My critique of Cram's lame review of Mangold's specious "Cold Warrior"
(My comments are in brackets.)
Cold Warrior is the only book published on counterintelligence during the period reviewed that focuses on James Angleton as the central subject. All of the others deal with him as a secondary issue, although he was a primary source for several of those works. Mangold's book is highly critical of Angleton but is not anti-CIA except in the sense that its conclusion raises some penetrating questions about the Agency's management of counterintelligence during the last decade of Angleton's term. Mangold, the senior correspondent for the BBC program "Panorama," began work on this book in 1987. He came to the United States in search of a research assistant and found an extraordinarily able one in Jeffrey Goldberg. Together they made a formidable team, especially since they entered the project with no preconceived notions nor any special ax to grind except to write an honest and objective book that would sell well. They were "fortunate to obtain some unique assistance when two previous writers on intelligence, David Martin (whose Wilderness of Mirrors remains a classic) and Professor Robin Winks of Yale; both offered encouragement and suggested names of persons to interview. Mangold and Goldberg got no help from the CIA; their repeated requests for material under the Freedom of Information Act were rejected. Despite this disappointment, Goldberg on his own turned up much new material, and Mangold's main sources of information were numerous retired CIA and FBI officers who were willing to talk either on or off the record.** Cold Warrior skims over Angleton's life before his Agency career but is not really a biography; it is much more a study of the man as chief of counterintelligence beginning in 1954, concentrating on the period from 1962 until his dismissal in late 1974. The year 1962 is a turning point because that is when Golitsyn appeared on the scene (having defected in Finland in December 1961), a development that dominates the story. Before that, Angleton's career was largely noncontroversial. With the arrival of Golitsyn, however—and especially after his return from England in the late summer of 1963—Angleton took complete control of the controversial defector (much to the relief of the Soviet Division, which had previously been responsible for him) and was promptly mesmerized by some of Golitsyn's most extreme theories. That influence on Angleton ultimately led to the infamous molehunt which is the core of Mangold's story. [According to author John M. Newman in his 2022 book, Uncovering Popov’s Mole, the original mole hunt was planned-to-fail and began in 1959 — two years before Golitsyn’s defection — when a KGB “mole” by the name of Bruce Leonard Solie in CIA’s mole-hunting Office of Security sent (or duped his confidant, protégé and mole-hunting subordinate, Angleton, into sending) Lee Harvey Oswald to Moscow as an ostensible “dangle” in the hunt for “Popov’s Mole” (Solie) in the wrong part of the CIA — the Soviet Russia Division.] It would have been helpful had he noted that, despite the numerous disasters flowing from the Angleton-Golitsyn collaboration, the Israeli branch of the Counterintelligence staff during that period enjoyed some important intelligence coups. Mangold in fact had compiled a chapter on Angleton and the Israeli connection, but it was removed by his editor because she judged the material as not sensational enough. Some of the sources for the most explosive material in Cold Warrior were from neither CIA nor FBI. General Sir Charles Spry, former head of the ASIO, gave Mangold the story about Golitsyn's relationship with a joint counterintelligence group involving the US and English-speaking countries of the British Commonwealth. Excellent journalistic sources in Ottawa told Mangold the story about the "Tango" case in Canada and its relevance to the charges against Bennett. Bennett himself provided his account of why he was dismissed from Canada's security service. While in Australia, Mangold gleaned further background on Angleton from Peter Wright, the former British counterspy. Most reviewers hailed Cold Warrior as a major triumph of research and writing, especially because the sourcing was so relentlessly detailed compared with other books on the Angleton phenomenon. [Mangold’s main source seems to have been possible KGB “mole” Leonard V. McCoy, formerly of the omnipresent and omniscient Reports & Requirements section of the Soviet Division, and, from 1975-on, Deputy Chief of Angleton’s old CIA Counterintelligence department — read my Substack articles on him for details.] The notes on sources, in fact, comprise the best part of the book, providing solid information in support of the main theme. [An ungodly high percentage of Mangold’s sources are “confidential interviews.”] This was a constant source of contention between Mangold and his editor, who opposed what she regarded as its excessive detail. Mangold remained adamant, arguing that, in the case of a figure as controversial as Angleton, every fact should be sourced to the fullest extent. As might be expected, however, not even the sourcing stilled the pro-Angleton critics of the book. They declared it inaccurate but were hard pressed to provide sensible rebuttal. [All anyone has to do nowadays to rebut Mangold is read Tennent H. Bagley’s 2007 Yale University Press book, Spy Wars, his 2014 follow-up PDF, Ghosts of the Spy Wars, his book (with Sergey Kondrashev) Spymaster, and John M. Newman’s 2022 book, Uncovering Popov’s Mole.] Some complained that the book did not acknowledge the former counterintelligence chief's many successes, without providing any details. One vigorous critic did cite the absence of any treatment of what he alleged was Angleton's singular accomplishment: that there was no (known) penetration of CIA during his 20-year stewardship. This is nonsense; there were no counterintelligence successes, only disasters. In fact there were two penetrations during his tenure (one Czechoslovak and one Chinese). Angleton's molehunts and other associated activities did nothing to prevent such breaches of security and probably distracted those whose main task was to prevent them. Furthermore, Golitsyn assured Allen Dulles that the KGB had no penetration of CIA. He later changed his story and said there was one [I’ve read that he eventually claimed there were five “moles” in the CIA — a realistic number, imho], a switch obviously intended to preserve his primacy as Angleton's resident authority on Soviet intelligence. [False-defector Yuri] Nosenko likewise told his debriefers he knew of no penetration but, because this by then contradicted Golitsyn, he was subjected to hostile interrogation and jailed for three years. The molehunts without question were the centerpiece of Angleton's career, but the search for traitors had ramifications involving Nosenko and many other controversial issues. Within the Agency itself, the hunt focused on only a handful of officers in the Directorate of Operations. Some of them suffered considerable humiliation or their careers were blighted; others were forced out of the Agency. Four major cases that were shown to the FBI [which was penetrated by various and sundry KGB agents over the years —and specifically by Kremlin-loyal Aleksei Kulak — Hoover’s shielded-from-CIA “Fedora” — who duped the Bureau for fifteen years] were rejected by the Bureau as unworthy of further serious investigation. In each instance there was no substantial evidence against the individual who was accused. All of this was done at the whim of Golitsyn, who often was allowed by Angleton to review CIA personnel and operational files. Angleton's irresponsible behavior in this regard did not prevent Soviet successes but instead sowed distrust and confusion. The incompetence of the KGB and, more likely, the Agency polygraph program's successes deserve the lion's share of the credit for preventing penetrations even though the polygraph operators did not cover themselves with glory on the two that occurred [The polygraph exam given by probable “mole” Solie to false-defector Nosenko in the process of “clearing” him in 1968 was "the worst one” polygraph expert Richard O. Arther had ever seen.] The disruption might have been worse had not more prudent and rational authorities intervened in opposition to Angleton's recommendations. (DCI Richard Helms' release of Nosenko and SIS Chief Sir Dick White's refusal to countenance the return of the defector Yuri Krotkov to the Soviets spring to mind as examples.) This book is not a complete catalogue of Angleton's misdeeds. The mother lode of evidence about them in the archives at Langley is by no means exhausted. Mangold's informants told him only what they knew or wished him to know. Much was withheld, and the informants often knew only a small part of the story. Moreover, at his editor's request, Mangold cut out a great deal of material. Cold Warrior nevertheless is an honest and accurate book. Mangold's conclusion is inescapable: something was seriously wrong with CIA counterintelligence under Angleton [Yes! He had a bad habit of confiding to Bruce Solie (and only Bruce Solie) everything Golitsyn told him about possible penetrations of the CIA!]. Some trait in the man's character [He evidently required a father figure in his life — Kim Philby (until 1951) and then Bruce Solie (from at least 1957) seem to have fulfilled that role quite well], at once attractive and repulsive—his intellectual arrogance perhaps— apparently led him to make serious misjudgments. What Mangold was able to cram into his 403 pages is devastating to Angleton's reputation, due largely to numerous knowledgeable sources the author found among CIA and FBI retirees. It was human nature for them to want to put the record straight, but many undoubtedly violated their oaths in speaking so frankly. So had many others who some years before had spoken to Edward Jay Epstein.
**Mangold cites the startling figure of 208 retired CIA officers That agitated some people at Langley until they were reminded that John Ranelagh, in researching his classic The Agency, had interviewed many more However, Ranelagh's book was considered benign and had a vague blessing from CIA management, which realized Mangold's book about Angleton. if honest and objective, could only cast a dark shadow over past events.