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James Jesus Angleton: Was He Right? An EJE Original Kindle Edition

by Edward Jay Epstein (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 143 ratings
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A new biography of James Jesus Angleton by Edward Jay Epstein that asks the question: was he right after all? Angleton was the legendary head of CIA counterintelligence during most of the Cold War.. In May 1987, in one of his last phone calls, he told Dick Cheney, who was then a member of the House Intelligence Committee, that he needed to tell him in person something of vital importance. Even though Angleton died before the scheduled meeting, taking this secret to the grave with him, his mystery lived on.
John Le Carre could not have invented a character as intriguing as Angleton. He was ridiculed in the media, Congress, and in the CIA itself, when his mole hunt failed to find a spy in the CIA Investigative journalist Edward Jay Epstein tells of his rise, fall, and the astounding revelations that emerged in the CIA after his death. Epstein .spent hundreds of hours interviewing him to understand the mind of this unique mind warrior. He met with him in orchid greenhouses in Kensington, Maryland, dining clubs in Washington DC, and his home in Tucson, Arizona to follow the convoluted layers of his universe of deception. Epstein also was one of the few journalist to interview his arch nemesis: Yuri Nosenko. In this extraordinary book, he sets out to answer a single question: Was Angleton right that the CIA had been penetrated?
Along the way we also learn much about the CIA and KGB during the cold war years, including:

+ Why KGB defector Yuri Nosenko was imprisoned by the CIA ...

+ What was Angleton’s role in the CIA assassination plots against Castro ...

+ How the CIA allowed the KGB to disinform two Presidents.

+ What weaknesses KGB spies Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen exposed in the CIA
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  1. Print length
    109 pages
  2. Language
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  4. Publication date
    December 28, 2013
  5. File size
    1239 KB
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Edward Jay Epstein is the author of fifteen books. He studied government at Cornell and Harvard and received a Ph.D from Harvard in 1973. His thesis on the search for political truth became a best-selling book, Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth. His doctoral dissertation on television news was published as News From Nowhere. He is the recipient of numerous foundation grants and awards, including the prestigious Financial Times/Booz Allen & Hamilton Global Business Book Award for both best biography and best business book for Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer. He has written for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal. He lives in New York City.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B005LPE5SC
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ EJE Publications (December 28, 2013)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 28, 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1239 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 109 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1495203476
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 143 ratings

About the author

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Edward Jay Epstein

Edward Jay Epstein

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I studied government at Cornell and Harvard, and received a Ph.D from Harvard in 1973. My master's thesis on the search for political truth ("Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth" and my doctoral dissertation ("News From Nowhere") were both published as books. I taught political science at MIT and UCLA. I have now written 14 books. My website www.edwardjayepstein.com)

Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
3.9 out of 5
143 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Roger J. Buffington
5.0 out of 5 stars A persuasive and powerful look at one of America's great intelligence officers
Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2011
Verified Purchase
James Jesus Angleton was a legend in his own time, and his legend lives on. He started his intelligence career with the storied Office of Strategic Services and later became the CIA's Chief of Counter-Intelligence. In this latter role Angleton passionately believed that his mission was to protect the CIA and other intelligence agencies against the danger of foreign (KGB/Soviet) penetration. He believed that the KGB was working relentlessly to infiltrate the CIA in order to: a) prevent the CIA from gathering meaningful intelligence against the Soviet Union; and b) affect the CIA's perception of the Soviets in a manner that would cause the CIA to misdirect the US president and government. It is notorious that Angleton was himself taken in by British traitor Kim Philby, with whom Angleton shared secrets while Philby was spying for Russia. After this debacle (and perhaps even before) Angleton believed that there were Soviet penetration agents embedded in the CIA ("moles") and he worked to root them out. In doing so, Angleton wrecked careers and made enemies. Too many enemies, as it turned out. Eventually others within CIA turned against Angleton and believed that his "paranoia" was itself nullifying the effectiveness of the agency. Ultimately he was forced out.

This book takes a candid look at the above controversy and comes down solidly on the side of Angleton. Alrich Ames (of the CIA) and Robert Hanssen (of the FBI) were two moles that betrayed America's secrets for decades and allowed the KGB to do precisely what Angleton was worried about: negate the ability of the CIA to spy on Russia, and feed America disinformation. Ames was apparently able to pass the vaunted CIA lie detector "flutter" tests, and the FBI apparently did not "flutter" Hanssen at all. There is a fascinating sub-story within this work dealing with the famous Nosenko controversy. Was this Soviet defector a bona fide defector, or, as Angleton believed, was he a false defector, working for Russia? This book goes far to convince the reader that Nosenko was, in fact, a disinformation agent, contrary to what the CIA claims to this day.

