The newly declassified JFK file revealed that former CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton testified beneath oath in an govt session earlier than the Church Committee in 1975 about deep intelligence ties between america and Israel.
The testimony, given in a top-secret govt session, was a part of the Senate Choose Committee’s broader investigation into intelligence operations.
Although a lot of the session was centered on Chilly Conflict espionage and Soviet defections, one line of questioning zeroed in on allegations that U.S. intelligence could have assisted Israel’s covert nuclear program.
Angleton, who served from the company’s founding till late 1974, confirmed a proper, albeit unwritten, intelligence-sharing settlement between the CIA and Israeli operatives starting in 1951, one reportedly brokered between Angleton and Reuven Shiloah, Israel’s first Mossad director, noting that the connection operated on a fiduciary foundation and averted documentation.
Excerpts from the declassified JFK file reviewed by The Gateway Pundit (p.15):
Employees Director William Miller: And beneath whose authority was the settlement made?
Mr. Angleton: Underneath the authority of the Director of Central Intelligence, and the Prime Minister of Israel on the opposite aspect.
Mr. Miller: And this concerned the trade of sources of each nations?
Mr. Angleton: The time period “sources” just isn’t fairly right. Every thing besides their very own folks. It was giving up papers and indicators, communications Intelligence, and all the opposite merchandise of intelligence motion.
Mr. Miller: So the Director of Central Intelligence was conscious of the settlement. Was the President?
Angleton: The President was conscious of it. And the Secretary of State was the brother of the Deputy Chief of the CIA, and finally was very a lot concerned.
Mr. Miller: The place is a report of this settlement stored, as an instrument of the U.S.?
Mr. Angleton: The interior papers can be within the Company. The tetters, copies of the letters from Ben Gurion to the President or to the Secretary of State, I assume are nonetheless within the Company.
…In case you are talking as as to if there was a consultant treaty which was cleared – and folks needed these items cleared – I don’t suppose there have been any clearances obtained from the Hill.
…And it’s a customized of intelligence that intelligence supersedes writing. And there have been only a few administrators to my data that will put their pen at hand to signal an settlement to some understanding. It’s based mostly on a fiduciary relationship and customary understanding. So, these have been all understandings that have been generated by occasions.
However the listening to took a dramatic flip when Senator Howard Baker and Committee Counsel Frederick Schwarz started probing Angleton a couple of delicate subject: alleged transfers of U.S. nuclear data to Israel.
When pressed on whether or not the CIA instantly or not directly transferred atomic know-how or nuclear-related intelligence to Israel, Angleton firmly denied any such involvement (p.26).
Mr. Schwart: I need to make it possible for I’ve requested the query broadly sufficient. Did the Company take any steps to make accessible to the Israelis any personnel who had data about atomic issues.
Mr. Angleton: None in any way.
Regardless of his denial, the transcript revealed that Angleton was confronted with allegations raised by journalist Tad Szulc and writer Seymour Hersh—who each advised that key figures, together with Israeli scientists and former U.S. nuclear consultants, performed roles in a clandestine pipeline of nuclear data to Israel.
One identify that emerged prominently was Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, a CIA scientist concerned in controversial mind-control experiments (MK-Extremely) and psychological warfare applications. One other was Dr. Wilfred Mann, described as probably a Soviet mole and an in depth affiliate of notorious traitor Kim Philby.
Hersh had even claimed that U.S. plutonium was transferred covertly to be used in Israeli nuclear weapons improvement.
Angleton responded to those claims with warning. He acknowledged that if such transfers occurred, they weren’t inside his data or licensed beneath CIA operations.
Nevertheless, he did categorical concern concerning the penalties of such allegations on U.S. credibility and Center East diplomacy, particularly if broadly believed internationally.
Mr. Schwarz: Have you learnt a journalist known as Tad Szulc?
Mr. Angleton: I do.
Mr. Schwarz: Did you meet with him someday this yr?
Mr. Angleton: In March.
Mr. Schwarz: The place did you meet him?
Mr. Angleton: On the home of Ben Wells.
Mr. Schwarz: And did the three of you then go for dinner someplace?
Mr. Angleton: That’s right.
Mr. Schwarz: At that assembly did you talk about–
Mr. Angleton: We went as Szulc’s visitors someplace to dinner.
Mr. Schwarz: At that assembly did he elevate with you the topic of the switch of atomic know-how from the CIA to Israel?
Mr. Angleton: Sure.
Mr. Schwarz: What did he say to you?
