James Jesus Angleton

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James Jesus Angleton : biography

December 9, 1917 – May 12, 1987

DCI William Colby reorganized the CIA in an effort to curb Angleton’s influence, beginning by stripping him of control over the Israeli "account," which had the effect of weakening counter-intelligence. Colby then demanded Angleton’s resignation, after Seymour Hersh told Colby on December 20, 1974, that he was going to publish a story in The New York Times about domestic counter-intelligence activities under Angleton’s direction against antiwar protesters and other domestic dissident organizations. While Angleton’s operations technically violated the CIA Charter and the National Security Act, which assigned all such domestic operations to the FBI, it was no secret to DCI Colby that Angleton and CIA counter-intelligence were carrying them out. None of Angleton’s supposed violations were documented in the subsequent Rockefeller Commission report.

These illegal surveillance activities resulted in the generation of 10,000 case files on American citizens and included such information-collection methods as opening mail (Angleton is rumoured to have maintained that practice since the 1950s, when he brought to Dulles’s attention how the American Federation of Labor had directed funds diverted to them by the CIA). The intelligence so gathered was said to have been reported directly to DCI Helms.

It has been claimed that Angleton directed CIA assistance to the Israeli nuclear weapons program.See Samuel Katz, Soldier Spies, 1992.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Angleton privately accused various foreign leaders of being Soviet spies. He twice informed the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that he believed Prime Minister Lester Pearson and his successor Pierre Trudeau to be agents of the Soviet Union. In 1964, under pressure from Angleton, the RCMP detained John Watkins, a close friend of Pearson and formerly Canadian Ambassador to the Soviet Union; Watkins died during interrogation by the RCMP and the CIA, and was subsequently cleared of suspicion. Angleton accused Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, and British Prime Minister Harold Wilson of using their access to NATO secrets to benefit the USSR. Brandt resigned in 1974, after one of his aides was found to be a mole from the East German secret police. Angleton came to suspect Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who commented wryly that even the most brilliant and loyal officers should not spend their entire career in such pressurized and paranoid fields. Angleton also privately accused numerous members of Congress and President Gerald Ford of treason. Angleton’s notorious pursuit of the "5th Man", who he believed had penetrated a secret agency in Washington, was solved, he believed, when DCI William Colby fired him. No one was above suspicion, and even Angleton himself was accused by others of working for the Soviets.

Resignation

Angleton’s resignation was announced on Christmas Eve of 1974, just as President Ford demanded that Colby report on the allegations and as various Congressional committees announced that they would launch their own inquiries. Three of Angleton’s senior aides in counter-intelligence, his deputy Raymond Rocca, executive officer of the counter-intelligence division William J. Hood, and Angleton’s chief of operations Newton S. Miller, were coaxed into retirement within a week of Angleton’s resignation after it was made clear that they would be transferred elsewhere in the agency rather than promoted, and the counter-intelligence staff was reduced from 300 people to 80 people.

Hersh reported that Angleton subsequently called him to claim that Angleton’s wife, Cicely, had left him as a result of the story. A friend of Hersh’s immediately laughed off this claim, telling Hersh that Angleton’s wife had left him years ago and had since returned — and knew well enough that Angleton worked for the CIA. Indeed, they remained friendly for years after they began living apart, and yearly took a vacation together to his beloved fishing spot. Here he was known as a fisherman and a documentor of the river, but not for his profession, although it was quietly known. Rumours swirled around Washington thereafter that Colby was himself the KGB mole, but these were never conclusively attributed to Angleton. Angleton was awarded the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the CIA’s second highest honor, in 1975.