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The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton
"The best book ever written about the strangest CIA chief who ever lived." - Tim Weiner, National Book Award-winning author of Legacy of Ashes
A revelatory new biography of the sinister, powerful, and paranoid man at the heart of the CIA for more than three tumultuous decades.
CIA spymaster James Jesus Angleton was one of the most powerful unelected officials in the United States government in the mid-20th century, a ghost of American power. From World War II to the Cold War, Angleton operated beyond the view of the public, Congress, and even the president. He unwittingly shared intelligence secrets with Soviet spy Kim Philby, a member of the notorious Cambridge spy ring. He launched mass surveillance by opening the mail of hundreds of thousands of Americans. He abetted a scheme to aid Israel’s own nuclear efforts, disregarding U.S. security. He committed perjury and obstructed the JFK assassination investigation. He oversaw a massive spying operation on the antiwar and black nationalist movements and he initiated an obsessive search for communist moles that nearly destroyed the Agency.
In The Ghost, investigative reporter Jefferson Morley tells Angleton’s dramatic story, from his friendship with the poet Ezra Pound through the underground gay milieu of mid-century Washington to the Kennedy assassination to the Watergate scandal. From the agency’s MKULTRA mind-control experiments to the wars of the Mideast, Angleton wielded far more power than anyone knew. Yet during his seemingly lawless reign in the CIA, he also proved himself to be a formidable adversary to our nation’s enemies, acquiring a mythic stature within the CIA that continues to this day.
A revelatory new biography of the sinister, powerful, and paranoid man at the heart of the CIA for more than three tumultuous decades.
CIA spymaster James Jesus Angleton was one of the most powerful unelected officials in the United States government in the mid-20th century, a ghost of American power. From World War II to the Cold War, Angleton operated beyond the view of the public, Congress, and even the president. He unwittingly shared intelligence secrets with Soviet spy Kim Philby, a member of the notorious Cambridge spy ring. He launched mass surveillance by opening the mail of hundreds of thousands of Americans. He abetted a scheme to aid Israel’s own nuclear efforts, disregarding U.S. security. He committed perjury and obstructed the JFK assassination investigation. He oversaw a massive spying operation on the antiwar and black nationalist movements and he initiated an obsessive search for communist moles that nearly destroyed the Agency.
In The Ghost, investigative reporter Jefferson Morley tells Angleton’s dramatic story, from his friendship with the poet Ezra Pound through the underground gay milieu of mid-century Washington to the Kennedy assassination to the Watergate scandal. From the agency’s MKULTRA mind-control experiments to the wars of the Mideast, Angleton wielded far more power than anyone knew. Yet during his seemingly lawless reign in the CIA, he also proved himself to be a formidable adversary to our nation’s enemies, acquiring a mythic stature within the CIA that continues to this day.
330 pages, Hardcover
First published October 24, 2017
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3445 people want to read
About the author
Jefferson Morley
10 books109 followersJEFFERSON MORLEY is a journalist and editor who has worked in Washington journalism for over thirty years, fifteen of which were spent as an editor and reporter at The Washington Post. The author of The Ghost, a biography of CIA spymaster James Jesus Angleton, and Our Man in Mexico, a biography of the CIA’s Mexico City station chief Winston Scott, Morley has written about intelligence, military, and political subjects for Salon, The Atlantic, and The Intercept, among others. He is the editor of JFK Facts, a blog. He lives in Washington, DC.
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March 10, 2018
When one thinks of the history of the CIA the names that readily come to mind are “Wild” Bill Donavan, Allen W. Dulles, and a host of others. One name that sometimes remains in the shadows is James J. Angleton. Of these men it is safe to say that Angleton probably affected American national security the most between the onset of the Cold War and the investigation into CIA activities that permeated the mid to late 1970s. Angleton’s life and intelligence career is the subject of Jefferson Morley’s new study, THE GHOST: THE SECRET LIFE OF CIA SPYMASTER JAMES JESUS ANGLETON that successfully answers the questions: Was Angleton a defender of the republic? Did he become the embodiment of double government? Was he an avatar of the emerging “deep state?” For Morley the answer to these question seems to be an emphatic, yes.
Morley’s monograph is not a complete biography, but more of a work of synthesis that briefly explores Angleton’s background then delves into the affect that the spymaster had on American foreign and intelligence policies. As one explores his life the author uncovers numerous policy decisions and actions taken by Angleton that on the surface seem controversial and once implemented evolve into the dominant policy of the emerging national security state. In examining certain aspects of US intelligence history we can see Angleton’s imprint and historical importance. Morley’s analysis reflects his influence in many ways. First, his relationship with Kim Philby, the British spy who served as his mentor and teacher as Angleton became consumed with counterintelligence after the World War II. Philby along with Norman Pearson educated Angleton on the ins and outs of the German spy system called ULTRA where he learned how deception could shape the battlefield of powerful nations at war. The Angleton-Philby friendship is important because the Englishman, along with Guy Burgess and Donald McClean were part of the Cambridge five who spied for the Soviet Union for years. The greatest shock in Angleton’s life was learning Philby’s true identity and how he facilitated his spy craft.
The second area that most people are not aware of is Angleton’s culpability in recruiting and protecting the freedom of former Nazis after the war, i.e., Eugene Dollman, a translator for Hitler and Mussolini and Walter Rauff who was responsible for the death of over 250,000 Jews during the war. A third area that might surprise some is Angleton’s role in developing the CIA experimentation and use of LSD as a tool in compelling suspected spies to tell the truth. The program known as MKULTRA encompassed a wide range of experiments to control the workings of the human mind in the name of national security. As a result a number of people died and many others had their lives ruined. Once Dwight D. Eisenhower assumed the presidency and appointed Allen W. Dulles as the head of the CIA, Angleton’s influence increased markedly. Angleton was able to convince Dulles, an old friend and compatriot of the need to develop a staff of people who were knowledgeable and understood the KGB and its methods. This was designed to oversee covert operations and protect against Soviet penetration of the US government and the CIA. As a result we have Angleton’s fourth area of importance, the development of his own clandestine service within the CIA – his own empire. Furthering his influence, Angleton was able to convince FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to cooperate by sharing domestic counterintelligence dealing with the Soviet Union. If this was not enough Angleton developed LINGUAL, a program in concert with the FBI’s COINTELPRO operation to illegally open the mail bound for the Soviet Union. It was through this program that Morley effectively introduces the reader to Lee Harvey Oswald and Angleton’s knowledge and possible culpability in the Kennedy assassination.
One of the criticisms, if in fact it can be considered as such is that Morley presents these aspects of Angleton’s career in a cursory way for the first half of the book. As a shorter work I guess this is acceptable, but I would have liked the author to engage in the type of exploration of motive and effect as he did with Angleton’s role in covering up the Kennedy assassination investigation. In the fifth and most important area Morley examines Angleton’s investigation of Oswald from 1959 to 1963, from his defection to the Soviet Union and return to the United States, his affiliation with pro-Fidel Castro organizations, his visits to the Cuban embassy in Mexico City, a hotbed of pro-Castro activity, and where Oswald wound up in September, 1963. After the assassination Angleton gave the impression he knew very little about Oswald before November 22, 1963, when in fact his staff had monitored his movements for years and his special investigations provided him with numerous reports of Oswald’s travels. Obviously this led to an epic counter-intelligence failure. One of Angleton’s major roles was tracking defectors and he received three FBI reports on the intelligence function of the Cuban embassy in Mexico City the two months leading to Kennedy’s death, but he would never speak publicly about this. We are all aware of the CIA conspiracy theories concerning the Kennedy assassination because of their anger over the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile crisis, anger that Angleton shared.
Angleton’s power was at its apex during the investigation into the Kennedy assassination which happened on his watch. In perhaps his best chapter, Morley describes how Angleton managed to wind up in charge of the CIA’s investigation of Oswald. During the Kennedy administration, Angleton’s staff knew more about the obscure and “unimportant” Lee Harvey Oswald than anyone in the US government. After Kennedy’s death, Angleton would orchestrate the cover-up of what the CIA knew and engaged in obstruction of justice as he did not want anyone to find out that he had been investigating Oswald for years. In addition, Angleton hid the knowledge that Castro probably knew of the CIA’s recruitment of Rolando Cubela to assassinate the Cuban dictator - in a sense Castro got Kennedy, before Kennedy got him. Angleton should have been fired for malfeasance; instead he would remain in a position of supreme power for another ten years. Despite that power, Angleton would be beleaguered by Kennedy’s death and would spend his time putting out fires when others came forth with new information, fires that ruined careers, resulted in the seizure of personal material, and a few questionable deaths.
There are numerous other areas of Angleton’s shadowy work and influence. As he grew up and was educated he held many anti-Semitic views, but would come to realize the importance of Israel’s intelligence community. Almost from the foundation of the Jewish state, Angleton developed a strong relationship with the Mossad and Shin Bet, Israeli intelligence agencies that would benefit both countries, as they shared intelligence, weaponry, and other information geared against the Soviet Union and the Arab world. Two useful examples are KKMOUNTAIN which resulted in millions in annual cash payments to the Mossad and in return the Israelis authorized their agents to act as American surrogates throughout North Africa, and Angleton’s surreptitious support for the Israeli development of a nuclear weapons program. Further, Angleton assisted Israel during the 1967 War and helped whitewash the investigation into the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty. In fact one high ranking Israeli intelligence official described Angleton as a Zionist and the Jewish state almost seemed like his second home.
One of the major themes that Mosley develops throughout the book is how the suspicious mole hunter that Angleton had become throughout his career grew more and more paranoid by the late 1960s. Angleton’s conspiracy theories about the Soviet Union and the KGB provoked questioning within the CIA, but as long as Richard Helms, his old friend and compatriot was DCIA he was safe. Angleton’s paranoia ruined many careers of innocent people and he eventually lost the support of J. Edgar Hoover. One thing was clear, as Angleton grew old he became more obsessive about Russian infiltration and spying, and to his dying day believed that the Soviet Union had a mole inside the CIA for decades.
