James Jesus Angleton was the head of counterintelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency for more than 20 years from the 1950s through the early 1970s. He has been described as possibly the most powerful unelected government official in the United States of his era. He is also one of the most enigmatic figures of the Cold War.
The son of a successful international businessman, James grew up in Italy before returning to the United States to attend Yale University. He was recruited into the Office of Strategic Services once the US entered World War 2, and served for most of the war back on familiar territory in Italy. There he fostered many valuable sources and contacts, including among Italian fascists and organized crime, which would serve American interest in Italy very well over the years to come. Angleton joined the CIA in the earliest days after it was formed in 1947, and was soon assigned to the Office of Special Operations.
He was a tremendously gifted intelligence professional who accomplished a great deal in the first half of his career, but Angleton was also beset by many problems and scandals over the years. One of his earliest mentors in the intelligence business was British MI6 officer Harold “Kim” Philby, who would later defect to the Soviet Union in one of the monumental events of Cold War espionage. Philby’s betrayal effectively convinced Angleton of something that he’d grown to suspect; that the Soviets were everywhere and pulled all the strings around the world.
Angleton embarked on a crusade to rid the CIA of Soviet influence. His investigations nearly destroyed the agency as dozens of talented, patriotic case officers and other workers came under suspicion. Careers were ruined on the basis of the slightest suspicion. He was finally dismissed by Director William Colby in 1974, having never discovered the suspected mole.
For episode 28 of the Spycraft 101 podcast I spoke with Jefferson Morley, author of The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton.
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