Wedge: The Secret War Between the FBI and CIA

by Mark Riebling

Drawing on recently declassified documents, a provocative look at the intense and bitter rivalry between the FBI and CIA examines the history of the conflict and assesses its damaging impact on American counterintelligence. 25,000 first printing. Tour.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Conspiracy Theories, American, American History, Military Fiction

563 pages, Hardcover

First published October 18, 1994

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a history of the often conflictual relations between the FBI and CIA since the beginning of WWII. The roots of the conflict are, in part, systemic. The FBI is a police agency and its aim is to produce convictions in open court. The CIA is an intelligence agency and its aim is to uncover the secrets of others while retaining its own. Beyond this, however, conflicts have also arisen because of the tendencies of both agencies to overstep their mandates and the law itself, tendencies exacerbated by the criminality of some of their foremost figures, most particularly J. Edgar Hoover, and in the case of the CIA, because of its effective function as an virtually unregulated arm of the Presidency and because of its historical penchant for operations far in excess of its original mandate to collect and analyze foreign intelligence. By its very nature the CIA tends to be a criminal organization of the kind the FBI is required to bring to justice, particularly as regards the (illegal) domestic side of its operations.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book for anyone who is interested in history, national security and foreign affairs. What is amazing is that, if you believe what your read in the book, most of the major catastrophes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries could have been averted if the FBI and CIA had communicated with one another. However, what is also painfully apparent from the book is that CIA and FBI missions are almost diametrically opposed. FBI favors working within the law to expose illegal activities and obtain prosecutions, whereas the CIA often needs to work outside of the law to protect and cover up criminal activities in order to develop or maintain sources of information. The result, as the book demonstrates, has been a break down in communications on vital foreign policy matters.

[Elijah Swedlow · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book if you are into a wonky - 'in the weed' - dive into the politics and culture of national security organizations.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 2 out of 5]

James Angleton

Aftermath

The late 1970s were generally a period of upheaval for the CIA. During George H. W. Bush's tenure as Director, President Ford authorized the creation of Team B, a project concluding that the Agency and the intelligence community had seriously underestimated Soviet strategic nuclear strength in Central Europe. Admiral Stansfield Turner, on his appointment as DCI by President Jimmy Carter in 1977, used Angleton as an example of the excesses in the Agency that he hoped to curb. He referred to this during his service and in his memoirs.

Because of their suspicions, Angleton and his staff ultimately impeded the career advancement of numerous CIA employees. Forty employees are said to have been investigated and fourteen were considered serious suspects by Angleton's staff. The CIA paid compensation to three under what Agency employees termed the "Mole Relief Act".

With Golitsyn, Angleton continued to seek out moles. They sought the assistance of William F. Buckley, Jr. (himself a former CIA asset) to write New Lies for Old, which argued that the Soviet Union planned to fake a collapse to lull its enemies into a false sense of victory, but Buckley refused.

In his 1994 book Wedge: The Secret War between the FBI and CIA, author Mark Riebling claimed that of 194 predictions made in New Lies For Old, 139 had been fulfilled by 1993, nine seemed "clearly wrong", and the other 46 were "not soon falsifiable".

...............

Angleton also believed that the strategic calculations underlying the resumption of relations with China were flawed based on a deceptive KGB staging of the Sino-Soviet split. He went so far as to speculate that Henry Kissinger might be under KGB influence.

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Angleton's position in the CIA and his close relationship with Director Richard Helms in particular expanded his influence, and as it grew, the CIA split between Angletonians and anti-Angletonians.

This conflict rose in particular regard to Anatoliy Golitsyn and Yuri Nosenko, who defected from the Soviet Union to the United States in 1961 and 1964, respectively.

After Golitsyn raised the possibility of serious infiltration with MI5 in a subsequent debriefing, MI5 shared the concern with Angleton. He responded by asking Helms to allow him to take responsibility for Golitsyn and his further debriefing. Golitsyn ultimately informed on many famous Soviet agents, including the Cambridge Five, which led to their apprehension.

Angleton identified Golitsyn as "the most valuable defector ever to reach the West".