Angleton’s role in domestic surveillance is one that lives on today with the NSA and other aspects of the Patriot Act. In the 1960s as the anti-war movement and a black insurgency were seen as threats, Helms and Angleton set up a new intelligence collection program – Operation CHAOS. It would infiltrate the anti-war movement, index the names of over 300,000 Americans, and create files on 7200 people. As more and more domestic violence took place President Nixon resorted the Huston Plan which emerged three years later during Watergate, a plan that was the brainchild of Angleton. The plan called for a dramatic expansion of domestic intelligence collection and Nixon lifted any restrictions that might get in its way. Nixon would have to shut down the Huston Plan months later because of the opposition of Attorney General John Mitchell, and J. Edgar Hoover, but Angleton continued to oversee its operation.
The reelection of Richard Nixon in 1972 witnessed the firing of Helms which signaled a bad time was coming. Without Helms as cover Angleton would have to deal with William Colby as the new DCIA, a man he had been in conflict with for years. Colby understood that the CIA had to adapt to the new realities in American politics and society in the 1970s, something Angleton could not. Colby would suspend a number of surveillance programs and limit others. Angleton also made an enemy out of Henry Kissinger as he seemed to have misread intelligence pertaining to the Arab attack that launched the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Despite these problems, Angleton remained obsessed with Russian deception operations and even argued that British Prime Minister Harold Wilson was a Soviet agent. Once the Nixon tapes were released, the domestic role of the CIA and Angleton in particular came into plain view. This would lead to Seymour Hirsh’s expose in the New York Times, and the formation of the Senate Church Committee which would attack and question Angleton’s beliefs and life’s work.
Morley tells Angleton’s story in a concise and lucid manner with numerous important observations. His research and analysis, particularly in the second half of the book are top drawer. For those who worry about civil rights and the abuse of power, Angleton’s life is a lesson that should be studied by all, as his career is emblematic of what some would describe as the “deep state.”
Morley’s monograph is not a complete biography, but more of a work of synthesis that briefly explores Angleton’s background then delves into the affect that the spymaster had on American foreign and intelligence policies. As one explores his life the author uncovers numerous policy decisions and actions taken by Angleton that on the surface seem controversial and once implemented evolve into the dominant policy of the emerging national security state. In examining certain aspects of US intelligence history we can see Angleton’s imprint and historical importance. Morley’s analysis reflects his influence in many ways. First, his relationship with Kim Philby, the British spy who served as his mentor and teacher as Angleton became consumed with counterintelligence after the World War II. Philby along with Norman Pearson educated Angleton on the ins and outs of the German spy system called ULTRA where he learned how deception could shape the battlefield of powerful nations at war. The Angleton-Philby friendship is important because the Englishman, along with Guy Burgess and Donald McClean were part of the Cambridge five who spied for the Soviet Union for years. The greatest shock in Angleton’s life was learning Philby’s true identity and how he facilitated his spy craft.
The second area that most people are not aware of is Angleton’s culpability in recruiting and protecting the freedom of former Nazis after the war, i.e., Eugene Dollman, a translator for Hitler and Mussolini and Walter Rauff who was responsible for the death of over 250,000 Jews during the war. A third area that might surprise some is Angleton’s role in developing the CIA experimentation and use of LSD as a tool in compelling suspected spies to tell the truth. The program known as MKULTRA encompassed a wide range of experiments to control the workings of the human mind in the name of national security. As a result a number of people died and many others had their lives ruined. Once Dwight D. Eisenhower assumed the presidency and appointed Allen W. Dulles as the head of the CIA, Angleton’s influence increased markedly. Angleton was able to convince Dulles, an old friend and compatriot of the need to develop a staff of people who were knowledgeable and understood the KGB and its methods. This was designed to oversee covert operations and protect against Soviet penetration of the US government and the CIA. As a result we have Angleton’s fourth area of importance, the development of his own clandestine service within the CIA – his own empire. Furthering his influence, Angleton was able to convince FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to cooperate by sharing domestic counterintelligence dealing with the Soviet Union. If this was not enough Angleton developed LINGUAL, a program in concert with the FBI’s COINTELPRO operation to illegally open the mail bound for the Soviet Union. It was through this program that Morley effectively introduces the reader to Lee Harvey Oswald and Angleton’s knowledge and possible culpability in the Kennedy assassination.
One of the criticisms, if in fact it can be considered as such is that Morley presents these aspects of Angleton’s career in a cursory way for the first half of the book. As a shorter work I guess this is acceptable, but I would have liked the author to engage in the type of exploration of motive and effect as he did with Angleton’s role in covering up the Kennedy assassination investigation. In the fifth and most important area Morley examines Angleton’s investigation of Oswald from 1959 to 1963, from his defection to the Soviet Union and return to the United States, his affiliation with pro-Fidel Castro organizations, his visits to the Cuban embassy in Mexico City, a hotbed of pro-Castro activity, and where Oswald wound up in September, 1963. After the assassination Angleton gave the impression he knew very little about Oswald before November 22, 1963, when in fact his staff had monitored his movements for years and his special investigations provided him with numerous reports of Oswald’s travels. Obviously this led to an epic counter-intelligence failure. One of Angleton’s major roles was tracking defectors and he received three FBI reports on the intelligence function of the Cuban embassy in Mexico City the two months leading to Kennedy’s death, but he would never speak publicly about this. We are all aware of the CIA conspiracy theories concerning the Kennedy assassination because of their anger over the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile crisis, anger that Angleton shared.
Angleton’s power was at its apex during the investigation into the Kennedy assassination which happened on his watch. In perhaps his best chapter, Morley describes how Angleton managed to wind up in charge of the CIA’s investigation of Oswald. During the Kennedy administration, Angleton’s staff knew more about the obscure and “unimportant” Lee Harvey Oswald than anyone in the US government. After Kennedy’s death, Angleton would orchestrate the cover-up of what the CIA knew and engaged in obstruction of justice as he did not want anyone to find out that he had been investigating Oswald for years. In addition, Angleton hid the knowledge that Castro probably knew of the CIA’s recruitment of Rolando Cubela to assassinate the Cuban dictator - in a sense Castro got Kennedy, before Kennedy got him. Angleton should have been fired for malfeasance; instead he would remain in a position of supreme power for another ten years. Despite that power, Angleton would be beleaguered by Kennedy’s death and would spend his time putting out fires when others came forth with new information, fires that ruined careers, resulted in the seizure of personal material, and a few questionable deaths.
There are numerous other areas of Angleton’s shadowy work and influence. As he grew up and was educated he held many anti-Semitic views, but would come to realize the importance of Israel’s intelligence community. Almost from the foundation of the Jewish state, Angleton developed a strong relationship with the Mossad and Shin Bet, Israeli intelligence agencies that would benefit both countries, as they shared intelligence, weaponry, and other information geared against the Soviet Union and the Arab world. Two useful examples are KKMOUNTAIN which resulted in millions in annual cash payments to the Mossad and in return the Israelis authorized their agents to act as American surrogates throughout North Africa, and Angleton’s surreptitious support for the Israeli development of a nuclear weapons program. Further, Angleton assisted Israel during the 1967 War and helped whitewash the investigation into the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty. In fact one high ranking Israeli intelligence official described Angleton as a Zionist and the Jewish state almost seemed like his second home.
One of the major themes that Mosley develops throughout the book is how the suspicious mole hunter that Angleton had become throughout his career grew more and more paranoid by the late 1960s. Angleton’s conspiracy theories about the Soviet Union and the KGB provoked questioning within the CIA, but as long as Richard Helms, his old friend and compatriot was DCIA he was safe. Angleton’s paranoia ruined many careers of innocent people and he eventually lost the support of J. Edgar Hoover. One thing was clear, as Angleton grew old he became more obsessive about Russian infiltration and spying, and to his dying day believed that the Soviet Union had a mole inside the CIA for decades.
Angleton’s role in domestic surveillance is one that lives on today with the NSA and other aspects of the Patriot Act. In the 1960s as the anti-war movement and a black insurgency were seen as threats, Helms and Angleton set up a new intelligence collection program – Operation CHAOS. It would infiltrate the anti-war movement, index the names of over 300,000 Americans, and create files on 7200 people. As more and more domestic violence took place President Nixon resorted the Huston Plan which emerged three years later during Watergate, a plan that was the brainchild of Angleton. The plan called for a dramatic expansion of domestic intelligence collection and Nixon lifted any restrictions that might get in its way. Nixon would have to shut down the Huston Plan months later because of the opposition of Attorney General John Mitchell, and J. Edgar Hoover, but Angleton continued to oversee its operation.
The reelection of Richard Nixon in 1972 witnessed the firing of Helms which signaled a bad time was coming. Without Helms as cover Angleton would have to deal with William Colby as the new DCIA, a man he had been in conflict with for years. Colby understood that the CIA had to adapt to the new realities in American politics and society in the 1970s, something Angleton could not. Colby would suspend a number of surveillance programs and limit others. Angleton also made an enemy out of Henry Kissinger as he seemed to have misread intelligence pertaining to the Arab attack that launched the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Despite these problems, Angleton remained obsessed with Russian deception operations and even argued that British Prime Minister Harold Wilson was a Soviet agent. Once the Nixon tapes were released, the domestic role of the CIA and Angleton in particular came into plain view. This would lead to Seymour Hirsh’s expose in the New York Times, and the formation of the Senate Church Committee which would attack and question Angleton’s beliefs and life’s work.
Morley tells Angleton’s story in a concise and lucid manner with numerous important observations. His research and analysis, particularly in the second half of the book are top drawer. For those who worry about civil rights and the abuse of power, Angleton’s life is a lesson that should be studied by all, as his career is emblematic of what some would describe as the “deep state.”
June 22, 2018
I loved The Ghost! What an interesting history of his time at the CIA as Counterintelligence Director! Cuba, Castro, Kennedy, Hoover..they are all there. Not to mention his operations spying on Americans by opening their mail..
March 19, 2024
"If the ambush in Dallas had been properly planned by CIA men," Angleton advised, referring to the assassination of JFK, "even other CIA men would not have been able to figure out who had done it."