Mr. Angleton: They prefaced his remarks by stating that he was not knowledgeable scientist, however he was a Jew, and so was his good pal Hersh. And so they had some unusual ESP working by which one mentioned to the opposite, have you ever heard what I’ve heard?
And the opposite one mentioned, I feel I could have heard what you will have heard. After which this factor went forwards and backwards, after which it lastly devolved, one mentioned did it have something to do with Angleton, and the opposite one mentioned sure, and it went on to the place they found that every had had separate sources that I had been instrumental in buying plutonium for the Israelis, and as a follow-up, to assist the Israelis on their know-how by sending Dr. Mann to Israel clandestinely.
And so they each had their tales, they usually had a gentleman’s settlement. And the matter was printed with out notifying the opposite.
Mr. Schwarz: And what did you say in response?
Mr. Angleton: My response to him was, it was incorrect. However he had not recognized the scientist. So, I requested him—
Mr. Schwarz: Once you say it was incorrect—
Mr. Angleton: His assertion was incorrect.
Mr. Schwarz: So that you denied the story that atomic know-how had been transferred to Israel?
Mr. Angleton: I mentioned, it’s incorrect.
Mr. Schwarz: I simply need to make sure that what it’s. It does represent a denial.
Mr. Angleton: His story was incorrect.
Senator Baker: Let me ask you, Mr. Angleton, do I perceive by that that you just imply each materials facet of the story was incorrect and incorrect?
Mr. Angleton: I didn’t imply fairly that. I used to be extra excited by the truth that, one, he knew Tad Szulc—I’m sorry that I knew Hersh—and that Hersh instructed him that his supply was the person who gave him the December 22 article, and whether or not he “had been arrange.”
Senator Baker: What December 22?
Mr. Angleton: That’s the time they kicked off your complete furor on the previous espionage factor.
Senator Baker: In opposition to Americans?
Mr. Angleton: Sure.
Senator Baker: Did they do that after?
Mr. Angleton: No, as a result of neither disclosed their unbiased sources to the opposite.
Senator Baker: The purpose I’m attempting to make clear for my very own functions is that the dialog you simply associated you mentioned was incorrect. Do I perceive you to imply that each materials facet of that assertion was incorrect?
Mr. Angleton: Sure. However I didn’t know my motives on a whole lot of questions that I had with him. As a result of this was the primary dwell human being I noticed that had really allegedly heard from Hersh.
Mr. Schwarz: I simply need to make sure that, in your dialog with Mr. Szulc, versus your testimony right here right now on the deserves, did you deny to Mr. Szulc that you just or the Company had facilitated the switch of atomic know-how to Israel?
Mr. Angleton: I denied it. However the dialog drifted quickly, as a result of Szulc was speaking a couple of very nice agent that he had within the Company. And he was bragging about the truth that he had extra sources than Hersh had.
James Angleton did recommend that Tad Szulc had a supply in India, or a minimum of made references that implied insider data related to India.
Through the testimony, Angleton recounted a peculiar and cryptic dialog with Szulc, by which Szulc mentioned issues like:
- “Have you learnt Sydney?”
- “Have you learnt who’s bicycling in India?”
- “Does the phrase Sydney imply something to you?”
Angleton interpreted these remarks as oblique references to Sidney Gottlieb, a former CIA scientist concerned in covert applications. He famous that Gottlieb had been transferred to Australia and had traveled in India, which matched what Szulc seemed to be alluding to.
“And Sidney X. And Sidney X is Sidney Gottlieb, who was one in every of our technical staff who retired, and is now in Australia. … And he was bicycling in India.”
This trade led Angleton to consider Szulc had a remarkably knowledgeable supply, probably inside or related to intelligence operations—somebody who knew about CIA personnel actions, reminiscent of Gottlieb’s travels.
Though Angleton didn’t verify with certainty that Szulc had a direct supply in India, the dialog strongly implied that Szulc had acquired correct and classified-level particulars that shocked even Angleton.
On web page 100 of the file:
Senator Tower: In your capability as Head of Counterintelligence, did it ever come to your consideration—did you ever have any sure data that Israeli brokers have been really attempting to amass nuclear secrets and techniques within the US, atomic secrets and techniques?
Mr. Angleton: Do I’ve to answer that?
Mr. Kirbow: Would you prefer to go off the report a second, Mr. Chairman?
Senator Tower: We will go off the report.
(Off the report dialogue)
You possibly can learn James Angleton’s full 1975 testimony to the Church Committee under:
