Sovi- of a mental breakdown. Then-CIA et missile strength." Chief William Colby, who later All the men accused by the CIA fired Angleton, said he would have of being moles, he said, "were, as it dismissed him then but he feared turned out, all loyal Americans." he would kill himself. Wise said he considers counter- Wise said in a telephone inter- intelligence an important responsi- view he had found no proof that a bility of the CIA, "but they have to mole ever existed. A low-level Ger- act on the basis of clear and com- man agent named Igor Orlov was pelling evidence ... not on whimsy fingered and investigated, but the and undocumented rumors." .