Angleton was a powerful, complicated figure within the shadowy world of U.S. intelligence services, and his presence and influence remains murky and obscure — hence the title, The Ghost.
For more innocent readers, the extent to which intelligence services such as the CIA operated domestically (against the law, of course, but everyone just ignored that) by opening mail and spying on any sort of leftist, student, or union organization, will be startling. Piles of money were available to fund literary magazines, infiltrators, fake groups, and so on. Even the Iowa Writers Workshop benefited from CIA money.
Angleton felt much more comfortable with fascists than with communists, and his idea of "communist" was very broad. Elected governments were overthrown around the world (Guatemala, Chile, Iran) when they were seen as problematic and replaced with more agreeable dictators.
There is quite a bit about the JFK plot here, because Angleton had been tracking Oswald for years before the assassination; however, Angleton did not disclose this to investigators and many secrets presumably were taken to the grave.
There is also much here about his friendship with Kim Philby, a British Intelligence officer who defected to the Soviets. Angleton was obsessed with Soviet infiltration, and drove many colleagues out of the field with his suspicions, but never suspected Philby.
There are other stories here too, such as fleeting references to Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control. Altogether a swampy read about murky characters, and one is left not really knowing very much but feeling much more suspicious about everyone and everything.
The editing in this book could have been tighter. For example, in the sentence quoted at the beginning of this review, I had to remove an extra word. Oswald is spelled "Oswalt" a couple of times. The character "Svengali" is said to have come from a "French novel" — really he is from Trilby, a novel by a British writer set in Paris. However, I read the first edition, so maybe some of these weird typos have since been fixed.
Angleton was a powerful, complicated figure within the shadowy world of U.S. intelligence services, and his presence and influence remains murky and obscure — hence the title, The Ghost.
For more innocent readers, the extent to which intelligence services such as the CIA operated domestically (against the law, of course, but everyone just ignored that) by opening mail and spying on any sort of leftist, student, or union organization, will be startling. Piles of money were available to fund literary magazines, infiltrators, fake groups, and so on. Even the Iowa Writers Workshop benefited from CIA money.
Angleton felt much more comfortable with fascists than with communists, and his idea of "communist" was very broad. Elected governments were overthrown around the world (Guatemala, Chile, Iran) when they were seen as problematic and replaced with more agreeable dictators.
There is quite a bit about the JFK plot here, because Angleton had been tracking Oswald for years before the assassination; however, Angleton did not disclose this to investigators and many secrets presumably were taken to the grave.
There is also much here about his friendship with Kim Philby, a British Intelligence officer who defected to the Soviets. Angleton was obsessed with Soviet infiltration, and drove many colleagues out of the field with his suspicions, but never suspected Philby.
There are other stories here too, such as fleeting references to Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control. Altogether a swampy read about murky characters, and one is left not really knowing very much but feeling much more suspicious about everyone and everything.
The editing in this book could have been tighter. For example, in the sentence quoted at the beginning of this review, I had to remove an extra word. Oswald is spelled "Oswalt" a couple of times. The character "Svengali" is said to have come from a "French novel" — really he is from Trilby, a novel by a British writer set in Paris. However, I read the first edition, so maybe some of these weird typos have since been fixed.
October 16, 2019
A very thorough biography of the career of James Angleton as CIA's Associate Deputy Director of Operations for Counterintelligence (ADDOCI) from 1954 to 1975.
I have come to this publication through my interest in the Kennedy killings and have previously met Jefferson Morley back in 2013, when he gave a keynote lecture in Dallas and have read his 'Our Man in Mexico-Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA' published in 2008. Morley also edits the internet blog 'JFK Facts', and has shown himself to be one of the more circumspect researchers of the JFK case.
After reading Michael Collins Piper's 'Final Judgement' I discovered some intriguing points involving Angleton and Israel's Mossad, so I was eagerly looking forward to 'The Ghost' to discover if Morley's digging would corroborate MCP's findings. He certainly did, and more.
I concur with Tim Weiner's review of "Morley's stellar reporting and superb writing...it's essential history and highly entertaining biography."
The skeletons in Angleton's closet rattle on and the ghost will continue to haunt those who wish to uncover the mysteries of our time.
Perhaps the poltergeist was Angleton's persistent belief in a Soviet 'mole' residing within CIA's Soviet Russia Division. The counterintelligence chief was labelled paranoid on account of his years long mole hunt. The published works of Tennent 'Pete' Bagley, particularly 'Spymaster', indicate strongly that he was correct in his suspicions, not only of a mole, but of his belief that Soviet agent Yuri Nosenko was a false defector when he came out of the cold in 1964.
Professor John Newman, in his multi-volume work on the JFK assassination (Vol III 'Into the Storm') is chasing his hypothesis that a Soviet mole within CIA was a reality and that Lee Harvey Oswald was a CIA 'dangle' when he defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, as Angleton's lure to catch the Langley traitor.
CIA Director William Colby performed his exorcism of 'the ghost' in 1975.
I have come to this publication through my interest in the Kennedy killings and have previously met Jefferson Morley back in 2013, when he gave a keynote lecture in Dallas and have read his 'Our Man in Mexico-Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA' published in 2008. Morley also edits the internet blog 'JFK Facts', and has shown himself to be one of the more circumspect researchers of the JFK case.
After reading Michael Collins Piper's 'Final Judgement' I discovered some intriguing points involving Angleton and Israel's Mossad, so I was eagerly looking forward to 'The Ghost' to discover if Morley's digging would corroborate MCP's findings. He certainly did, and more.
I concur with Tim Weiner's review of "Morley's stellar reporting and superb writing...it's essential history and highly entertaining biography."
The skeletons in Angleton's closet rattle on and the ghost will continue to haunt those who wish to uncover the mysteries of our time.
Perhaps the poltergeist was Angleton's persistent belief in a Soviet 'mole' residing within CIA's Soviet Russia Division. The counterintelligence chief was labelled paranoid on account of his years long mole hunt. The published works of Tennent 'Pete' Bagley, particularly 'Spymaster', indicate strongly that he was correct in his suspicions, not only of a mole, but of his belief that Soviet agent Yuri Nosenko was a false defector when he came out of the cold in 1964.
Professor John Newman, in his multi-volume work on the JFK assassination (Vol III 'Into the Storm') is chasing his hypothesis that a Soviet mole within CIA was a reality and that Lee Harvey Oswald was a CIA 'dangle' when he defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, as Angleton's lure to catch the Langley traitor.
CIA Director William Colby performed his exorcism of 'the ghost' in 1975.
June 23, 2018
Among the scholarly writers on subjects related to the JFK assassination, Jefferson Morley is in the top rank. The Ghost is not about JFK, and neither is an earlier biography by the same author, Our Man in Mexico, about longtime Mexico City station chief Winston Scott. But for those of us who retain the conviction that JFK was murdered as the result of a conspiracy, Morley's writing and research are indispensable.
Angleton is possibly the most peculiar of all the key titans of the CIA's early days. He was undeniably powerful, ruling the CIA's Counterintelligence Staff for two decades. But he exhibited such blatant weirdness on so many levels, it is difficult to believe even the strange characters populating the CIA would not have concluded something was desperately wrong much earlier than they did. Angleton was formally removed at the beginning of 1975 by CIA Director William Colby. The firing was long overdue.
It is impossible to come away from reading anything in-depth and serious about Angleton without concluding that he must have taken vital information on JFK's assassination to his grave. What is impossible to contemplate for too long is how. Yet you look at Angleton's physical appearance through the ages, and you realize that something was taking a serious toll on him, both physically and psychologically. He looked much older than he was at the time he was removed from CI Staff Chief. Something was eating away at him, maybe a "subconscious conscience." At the end of his life, he was reputed to have said something to the effect that there was a place in Hell reserved for him and his ilk. What a very strange man indeed.
Angleton is possibly the most peculiar of all the key titans of the CIA's early days. He was undeniably powerful, ruling the CIA's Counterintelligence Staff for two decades. But he exhibited such blatant weirdness on so many levels, it is difficult to believe even the strange characters populating the CIA would not have concluded something was desperately wrong much earlier than they did. Angleton was formally removed at the beginning of 1975 by CIA Director William Colby. The firing was long overdue.
It is impossible to come away from reading anything in-depth and serious about Angleton without concluding that he must have taken vital information on JFK's assassination to his grave. What is impossible to contemplate for too long is how. Yet you look at Angleton's physical appearance through the ages, and you realize that something was taking a serious toll on him, both physically and psychologically. He looked much older than he was at the time he was removed from CI Staff Chief. Something was eating away at him, maybe a "subconscious conscience." At the end of his life, he was reputed to have said something to the effect that there was a place in Hell reserved for him and his ilk. What a very strange man indeed.
November 30, 2017
Author Tim Weiner called this book “The best book ever written about the strangest CIA chief who ever lived” and although I’m not knowledgeable enough to know whether it is in fact the best book ever, it is certainly an endlessly fascinating and engaging biography, entertaining, painstakingly researched, accessibly written and often quite astonishing. I’ve noticed some reviewers have quibbles about the facts, but these I can’t comment on. All I know is that I really enjoyed this well-written account of an intriguing and remarkable character.
December 4, 2019
If there is anything even remotely resembling the “deep state” that Donald Trump and other Right-Wing conspiracy nuts obsess about, it certainly existed from the 1950s to the early 1970s in the heyday of the Central Intelligence Agency. Of course, Allen Dulles (1893-1969), who ran the CIA from 1953 to 1961, was a key figure in the secret government that operated with a mind of its own during that period. But so was the much less well-known chief of counterespionage at the Agency, James Jesus Angleton (1917-87). Unfortunately, for most of the half-century since Jim Angleton ran amok, much of his story has remained untold. But now it’s available for all to see in Jefferson Morley‘s revealing 2017 biography, The Ghost. The book is a deeply distressing account of how one man nearly destroyed the CIA.