This is a short, snappy, and very readable work. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of the CIA-KGB conflict. RJB.
21 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
3.0 out of 5 stars His book "Legend" is great. Although some folks rate both of these works ...
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2018
Verified Purchase
Content was interesting, but lacked a clear finish. The proof reading must have been done over the weekend. The proof reader was tired by Sunday. So many misspellings and mistakes in grammar (especially the last 40 pages of a 105 page book). I wonder how much input Epstein had. His book "Legend" is great. Although some folks rate both of these works the same. Legend deserves a much higher rating.
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P. Gibbs
4.0 out of 5 stars Short Overview of CIA's Weakness to fake defectors
Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2011
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This story is topical because about a year ago the CIA lost nine people to a suicide bomber "triple agent" in Afghanistan. He was recruited by the Jordanian intelligence service and purported to be an Al Qaeda agent who was going to double cross them. It was all a trap and when he had a big meeting with top CIA field agents in Afghanistan he blew himself up. The CIA bosses (not necessarily confined to Langley) refused to heed warnings from at least one skeptical operative that the guy was not trustworthy. So he was not strip searched in advance of the meeting and the bomb went undetected.

During the Cold War the Soviets repeatedly played the CIA for suckers with fake defectors. During most of Angleton's career at the CIA he was head of the Counterintelligence Office that was tasked with checking out potential "sources" and defectors. The Intelligence part of the CIA resented him and his people because recruiting a Soviet-bloc intelligence agent was how you moved up in the ranks. So there was a built-in bias to buy whatever was being offered. The other problem is that the KGB succeeded in recruiting moles (traitors) in practically every major intelligence service in the US: CIA, FBI and NSA. The moles provided a feedback loop to the KGB so they knew how to suck the CIA into a deception. A mole could also (sometimes) misdirect counter-intelligence efforts.

Angleton was forced to retire in 1975 at age 58. He never found the KGB's moles. He died in about 1987, but before then he was extensively interviewed by the author. It's a well told story, albeit a little short. I've read a few books through the years in this area and the "theory of the case" in this book rings true.

One book that backs him up is Programmed to Kill by Lt. Gen. Ion Pacepa, a defector from the Romanian KGB. He makes the case (touched upon in the Angleton book) that the Soviet KGB sent one of their employees to the U.S. as a defector to deflect the inquiry that Lee Harvey Oswald was trained by the KGB during his 2 years in the USSR to serve as an assassin in the USA. When the KGB called off his mission, Oswald went off on his own. The rest his history.

The Angleton book is in desperate need of a copy editor. Every few pages there is a word omitted or a garbled sentence that should have been caught before publication. I've seen my share of pre-publication "page proofs" and this book should have gone through that process with two or more "readers" to catch the obvious errors.
40 people found this helpful
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Martin C.
5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking
Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2013
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I'm giving 5 stars here and I hope the reader knows how to interpret them in context.

Like other Epstein works, this is very raw and editing is more of an afterthought. I cannot judge the accuracy of the information, obviously.

However, I can promise that persons with an interest in the subject matter (either in the person of Angleton or in the question of how underminded the CIA was or how much was a risk of that there was) will find a thought-provoking, pleasing to read book. Epstein shines some light on less obvious facts, collected some information not found elsewhere and proposes his interpretation.

I am not sure whether it will ever make the official CIA reading list but I found it to be very well worth the time and highly recommend this book. Makes you think and gives new thoughts on the topic.
4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

A. Bonomo
5.0 out of 5 stars Angleton was the right one!
Reviewed in Italy on June 27, 2023
Verified Purchase
A book which synthetized decades of research beyond the curtain. Democratic CIA don't like this author. You can find many splitting on Angleton, myself changed idea many times, this book help a lot to understand what was going on. Author could say more about Colby, the Angletonians' enemy, who worked for ACLO, an union who was plenty of Reds, coincidence?

The 1943 “Report of the California Senate Fact-Finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities” stated:

“The American Civil Liberties Union may be definitely classed as a Communist front or ‘transmission belt’ organization. At least 90% of its efforts are expended on behalf of Communists who come into conflict with the law. While it professes to stand for free speech, a free press, and free assembly, it is quite obvious that its main function is to protect Communists in their activities of force and violence in their program to overthrow the government.”

1943 - “Report of the California Senate Fact-Finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities”
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John V Silcock
2.0 out of 5 stars A Load of Rubbish
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 25, 2016
Verified Purchase
This is probably the most badly-written book I've read. It is disjointed, repetitive, rambling and at least one-third of it consists of cobbled-together newspaper articles. Clearly there was no attempt to edit this work: it is self-contradicting in several respects. All told, it is nearly incoherent and verges on the illiterate. Don't waste your money on it.
2 people found this helpful
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