On June 15, 1978,investigators from the House Select Committee on Assassinations interviewed James Angleton, retired CIA counterintelligence chief about his handling of the JFK assassination investigation in 1963 and 1964.
The interview, which sheds new light on Angleton’s conspiracy theories about a mole in the ranks of the CIA, was never transcribed or made public–until now.
In a Web exclusive, JFK Facts is offering a downloadable PDF transcript of Angleton’s closed-door HSCA interview.
Excerpts:
On Yuri Nosenko
If I had two hours of life and I was asked by the FBI, do you think Nosenko is a dispatched agent? I would probably say yes.
No surprise there.
On Lee Harvey Oswald:
Number one I’m not an assassination expert, I mean all of that stuff in Epstein’s book about Mexico and Oswald and all of that kind of stuff is completely, I mean that’s others who told him that. I’m not that expert because the counterintelligence staff had no jurisdiction over the Oswald matter.
No “official jurisdiction” that is. Legally, the FBI had counterintelligence responsibility for monitoring Oswald. At the CIA, Angleton’s Counterintelligence Staff controlled the Oswald file from December 1959 to November 1963.
On the limits of his assassination investigation:
Ms A: Were you conducting any kind of an independent inv… investigation apart from the Warren Commission’s…’’
Angleton (interrupts): No
Ms A:
Work?
Angleton:
‘’No, our whole concern was the eh… story told by …[pause]…. Nosenko.
Thanks to the inestimable Malcolm Blunt for finding and sharing the Angleton HSCA interview tape.
And a tip of the hat to Damian Turner, Jim McClure, and Leslie Sharp for the transcription.