Like so many of his colleagues in the early CIA, Angleton was the product of a privileged background (Yale, Harvard Law) and a stint in the OSS. In this forerunner to the CIA, he worked with several men who later rose to prominence in the Agency (Frank Wisner, Bill Colby, Dick Helms, and Allen Dulles, three of whom later rose to become its Director). In Italy in 1944-45, Angleton served as head of counter-intelligence for the whole country. He was a man of many talents, fluently speaking three languages and making his mark at Yale as the founder of a poetry magazine that attracted contributions from T. S. Eliot, Archibald MacLeish, and his anti-Semitic and fascist friend Ezra Pound.
A decades-long habit of undermining US policy
Angleton’s decades-long habit of operating against the currents of American policy began early. In the final months of World War II, when he was not yet thirty, he assisted Allen Dulles in facilitating unauthorized peace negotiations with a leading German general in defiance of Franklin Roosevelt’s (and the Allies’s) express policy of unconditional surrender. And he arranged for one of Italy’s most prominent Fascists to evade prosecution as a war criminal, thus allowing him to continue to lead Right-Wing forces in his country throughout the post-war period. Angleton also helped prominent Nazis to cover their tracks.
Kim Philby’s defection triggered Angleton’s paranoia
If his work in the OSS was the pivotal event in Angleton’s early life, the fulcrum of his personality shifted radically less than two decades later when in 1963 his close friend and mentor Kim Philby (1912-88) defected to Moscow. Angleton appears to have descended into paranoia that caused him to suspect the hand of the KGB everywhere he looked. For fourteen years he spearheaded a “mole hunt” that forced innocent CIA officers into premature retirement and diverted the Agency’s resources into a series of pointless and often destructive investigations that ended only with his death.
How one man nearly destroyed the CIA
Another of the consequences of Angleton’s paranoia was that he accepted the claims of a Soviet “defector” named Anatoly Golitsin who famously insisted that British Prime Minister Harold Wilson was a KGB agent. That myth caused untold harm to the “special relation” between the US and Great Britain. Golitsyn was undoubtedly either a conspiracy theorist or a KGB plant (or both), but his increasingly wild assertions guided Angleton’s performance at the CIA for years to come. Only one of the consequences of his insistence on Golitsyn’s bona fides was that a genuine high-level KGB defector was imprisoned for a lengthy period and his revelations discounted. In short, James Jesus Angleton came close to destroying the CIA. Yet that may not be the worst of Angleton’s impact on American society.
He legitimized mass surveillance of Americans
“Angleton’s most significant and enduring legacy was to legitimize mass surveillance of Americans,” Morley writes. “While his mole hunt paralyzed CIA Soviet operations for five years at the most, Angleton’s [domestic surveillance] program funneled secret reporting on law-abiding citizens to [J. Edgar] Hoover‘s COINTELPRO operatives for eighteen years. The FBI used CIA information to harass leftists, liberals, and civil rights leaders [including the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.] from 1956 to 1974. Angleton was the ghost of COINTELPRO.”
Did Jim Angleton engineer JFK’s assassination?
In The Ghost, Morley broadly hints that Jim Angleton may have played a leading role in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He cites a considerable body of evidence that Angleton suppressed for more than a decade his years-long familiarity with Lee Harvey Oswald’s work. In fact, Morley implies that Oswald may well have been a CIA asset. And, combined with the overwhelming evidence that the fatal shot in the assassination came from the “grassy knoll” and not from Oswald, it becomes highly likely that a conspiracy was involved in the killing. And who could best engineer such a conspiracy other than the CIA’s master of conspiratorial thinking, James Jesus Angleton?
Angleton controlled the CIA file on Lee Harvey Oswald
If you’re skeptical, consider what Morley reports in The Ghost: “The CIA’s handling of information about Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is a story shrouded in deception and perjury, theories and disinformation, lies and legends. But at least one aspect of the story cannot be disputed: Angleton controlled the CIA’s file on Oswald for four years — from his defection in October 1959 until his death in November 1963.”
Morley continues: “[Allen] Dulles wanted to steer the [Warren] commission‘s investigation away from the CIA, and Angleton was obliging. A conspiracy theorist would say Angleton masterminded the JFK coverup. A prosecutor would say he obstructed justice. A bureaucrat would say he covered his ass. In every practical sense, his actions were invisible. In the tragedy of Dallas, Angleton played a ghost.”
Or was Fidel Castro the mastermind?
However, despite the implications of Angleton’s involvement in the assassination, Morley also cites the possibility that Fidel Castro was responsible. “If Castro knew about the [CIA plot to murder him], then he had a motive for killing Kennedy — self-defense — possibly corroborated by Oswald’s Cuban contact [a fact known to Angleton but long suppressed]. Angleton chose not to investigate, tantamount to obstruction of justice.”
The CIA’s greatest failure since Pearl Harbor
On balance, Morley makes clear that he is not convinced Angleton engineered the assassination. “No matter who fired the fatal shots in Dallas,” he writes, “Angleton has failed disastrously as counterintelligence chief. He could have — and should have — lost his job after November 22. Had the public, the Congress, and the Warren Commission known of his preassassination interest in Oswald or his postassassination cover-up, he surely would have.”
Like so many of his colleagues in the early CIA, Angleton was the product of a privileged background (Yale, Harvard Law) and a stint in the OSS. In this forerunner to the CIA, he worked with several men who later rose to prominence in the Agency (Frank Wisner, Bill Colby, Dick Helms, and Allen Dulles, three of whom later rose to become its Director). In Italy in 1944-45, Angleton served as head of counter-intelligence for the whole country. He was a man of many talents, fluently speaking three languages and making his mark at Yale as the founder of a poetry magazine that attracted contributions from T. S. Eliot, Archibald MacLeish, and his anti-Semitic and fascist friend Ezra Pound.
A decades-long habit of undermining US policy
Angleton’s decades-long habit of operating against the currents of American policy began early. In the final months of World War II, when he was not yet thirty, he assisted Allen Dulles in facilitating unauthorized peace negotiations with a leading German general in defiance of Franklin Roosevelt’s (and the Allies’s) express policy of unconditional surrender. And he arranged for one of Italy’s most prominent Fascists to evade prosecution as a war criminal, thus allowing him to continue to lead Right-Wing forces in his country throughout the post-war period. Angleton also helped prominent Nazis to cover their tracks.
Kim Philby’s defection triggered Angleton’s paranoia
If his work in the OSS was the pivotal event in Angleton’s early life, the fulcrum of his personality shifted radically less than two decades later when in 1963 his close friend and mentor Kim Philby (1912-88) defected to Moscow. Angleton appears to have descended into paranoia that caused him to suspect the hand of the KGB everywhere he looked. For fourteen years he spearheaded a “mole hunt” that forced innocent CIA officers into premature retirement and diverted the Agency’s resources into a series of pointless and often destructive investigations that ended only with his death.
How one man nearly destroyed the CIA
Another of the consequences of Angleton’s paranoia was that he accepted the claims of a Soviet “defector” named Anatoly Golitsin who famously insisted that British Prime Minister Harold Wilson was a KGB agent. That myth caused untold harm to the “special relation” between the US and Great Britain. Golitsyn was undoubtedly either a conspiracy theorist or a KGB plant (or both), but his increasingly wild assertions guided Angleton’s performance at the CIA for years to come. Only one of the consequences of his insistence on Golitsyn’s bona fides was that a genuine high-level KGB defector was imprisoned for a lengthy period and his revelations discounted. In short, James Jesus Angleton came close to destroying the CIA. Yet that may not be the worst of Angleton’s impact on American society.
He legitimized mass surveillance of Americans
“Angleton’s most significant and enduring legacy was to legitimize mass surveillance of Americans,” Morley writes. “While his mole hunt paralyzed CIA Soviet operations for five years at the most, Angleton’s [domestic surveillance] program funneled secret reporting on law-abiding citizens to [J. Edgar] Hoover‘s COINTELPRO operatives for eighteen years. The FBI used CIA information to harass leftists, liberals, and civil rights leaders [including the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.] from 1956 to 1974. Angleton was the ghost of COINTELPRO.”
Did Jim Angleton engineer JFK’s assassination?
In The Ghost, Morley broadly hints that Jim Angleton may have played a leading role in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He cites a considerable body of evidence that Angleton suppressed for more than a decade his years-long familiarity with Lee Harvey Oswald’s work. In fact, Morley implies that Oswald may well have been a CIA asset. And, combined with the overwhelming evidence that the fatal shot in the assassination came from the “grassy knoll” and not from Oswald, it becomes highly likely that a conspiracy was involved in the killing. And who could best engineer such a conspiracy other than the CIA’s master of conspiratorial thinking, James Jesus Angleton?
Angleton controlled the CIA file on Lee Harvey Oswald
If you’re skeptical, consider what Morley reports in The Ghost: “The CIA’s handling of information about Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is a story shrouded in deception and perjury, theories and disinformation, lies and legends. But at least one aspect of the story cannot be disputed: Angleton controlled the CIA’s file on Oswald for four years — from his defection in October 1959 until his death in November 1963.”
Morley continues: “[Allen] Dulles wanted to steer the [Warren] commission‘s investigation away from the CIA, and Angleton was obliging. A conspiracy theorist would say Angleton masterminded the JFK coverup. A prosecutor would say he obstructed justice. A bureaucrat would say he covered his ass. In every practical sense, his actions were invisible. In the tragedy of Dallas, Angleton played a ghost.”
Or was Fidel Castro the mastermind?
However, despite the implications of Angleton’s involvement in the assassination, Morley also cites the possibility that Fidel Castro was responsible. “If Castro knew about the [CIA plot to murder him], then he had a motive for killing Kennedy — self-defense — possibly corroborated by Oswald’s Cuban contact [a fact known to Angleton but long suppressed]. Angleton chose not to investigate, tantamount to obstruction of justice.”
The CIA’s greatest failure since Pearl Harbor
On balance, Morley makes clear that he is not convinced Angleton engineered the assassination. “No matter who fired the fatal shots in Dallas,” he writes, “Angleton has failed disastrously as counterintelligence chief. He could have — and should have — lost his job after November 22. Had the public, the Congress, and the Warren Commission known of his preassassination interest in Oswald or his postassassination cover-up, he surely would have.”