However, other allegations Golitsyn made, including that Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Harold Wilson was a Soviet agent and that the Sino-Soviet split was a "charade," were ultimately found to be false.

.........

Nosenko spent an additional four months in a ten-foot by ten-foot concrete bunker in Camp Peary. He was told that this condition would continue for 25 years unless he confessed to being a Soviet spy.

Nosenko did not appear to have shaken Angleton's faith in Golitsyn, although Helms and J. Edgar Hoover thought otherwise. Hoover's objections are said to have been so vehement as to severely curtail counterintelligence cooperation between the FBI and CIA for the remainder of Hoover's service as FBI director.

Nosenko was found to be a legitimate defector, a lieutenant colonel. He became a consultant to the CIA.

Golitsyn, who had defected years before, was unable to provide concrete support for his views of the KGB.

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Angleton came into increasing conflict with the rest of the Agency, particularly the Directorate of Operations, over the efficacy of their intelligence-gathering efforts. He questioned this without explaining his broader views on KGB strategy and organization.

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Suspicion of foreign leaders

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Angleton privately accused various foreign leaders of being Soviet spies.

He twice informed the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that he believed Prime Minister Lester Pearson and his successor Pierre Trudeau were agents of the Soviet Union.

Angleton accused Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, and British Prime Minister Harold Wilson of being assets for the Soviet Union.

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Church Committee and resignation

In 1973, William Colby was named Director of Central Intelligence by Richard Nixon. Colby reorganized the CIA in an effort to curb Angleton's influence and weaken the Counterintelligence branch, beginning by stripping him of control over the Israel desk. Colby demanded Angleton's resignation.

Angleton came to public attention when the Church Committee (formally the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) probed the CIA for information on domestic surveillance, specifically the operation known as HT Lingual, as well as assassination plots and the death of John F. Kennedy.

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In December 1974, Seymour Hersh published a story in The New York Times about domestic counter-intelligence activities against anti-war protesters and other domestic dissidents.

Angleton's resignation was announced on Christmas Eve 1974, just as President Gerald Ford demanded Director Colby report on the allegations and various Congressional committees announced that they would launch their own inquiries.

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Legacy

In time, Angleton's zeal and suspicions came to be regarded as counterproductive, if not destructive. In the wake of his departure, counterintelligence efforts were undertaken with far less enthusiasm.

Three books dealing with Angleton take foreign intelligence activities, counterintelligence and domestic intelligence activities as their central theme:

Tom Mangold's Cold Warrior
David C. Martin's Wilderness of Mirrors
David Wise's Molehunt

Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes paints Angleton as an incompetent alcoholic.

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These views have been challenged by Tennent H. Bagley in his 2007 book, Spy Wars, and Mark Riebling in his 1994 book, Wedge. John M. Newman, in his 2022 book, Uncovering Popov's Mole, characterizes Angleton as a man lacking self-confidence and who required a father figure. Newman claims that Angleton was duped by at least two KGB moles: Kim Philby in MI6 and Bruce Solie in the Office of Security. Newman also suggests that Leonard V. McCoy in the Soviet Russia Division's Reports & Requirements section may have been a mole.[49]

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Slightly odd and unusual?

The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton
by Jefferson Morley

"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.

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.

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Why Riesling feels that a tally of the sometimes Criswell Predicts! level of some lunatic defector who worked with a lunatic head of counterintelligence is beyond me.

Personally I think the Sci-Fi predictions in Stand on Zanzibar is more interesting, and it shows how prediction can sometimes be pretty good of you're well-read.

lunatic or sane

[Damon T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book albeit frightening and disappointing. I did have a hard time following it in some sections as it jumped back and forth in time making it hard to sometimes keep a chronology in the back of my mind.

[Patrick Farrell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really not that interesting. For a book about a war between the CIA and FBI I would have expected more conflict. Long parts were just the 2 on parallel paths. I probably should have stopped reading early on.

[Jack Coleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spies you are lights in state,
but base stuffe,
Who,when when you have burt your selves down to the snuffe,
Stinke and are thrown away.
Ben Johnson epigram LIX

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