Molehunt: The Secret Search for Traitors That Shattered the CIA

When Soviet intelligence officer Anatoly Golitsin defected to the West in 1961, he hinted strongly that a long-range penetration agent was active within the Central Intelligence Agency. The possibility of a ``mole'' in the ranks set CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton on an obsessive internal spy-hunt that eventually shattered the careers of many loyal officers and paralyzed the agency's Soviet operations. Wise traces the spread of this virus of suspicion, showing how it first came to focus unjustly on Peter Karlow, a WW II hero and intelligence veteran with 21 years' service, and then, like Frankenstein's monster, turned against its creator. The joke at Langley headquarters was that Angleton ended up suspecting himself. As Angleton's institutional paranoia spiraled out of control, CIA director William Colby, aware that his counterintelligence chief had become a destructive force, eased him out of office. No mole was uncovered, and Angleton died in 1987. Wise's engrossing book includes the story of Yuri Nosenko, whom Angleton regarded as a Soviet plant. Held without trial, Nosenko was subjected to physical and mental torture to force him to ``confess.'' Wise co-authored The Invisible Government. Photos. (Mar.)