January 26, 2022
Too brisk and superficial for what I was expecting. Very little revealed here that wasn't already known. The purported enigma around Angleton is acknowledged as largely myth. Indeed, there doesn't seem to be much "behind" the personality of Angleton beyond what is described here: a top-level fascist-adjacent bureaucrat of limited imagination and authoritarian inclinations. Ten-a-penny in Yale, I'd imagine.
April 1, 2024
Audiobook. Glad I got some more contextual information regarding Lee Harvey Oswald and suspicions because of his defection in 1959 and activity in Mexico City. One of the most interesting parts was the section on the change in presidential administration to Nixon's, his Watergate scandal and how that finally changed things for the CIA and was ultimately also the undoing of our subject, though it was also interesting to learn of the Chiefs of Staff and the CIA were also pro-war with Fidel by proxy again the Soviet Union and made plans for it, but were thwarted by JFK's aversion towards confrontation against the Soviet Union and what was considered his appeasement of the bloc. Also the early days of the OSS and Angleton's assignments in protecting fascist leaders from judicial war crime indictments. Also, evidence of Israel's ongoing support from the CIA in developing their own secret service and Angleton was partial to the Israelis.
One thing I do regret about listening on audio is the discussion on pop culture legend of Angleton in media and novels that I would like to have a list of for reference for further reading.
He is referred to as poet-philosopher-spy because of his education and pedigree, as well as his close relationship with and great respect for poet Ezra Pound. Counterintelligence is to intelligence as epistemology is to philosophy, as a metaphor.
The narrator fit the narration and subject.
Now to attempt to get back to my physical copy of the biography of DCI director, James R. Clapper, a Maryland guy, even!
One thing I do regret about listening on audio is the discussion on pop culture legend of Angleton in media and novels that I would like to have a list of for reference for further reading.
He is referred to as poet-philosopher-spy because of his education and pedigree, as well as his close relationship with and great respect for poet Ezra Pound. Counterintelligence is to intelligence as epistemology is to philosophy, as a metaphor.
The narrator fit the narration and subject.
Now to attempt to get back to my physical copy of the biography of DCI director, James R. Clapper, a Maryland guy, even!
March 24, 2018
Thoroughly enjoyed this bio of a man who popped up throughout my early years of Watergate and Church Committee interest, but before I really was capable of getting down to the nitty-gritty. So here I am now with the most recent study of James Jesus Angleton.
I'll have to watch some interviews or footage from the Church hearings to get a better idea of Angleton, but Jefferson Morley does a great job of giving you a sense of looking over Jim's shoulder as he served the US and the CIA for his many decades.
A lot to absorb here for many, who probably don't even know the name of James Jesus Angleton, but we all should. WW II, Cold War, Lee Harvey Oswald, Kennedy Assassination, other assassination attempts, and Israel's nuclear program amongst many things all have spiderwebs reaching to Angleton.
One particular scene depicted, or should I say contrasted, is with the Fall of Angleton and Nixon we find Gerald Ford, Don Rumsfeld, and especially Dick Cheney propping up the 'unbridled power of presidential power' versus the constitutionalists in Congress who were trying to right the balance of powers. Cheney's wrote a memo that resulted in the Rockefeller Commission to attempt to circumvent any Congressional investigations post-Watergate. That commission was not successful due to the revelations regarding Angleton, Hoover's FBI, and the CIA's uncooperative actions with the Warren Commission.
At that point I saw Cheney as the new Jim Angleton, a point Morley underscores twenty pages later.
Jim Angleton is described by Morley as a 'Machiavelli, Svengali, and Iago' all rolled up into one.
I agree, and hope that I live long enough to read a similar book about Dick Cheney and his invasion into the mail and conversations of Americans.
I'll have to watch some interviews or footage from the Church hearings to get a better idea of Angleton, but Jefferson Morley does a great job of giving you a sense of looking over Jim's shoulder as he served the US and the CIA for his many decades.
A lot to absorb here for many, who probably don't even know the name of James Jesus Angleton, but we all should. WW II, Cold War, Lee Harvey Oswald, Kennedy Assassination, other assassination attempts, and Israel's nuclear program amongst many things all have spiderwebs reaching to Angleton.
One particular scene depicted, or should I say contrasted, is with the Fall of Angleton and Nixon we find Gerald Ford, Don Rumsfeld, and especially Dick Cheney propping up the 'unbridled power of presidential power' versus the constitutionalists in Congress who were trying to right the balance of powers. Cheney's wrote a memo that resulted in the Rockefeller Commission to attempt to circumvent any Congressional investigations post-Watergate. That commission was not successful due to the revelations regarding Angleton, Hoover's FBI, and the CIA's uncooperative actions with the Warren Commission.
At that point I saw Cheney as the new Jim Angleton, a point Morley underscores twenty pages later.
Jim Angleton is described by Morley as a 'Machiavelli, Svengali, and Iago' all rolled up into one.
I agree, and hope that I live long enough to read a similar book about Dick Cheney and his invasion into the mail and conversations of Americans.
July 26, 2021
There seems to be no one more responsible for the power, depth, and abuses of the CIA than Jim Angleton. And the profile is delivered with grace, aplomb, and candor by Morley. An essential book about the modern American empire.
December 13, 2017
I only made it through thirty pages before I called it quits. I do not like the author's style of writing at all. It was boring to me. The book needs editing help (funny that the author is an editor but he didn't edit his own writing) plus proofreading. I found so many mistakes with missing words and one section where it's 1939 and then August 1914 is thrown in only to go back to 1939. Too bad. I was really looking forward to reading this book.
May 19, 2018
This was a disappointment for me. The author's leftist politics kept coloring his analysis of a CIA legend. He kept attempting to expound his JFK assassination theories in this volume. In fairness, Morley writes well, but his personal prejudices eliminated the believability of his conclusions.
July 15, 2024
A cool crossover of literary and weird political stuff that scratched every itch in my weird brain. Really enjoyed it.
November 6, 2017
A Worthy Title—well worth the read.
A ‘Ghost’ is exactly how I’ve come to think of Jim Angleton. He’s long been a fascinating figure, one I (and apparently many more) have never completely figured out.
I highly recommend The Ghost to anyone who is interested in history, government & of course, Mr. Angleton himself.
Redundant as it may be to refer to Mr. Angleton as a fascinating character, that’s exactly what he is. From his upbringing in Boise, Idaho to becoming an internationally educated young man to his career in intelligence,one certainly can’t say he lived a dull life.
The author makes comparisons of Angleton to Machiavelli, Svengali & others. I must say they are extraordinarily on the mark. What made this guy tick? Was it the power? The intellectual game—brilliantly mad as he may have been? Creating a world unto himself through which even his closest ‘friends’ & associates never appear to have fully penetrated?
I’m guessing the answer is most likely some combination of the above, yet even with that, I believe you’ve only got the tip of the iceberg.
The only thing I’d love to know more about was Angleton’s family. Granted, his family life appears nearly non-existent, yet you can’t help but want to picture his wife Cicely & their children. One can’t help but wonder what they made of this man. Of course, I also understand & respect why they would opt for their privacy to remain such.
In any event, you can’t help but want to delve deeper in to Angleton’s head. For the better & the worse, I believe he contributed more to the US government than many realize. Having been born around the time he passed, I have known James Angleton only through books & similar. As a history geek, this is one book I highly recommend.
A ‘Ghost’ is exactly how I’ve come to think of Jim Angleton. He’s long been a fascinating figure, one I (and apparently many more) have never completely figured out.
I highly recommend The Ghost to anyone who is interested in history, government & of course, Mr. Angleton himself.
Redundant as it may be to refer to Mr. Angleton as a fascinating character, that’s exactly what he is. From his upbringing in Boise, Idaho to becoming an internationally educated young man to his career in intelligence,one certainly can’t say he lived a dull life.
The author makes comparisons of Angleton to Machiavelli, Svengali & others. I must say they are extraordinarily on the mark. What made this guy tick? Was it the power? The intellectual game—brilliantly mad as he may have been? Creating a world unto himself through which even his closest ‘friends’ & associates never appear to have fully penetrated?
I’m guessing the answer is most likely some combination of the above, yet even with that, I believe you’ve only got the tip of the iceberg.
The only thing I’d love to know more about was Angleton’s family. Granted, his family life appears nearly non-existent, yet you can’t help but want to picture his wife Cicely & their children. One can’t help but wonder what they made of this man. Of course, I also understand & respect why they would opt for their privacy to remain such.
In any event, you can’t help but want to delve deeper in to Angleton’s head. For the better & the worse, I believe he contributed more to the US government than many realize. Having been born around the time he passed, I have known James Angleton only through books & similar. As a history geek, this is one book I highly recommend.
June 18, 2021
Having never heard of Angleton, I wasn't sure what to expect from the book. Much of the time is spent touching on the events that the CIA was involved with during the 50s through 70s, though never in much depth. I suppose my lasting impression of the man, as relayed in the book, is that his purported genius was never conveyed. He seemed an intelligent man, but not in the way that would distinguish him as a one in a million type person. Rather he seemed like an intelligent but not perfect man, that ended up in a position to make very influential decisions. The status of his decisions appeared weightier than the man's intelligence, at least as far as Morley writes. For instance, the most noteworthy episode of his career was a mole hunt through the CIA which ultimately netted no foreign agents, but ruined the careers of several CIA employees, and hamstrung the real counter intelligence efforts of the agency. He apparently believed that the Sino-Soviet in fighting was a high level ruse to deceive the US intelligence agency, and felt that accepting movements which would later break down the Soviet block would lead to breakdowns in the armor which protected the US from the USSR. His handling of the Oswald file and the JFK assassination seems arrogant at best, and I couldn't help but think that what people viewed as his genius was not simply faulty ideas articulated so obtusely that people couldn't question them.
Morley portrays the so called "Kings Party" and "Constitutionalists" in a way that makes clear how the struggle for defining executive power has been a dominant theme in American political discourse.
This was a good two star book, and I was thankful for it being relatively concise.
Morley portrays the so called "Kings Party" and "Constitutionalists" in a way that makes clear how the struggle for defining executive power has been a dominant theme in American political discourse.
This was a good two star book, and I was thankful for it being relatively concise.
June 16, 2018
It was a quick read which was nice given that the subject matter of CIA/espionage can be pretty complex and detail oriented..but the author jumped from subject to subject without any real structure even though you did get a sense of the initial upward arc of Angleton's career and then the ultimate downward trajectory. It was odd that there was not more on soe of the early greats of the CIA from the era - Helms, Fitzgerald, Wisner, etc..as well as more on some of the contemporaries from the 1950s/1960s like the Bundy brothers, the Dulles brothers, etc. I got the sense that the author wanted to see Angleton skewered historically a bit more than he has been.
December 6, 2020
James Jesus Angleton, the chief of CIA Counterintelligence from the agency’s origins through much of the Cold War, deserves a full biography. The Ghost is not it. While the book is well sourced and good reading, it lacks much of the rich, idiosyncratic details that truly did make Angleton “the strangest CIA chief who ever lived.” And these anecdotes are available from those colleagues of his that are still around and willing to share this information as it does not reveal sources and methods that might still be classified. Too, the author’s biased approach obscures Angelton’s true legacy to the CIA and courts needless and inaccurate speculation.
January 15, 2021
I am like pretty sure I have a James Jesus Angleton biography on my bookshelves somewhere but couldn't find it so I snagged the first available one from the library.
I'm not sure why this book was written, I suspect the author is similarly unsure. It's on okay chronology but there's very little meaningful analysis and very little detail on any of James Angleton's work or his thought processes. Really nothing in this that isn't covered better elsewhere. Sorry Mr. Morley!
I'm not sure why this book was written, I suspect the author is similarly unsure. It's on okay chronology but there's very little meaningful analysis and very little detail on any of James Angleton's work or his thought processes. Really nothing in this that isn't covered better elsewhere. Sorry Mr. Morley!
July 2, 2020
this book goes back to the second world war and through the formation of the CIA and all the way through the counter culture years, to take you on a 30 year adventure on the nations most controversial and unknown counterintelligence operations. Definitely a must read if you are interested in the deep state of the government.
January 28, 2023
Informative, but dull and flat(?)
My last two reads were ‘The Spy and the Traitor’ and ‘A Spy Among Friends’ So getting through this book right after Ben Macintyre’s humorous and witty storytelling was difficult.
Won’t be reading more from this author.
My last two reads were ‘The Spy and the Traitor’ and ‘A Spy Among Friends’ So getting through this book right after Ben Macintyre’s humorous and witty storytelling was difficult.
Won’t be reading more from this author.
December 10, 2022
Angleton is vividly portrayed and the book does a fine job of encapsulating the overall weirdness of the Cold War.
Read
May 9, 2018James Angleton's real life is the most intriguing, moving, and at times shocking spy story in American history. In The Ghost, Jeff Morley has captured the man in all his brilliant and sometimes delusional eccentricity. Angleton is woven through many of the strangest episodes of the 1950s and 60s — including the Kennedy assassination — in what was invisible thread, until Morley’s book. A ‘must read’ for anyone who wants to understand just how strange and secretive the CIA was at the height of the Cold War.
David Ignatius, Columnist for The Washington Post and Author of The Director
The best book ever written about the strangest CIA chief who ever lived. No screenwriter or novelist could conjure a character like Angleton, but Morley's stellar reporting and superb writing animate every page of this work. It’s essential history and highly entertaining biography.
Tim Weiner, National Book Award Winning Author of Legacy of Ashes
Anyone interested in the CIA should not fail to read The Ghost. I encountered James Angleton time and again, not only in the course of research but, one memorable evening, literally. I say ‘memorable,’ but only because amongst hundreds of interviews I have conducted he indeed came over as a phantom, seemingly cooperative yet always inscrutable. Nobody has focused on him, mined what can be mined, as Jefferson Morley has now done. Essential reading for anyone intrigued by the vital mysteries of U.S. intelligence at a pivotal time in our history.
Anthony Summers, Pulitzer Prize Finalist for The Eleventh Day
Americans are finally coming to know the Cold War spymasters and other hidden figures who lived their lives in secrecy while shaping our national destiny. The Ghost reveals a fascinating chapter of this hidden history. It is a chilling look at the global power that is wielded in Washington by people who are never known — until a book comes out to spill their secrets.
Stephen Kinzer, Author of The Brothers
The Ghost is the compulsively readable, often bizarre true-life story of American spymaster James Jesus Angleton — the CIA’s poetry-loving, orchid-gardening mole-hunter for almost 20 years. Capturing the extent of Angleton’s eccentricity, duplicity and alcohol-fueled paranoia would have challenged the writing skills of a Le Carré or Ludlum, and Jeff Morley has done it with flair. This important book depicts the trail of wreckage left behind by Angleton in a CIA career that involved him in virtually every major spy-versus-spy drama of the Cold War and drew him deeply into the mysteries of the Kennedy assassination and the murder of one of JFK’s mistresses.
Philip Shenon, Author of A Cruel and Shocking Act
Jefferson Morley, an American investigative journalist, is the latest to try to wrestle Angleton from the layers of mystery that surround him, and he does a fine job of filleting out the man’s talents and charisma from the dark deeds he committed … Morley adeptly builds a picture of a spymaster weaving a web in which his concept of duty gradually eroded his moral sense.
Ben Macintyre, The Times
Transcending mere thriller comparisons, this gripping read is filled with descriptions of events that sometimes beggar belief and open the reader's eyes to a world that often has much greater influence on world politics that we might realise. The Ghost is compulsory reading for anyone interested in contemporary history, American politics and the mysteries of the 20th century secret intelligence community.
All About History
This is the book to read if you’ve ever doubted the extent to which powerful countries can meddle or if you’ve ever naively disbelieved that the CIA has a reprehensible record of interference, both domestically and internationally.
The Listener
A fascinating insight into a murky, labyrinthine world, one which ultimately trapped the man who built it.
Daily Telegraph
David Ignatius, Columnist for The Washington Post and Author of The Director
The best book ever written about the strangest CIA chief who ever lived. No screenwriter or novelist could conjure a character like Angleton, but Morley's stellar reporting and superb writing animate every page of this work. It’s essential history and highly entertaining biography.
Tim Weiner, National Book Award Winning Author of Legacy of Ashes
Anyone interested in the CIA should not fail to read The Ghost. I encountered James Angleton time and again, not only in the course of research but, one memorable evening, literally. I say ‘memorable,’ but only because amongst hundreds of interviews I have conducted he indeed came over as a phantom, seemingly cooperative yet always inscrutable. Nobody has focused on him, mined what can be mined, as Jefferson Morley has now done. Essential reading for anyone intrigued by the vital mysteries of U.S. intelligence at a pivotal time in our history.
Anthony Summers, Pulitzer Prize Finalist for The Eleventh Day
Americans are finally coming to know the Cold War spymasters and other hidden figures who lived their lives in secrecy while shaping our national destiny. The Ghost reveals a fascinating chapter of this hidden history. It is a chilling look at the global power that is wielded in Washington by people who are never known — until a book comes out to spill their secrets.
Stephen Kinzer, Author of The Brothers
The Ghost is the compulsively readable, often bizarre true-life story of American spymaster James Jesus Angleton — the CIA’s poetry-loving, orchid-gardening mole-hunter for almost 20 years. Capturing the extent of Angleton’s eccentricity, duplicity and alcohol-fueled paranoia would have challenged the writing skills of a Le Carré or Ludlum, and Jeff Morley has done it with flair. This important book depicts the trail of wreckage left behind by Angleton in a CIA career that involved him in virtually every major spy-versus-spy drama of the Cold War and drew him deeply into the mysteries of the Kennedy assassination and the murder of one of JFK’s mistresses.
Philip Shenon, Author of A Cruel and Shocking Act
Jefferson Morley, an American investigative journalist, is the latest to try to wrestle Angleton from the layers of mystery that surround him, and he does a fine job of filleting out the man’s talents and charisma from the dark deeds he committed … Morley adeptly builds a picture of a spymaster weaving a web in which his concept of duty gradually eroded his moral sense.
Ben Macintyre, The Times
Transcending mere thriller comparisons, this gripping read is filled with descriptions of events that sometimes beggar belief and open the reader's eyes to a world that often has much greater influence on world politics that we might realise. The Ghost is compulsory reading for anyone interested in contemporary history, American politics and the mysteries of the 20th century secret intelligence community.
All About History
This is the book to read if you’ve ever doubted the extent to which powerful countries can meddle or if you’ve ever naively disbelieved that the CIA has a reprehensible record of interference, both domestically and internationally.
The Listener
A fascinating insight into a murky, labyrinthine world, one which ultimately trapped the man who built it.
Daily Telegraph
January 5, 2018
Why read a fictional thriller when you can read about the real thing?
James Jesus Angleton was a spy master. OK, he was a counter-intelligence spy master.
Growing up, he knew privilege, culture, and education. He had a brain and knew how to use it. He decided to use it in the field of counter-intelligence. Angleton was trained in the field by the best, and he counted Kim Philby (yes, that Kim Philby) as a personal friend. He learned to work the angles and be the best in the world at running the system behind the scenes. Oh, and don't forget: ruthless, cunning, devious, cut-throat, and sneaky.
I actually remember the demise of Angleton's career in 1974. The cold war took down a lot of people, and above all, he deserved it.
What a chilling picture of a time in the not-so-distant past.
James Jesus Angleton was a spy master. OK, he was a counter-intelligence spy master.
Growing up, he knew privilege, culture, and education. He had a brain and knew how to use it. He decided to use it in the field of counter-intelligence. Angleton was trained in the field by the best, and he counted Kim Philby (yes, that Kim Philby) as a personal friend. He learned to work the angles and be the best in the world at running the system behind the scenes. Oh, and don't forget: ruthless, cunning, devious, cut-throat, and sneaky.
I actually remember the demise of Angleton's career in 1974. The cold war took down a lot of people, and above all, he deserved it.
What a chilling picture of a time in the not-so-distant past.
June 19, 2024
god, this was so interesting… obvious disclaimer he was a terrible person et cetera et cetera but this book was SO good. it was very well written and i enjoyed it a lot. i need to read more books about this time period
January 21, 2023
If only Morley didn't let himself get sidetracked into the rabbitholes of JFK/RFK conspiracy theories, this would rate far nearer to four stars. As it is, every so often Morley lets out with a "Tally ho" and hares off on a wild tangent, to return tangled up and sweaty and try to pick up the threads. An interesting read, anyhow.
May 22, 2024
Henry Kissinger shows up in histories of American atrocities like Stan Lee shows up in Marvel movies. As short as the cameo may be, you know the whole thing wouldn't have been possible without him
October 19, 2025
“Fundamentally the founding fathers of US intelligence were liars. These people attracted and promoted each other. The only other thing they had in common was a desire for absolute power. You were in a room full of people that you had to believe would deservedly end up in hell. I guess I will see them there soon.”
“In January 2015 the notion that a deep state shaped American politics was largely unknown.”
East Corker
The ghost creates a climate of deceitfulness, paranoia, and mutual denunciation
NUMEC was a front company deployed in an Israeli-American criminal conspiracy to evade US nonproliferation laws and supply the Israeli nuclear material.”
If the ambush in Dallas had been properly planned by CIA men, even other CIA men would not have been able to figure out who had done it.”
Whoever killed JKF, Angleton protected them. He masterminded the JFK conspiracy coverup.”
Had there been a real Sasha, he could not have done as much damage to the clandestine services group as this phantom Sasha.”
Counterintelligence was both a body of knowledge and a way of seeing the world.”
To interpret the enemy’s communications and its documents required teasing meaning from texts that were filled with the kind of ambiguities Empson delineated in poetry.”
KGB deception as: wilderness of mirrors. The more reliable a source appeared to be, the more likely he was to be a soviet agent. It was poetry of sorts.
The New Critics were a cohort of literature professor who converged on Yale in the 1930.
Norman Holmes Pearson
William Donovan (OSS)
He and Cicely got married at a church outside Fort Custer, an unromantic beginning to a troubled lifelong commitment.
Working undercover, George Hunter White relished breaking the law in order to enforce it.
Mentors: Norman Pearson and Harold (Kim) Philby
He believed that a counterespionage service had to have insatiable appetite for information about foreign activities so as to be in a position to restrict, eliminate, or control the ways by which other states collected their intelligence.”
Analytic skills forged in Yale literary criticism and secret intelligence training imparted by British SIS.
Walter Rauff helped design the Black Raven gas wagons…killed 250,000…he lived as a free man for the rest of his life.”
William King Harvey identified a network of supposedly loyal Americans who were actually reporting to Moscow.”
Monsignor Montini would become Pope Paul VI
Ninotchka- Greta Garbo
OPC: wage political warfare, to manipulate the enemy’s reality without disclosing the CIAs hand.”
No matter how closely two intelligence agencies may cooperate, there are always things which are withheld. There is the in simple nature of things, a constant jockeying for advantage…it arouses no ill will but is an accepted terrain for judging a man’s professional abilities.”
The greater the trust between us overtly, the less he would suspect covert action.”
Jim never reacted to anything.
Once a Communist, always a Communist. Teddy Kolleck
He thought the Soviet intelligence service would use Israel as a way station for inserting spies into the West.”
1950: Reuven Shiloah the founder of Israel’s first intelligence organization Mossad visited Washington
He had an uncanny understanding of how other people thought, perhaps the most important skill a counterintelligence officer can possess.
Operation Balsam.
Operation Bluebird
Like Angelton, Dulles preferred collaborating with fascists to enabling Communists
NSAs VENONA program, which deciphered Soviet Communications , the KGB had cultivated an extensive network of informants in America’s institutions.”
The CIA had pumped $5million into Poland in support of an anti-Communist army called WiN. In December 1952, Poles went public with their ruse, revealing there was no anti-Communist opposition.”
1956: Israeli-British-French claim to protect Suez Canal and overthrow Nasser regime
The patient game of waiting silent for the trusting quarry to expose itself, that is the game of fishing Jim Angleton played in the summer.”
LINGUAL: 1952. Scan exterior of mail. ProjectHUNTER: FBI. COINTELPRO
Angleton countered that the obvious clues did not necessarily provide the best answers to counterintelligence problems.
Angleton a fixation on the mole started around 1960, after Popov’s then-unexplained compromise.”
Angleton controlled the CIAs file on Oswald for 4 years— from his defection in October 1959 until his death in November 1963.”
As soon as the Agency received 3 incoming reports on a person, it was time to open a 201 file.”
Henry Gromberg: 1960. January 31, 1961: The secrecy and deception surrounding the undertaking at Dimona suggest that it is intended at least in part for the production of weapons grade uranium.“
Castro and Guevara fully expected the US to mount a Guatemala-style operation against them. They took every defensive measure: shut down anti-government radio stations and newspapers; organized armed civilian militias and neighborhood watch groups; mobilize population.”
Angleton and most other CIA men assumed JFK would authorize air support for BoP invasion.”
ZR-RIFLE: CIA should recruit a gunman from the ranks of organized crime and an assasin should have no roots or contacts in the place where he did the killing.”
The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
No intelligence service can for very long be any better than its counterintelligence component.
Peter Karlow
The goal was a KGB strategy that would affect the fundamental reasoning power of the Western powers.”
Angleton accepted at face value virtually every judgement Golitsyn rendered over more than a decade.”
Yuri Nosenko
Penkovsky Papers: Soviet Union was installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. San Cristobal
The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, was the most dangerous moment in the history of the world.“
JFKs refusal to go to war in October 1962 despite the advice of the Joint Chiefs stoked the mood of rebellion that already pervaded the councils of US national security agencies.”
These brass hats have one great advantage in their favor. If we do what they want us to do, none of us will be alive later to tell them that they were wrong.” JFK
The President feared that 186 years of constitutional government in the US was in jeopardy. A military coup was a real possibility. The American military could get out of control.”
Jim had thought his friend would be cleared and would return to the top of SIS. He disbelieved Bill Harvey and JE Hoover, both of whom insisted Philby was a Red.”
Over suspicion can sometimes have more tragic results that over-credulity. His tragedy as that he was so often deceived by his own ingenuity and the consequences were often disastrous.” Nicholas Elliot
His convoluted certitudes, soaked in alcohol, wild eventually bring him to the brink of being a fool.”
May 1, 1963: Operation Northwoods
They believed the gunshot had come from in front of the motorcade, from the grassy knoll.”
In Columbus, Mississippi high school students cheered the death of the liberal president and a teacher orders her class to sing Dixie in gratitude.”
He considered Angleton as mentally unstable, drunken, and conspiratorial.”
The FBI report confirmed the story of a lone gunman who acted for no apparent reason.”
Angleton chose not to investigate, tantamount to obstruction of Justice. He knew about the AMLASH plot and its possible compromise.
A serious counter-espionage investigation of LHO would have uncovered Angletons abiding interest in him. It would have uncovered the various operations to kill Castro and angletons knowledge of them.”
Many more princes are seen to have lost their lives and states through these plots than by open war. For being able to make open war on a prince is granted to few; to be able to conspire against them is granted to everyone.”
The isotopic signature of the radioactive deposits on the plants he collected near the Dimona site. The plant samples indicated a radiation source of 97.7% enriched uranium.
Amos de Shalit; Asher Ben-Natan
The Israelis had stolen highly enriched uranium for the Dimona reactor from NUMEC(David Lowenthal). The unexplained losses at the Apollo plant were the result of a heist.”
They would prevail quickly over Egypt and other Arab armies because of their superior weapons, training, and discipline.”
USS Liberty was an NSA ship, a covert listening ship taken off the African coast , propositioned just before the Israelis attack (6 day war), off the Egyptian coast, in international waters. NSA, CIA, state department, pentagon didn’t know.”
What is so chilling and cold-blooded is that they could kill as many Americans as they did in confidence that Washington would cooperate in quelling any public outcry.”
Operation CHAOS: hydra computer system; spy on and infiltrate the entire anti-war movement
Their methods were sloppy, speculative, and not subject to review. The mole hunt had become a witch hunt.”
Garrison Group sought to gauge what Garrison had learned about CIA operations in New Orleans in the summer of 1963, a point of vulnerability for both Helms and Angleton.”
Rafi Eitan and scientists had visited the NUMEC plant in 1968 disguised as nuclear scientists.”
Angleton had admired the fascist ideal of a strong cooperative state with some communal ownership of property and a leading role for the church.”
Jim virtually destroyed counterintelligence at CIA.
Angleton was getting to the point where he had some difficulty separating reality from fiction.”
“…abiding contempt in Washington and Jerusalem for the political posturing and fighting skills of the Arabs.”
Clare Edward Petty concluded Angleton was either a giant fraud or a KGB agent.”
Speculation as counterintelligence: Petty took a semi plausible scenario based on a superficial fact pattern and used it to confirm a logical conclusion that flowed from untested assumptions.”
19th century pastime in American politics of hurling feline corpses during appearances of rival candidates.
Nixon resignation, Angleton resignation, CIA Assassinations
Angel ton insisted that Nosenko was not merely a controlled agent but that he was sent to protect a source working inside the CIA on a daily basis in 1963 and for many years after
The FBI used CIA information to harass leftists, liberals, and civil rights leaders from 1956 to 1974. Angleton was the ghost of COINTELPRO.
Angleton was a ghost in the domestic politics of Italy and Great Britain.”
1970: Salvatore Allende in Chile
“In January 2015 the notion that a deep state shaped American politics was largely unknown.”
East Corker
The ghost creates a climate of deceitfulness, paranoia, and mutual denunciation
NUMEC was a front company deployed in an Israeli-American criminal conspiracy to evade US nonproliferation laws and supply the Israeli nuclear material.”
If the ambush in Dallas had been properly planned by CIA men, even other CIA men would not have been able to figure out who had done it.”
Whoever killed JKF, Angleton protected them. He masterminded the JFK conspiracy coverup.”
Had there been a real Sasha, he could not have done as much damage to the clandestine services group as this phantom Sasha.”
Counterintelligence was both a body of knowledge and a way of seeing the world.”
To interpret the enemy’s communications and its documents required teasing meaning from texts that were filled with the kind of ambiguities Empson delineated in poetry.”
KGB deception as: wilderness of mirrors. The more reliable a source appeared to be, the more likely he was to be a soviet agent. It was poetry of sorts.
The New Critics were a cohort of literature professor who converged on Yale in the 1930.
Norman Holmes Pearson
William Donovan (OSS)
He and Cicely got married at a church outside Fort Custer, an unromantic beginning to a troubled lifelong commitment.
Working undercover, George Hunter White relished breaking the law in order to enforce it.
Mentors: Norman Pearson and Harold (Kim) Philby
He believed that a counterespionage service had to have insatiable appetite for information about foreign activities so as to be in a position to restrict, eliminate, or control the ways by which other states collected their intelligence.”
Analytic skills forged in Yale literary criticism and secret intelligence training imparted by British SIS.
Walter Rauff helped design the Black Raven gas wagons…killed 250,000…he lived as a free man for the rest of his life.”
William King Harvey identified a network of supposedly loyal Americans who were actually reporting to Moscow.”
Monsignor Montini would become Pope Paul VI
Ninotchka- Greta Garbo
OPC: wage political warfare, to manipulate the enemy’s reality without disclosing the CIAs hand.”
No matter how closely two intelligence agencies may cooperate, there are always things which are withheld. There is the in simple nature of things, a constant jockeying for advantage…it arouses no ill will but is an accepted terrain for judging a man’s professional abilities.”
The greater the trust between us overtly, the less he would suspect covert action.”
Jim never reacted to anything.
Once a Communist, always a Communist. Teddy Kolleck
He thought the Soviet intelligence service would use Israel as a way station for inserting spies into the West.”
1950: Reuven Shiloah the founder of Israel’s first intelligence organization Mossad visited Washington
He had an uncanny understanding of how other people thought, perhaps the most important skill a counterintelligence officer can possess.
Operation Balsam.
Operation Bluebird
Like Angelton, Dulles preferred collaborating with fascists to enabling Communists
NSAs VENONA program, which deciphered Soviet Communications , the KGB had cultivated an extensive network of informants in America’s institutions.”
The CIA had pumped $5million into Poland in support of an anti-Communist army called WiN. In December 1952, Poles went public with their ruse, revealing there was no anti-Communist opposition.”
1956: Israeli-British-French claim to protect Suez Canal and overthrow Nasser regime
The patient game of waiting silent for the trusting quarry to expose itself, that is the game of fishing Jim Angleton played in the summer.”
LINGUAL: 1952. Scan exterior of mail. ProjectHUNTER: FBI. COINTELPRO
Angleton countered that the obvious clues did not necessarily provide the best answers to counterintelligence problems.
Angleton a fixation on the mole started around 1960, after Popov’s then-unexplained compromise.”
Angleton controlled the CIAs file on Oswald for 4 years— from his defection in October 1959 until his death in November 1963.”
As soon as the Agency received 3 incoming reports on a person, it was time to open a 201 file.”
Henry Gromberg: 1960. January 31, 1961: The secrecy and deception surrounding the undertaking at Dimona suggest that it is intended at least in part for the production of weapons grade uranium.“
Castro and Guevara fully expected the US to mount a Guatemala-style operation against them. They took every defensive measure: shut down anti-government radio stations and newspapers; organized armed civilian militias and neighborhood watch groups; mobilize population.”
Angleton and most other CIA men assumed JFK would authorize air support for BoP invasion.”
ZR-RIFLE: CIA should recruit a gunman from the ranks of organized crime and an assasin should have no roots or contacts in the place where he did the killing.”
The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
No intelligence service can for very long be any better than its counterintelligence component.
Peter Karlow
The goal was a KGB strategy that would affect the fundamental reasoning power of the Western powers.”
Angleton accepted at face value virtually every judgement Golitsyn rendered over more than a decade.”
Yuri Nosenko
Penkovsky Papers: Soviet Union was installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. San Cristobal
The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, was the most dangerous moment in the history of the world.“
JFKs refusal to go to war in October 1962 despite the advice of the Joint Chiefs stoked the mood of rebellion that already pervaded the councils of US national security agencies.”
These brass hats have one great advantage in their favor. If we do what they want us to do, none of us will be alive later to tell them that they were wrong.” JFK
The President feared that 186 years of constitutional government in the US was in jeopardy. A military coup was a real possibility. The American military could get out of control.”
Jim had thought his friend would be cleared and would return to the top of SIS. He disbelieved Bill Harvey and JE Hoover, both of whom insisted Philby was a Red.”
Over suspicion can sometimes have more tragic results that over-credulity. His tragedy as that he was so often deceived by his own ingenuity and the consequences were often disastrous.” Nicholas Elliot
His convoluted certitudes, soaked in alcohol, wild eventually bring him to the brink of being a fool.”
May 1, 1963: Operation Northwoods
They believed the gunshot had come from in front of the motorcade, from the grassy knoll.”
In Columbus, Mississippi high school students cheered the death of the liberal president and a teacher orders her class to sing Dixie in gratitude.”
He considered Angleton as mentally unstable, drunken, and conspiratorial.”
The FBI report confirmed the story of a lone gunman who acted for no apparent reason.”
Angleton chose not to investigate, tantamount to obstruction of Justice. He knew about the AMLASH plot and its possible compromise.
A serious counter-espionage investigation of LHO would have uncovered Angletons abiding interest in him. It would have uncovered the various operations to kill Castro and angletons knowledge of them.”
Many more princes are seen to have lost their lives and states through these plots than by open war. For being able to make open war on a prince is granted to few; to be able to conspire against them is granted to everyone.”
The isotopic signature of the radioactive deposits on the plants he collected near the Dimona site. The plant samples indicated a radiation source of 97.7% enriched uranium.
Amos de Shalit; Asher Ben-Natan
The Israelis had stolen highly enriched uranium for the Dimona reactor from NUMEC(David Lowenthal). The unexplained losses at the Apollo plant were the result of a heist.”
They would prevail quickly over Egypt and other Arab armies because of their superior weapons, training, and discipline.”
USS Liberty was an NSA ship, a covert listening ship taken off the African coast , propositioned just before the Israelis attack (6 day war), off the Egyptian coast, in international waters. NSA, CIA, state department, pentagon didn’t know.”
What is so chilling and cold-blooded is that they could kill as many Americans as they did in confidence that Washington would cooperate in quelling any public outcry.”
Operation CHAOS: hydra computer system; spy on and infiltrate the entire anti-war movement
Their methods were sloppy, speculative, and not subject to review. The mole hunt had become a witch hunt.”
Garrison Group sought to gauge what Garrison had learned about CIA operations in New Orleans in the summer of 1963, a point of vulnerability for both Helms and Angleton.”
Rafi Eitan and scientists had visited the NUMEC plant in 1968 disguised as nuclear scientists.”
Angleton had admired the fascist ideal of a strong cooperative state with some communal ownership of property and a leading role for the church.”
Jim virtually destroyed counterintelligence at CIA.
Angleton was getting to the point where he had some difficulty separating reality from fiction.”
“…abiding contempt in Washington and Jerusalem for the political posturing and fighting skills of the Arabs.”
Clare Edward Petty concluded Angleton was either a giant fraud or a KGB agent.”
Speculation as counterintelligence: Petty took a semi plausible scenario based on a superficial fact pattern and used it to confirm a logical conclusion that flowed from untested assumptions.”
19th century pastime in American politics of hurling feline corpses during appearances of rival candidates.
Nixon resignation, Angleton resignation, CIA Assassinations
Angel ton insisted that Nosenko was not merely a controlled agent but that he was sent to protect a source working inside the CIA on a daily basis in 1963 and for many years after
The FBI used CIA information to harass leftists, liberals, and civil rights leaders from 1956 to 1974. Angleton was the ghost of COINTELPRO.
Angleton was a ghost in the domestic politics of Italy and Great Britain.”
1970: Salvatore Allende in Chile
October 4, 2021
CIA spymaster and fellow Yalie Jim Angleton amassed so much power in the late 1960s that even today, it isn't clear and never will be clear how much power he actually had. The Ghost is the story of his life and career.
Jim made his own foreign policy, lied to multiple presidents, and generally answered to no one. In his own words: "It is inconceivable that a secret arm of the government has to comply with all the overt orders of the government".
I think there is a non-trivial chance Angleton was complicit in the assassination of JFK. Again: we will never know.
Yale and Harvard staged an American coup in the 1950s and haven't given up power since. FDR's administrative agencies are no where contemplated in the Constitution but since the postwar period have everywhere gained the ability to spend your tax dollars, create new laws, and adjudicate adherence to those laws. Administrative agencies run by career bureaucrats from elite schools run the country, not us. Angleton is a product of the system.
Anyone else want to help me roll back Chevron doctrine?
Jim made his own foreign policy, lied to multiple presidents, and generally answered to no one. In his own words: "It is inconceivable that a secret arm of the government has to comply with all the overt orders of the government".
I think there is a non-trivial chance Angleton was complicit in the assassination of JFK. Again: we will never know.
Yale and Harvard staged an American coup in the 1950s and haven't given up power since. FDR's administrative agencies are no where contemplated in the Constitution but since the postwar period have everywhere gained the ability to spend your tax dollars, create new laws, and adjudicate adherence to those laws. Administrative agencies run by career bureaucrats from elite schools run the country, not us. Angleton is a product of the system.
Anyone else want to help me roll back Chevron doctrine?
October 21, 2025
Good book, terrible dude
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