Secrets of State

Defector’s Claims About JFK and Oswald Underlie Conference Theme

The Nosenko case and the key unsolved mysteries of the CIA will hold center court at the 5th Raleigh Spy Conference March 26-28 at the North Carolina Museum of History in downtown Raleigh.

Why would the KGB take pains to deny it had nothing to do with the assassination of John F. Kennedy, or that the Soviet spy agency had no contact with Lee Harvey Oswald when he lived in the USSR prior to the events in Dallas?

CIA officer Tennent “Pete” Bagley asked those questions to KGB defector Yuri Nosenko in Geneva in 1964 — less than two months after the assassination. James Angleton, the chief of counterintelligence for CIA agreed with Bagley’s assessment: Nosenko was part of a deception and was not telling the whole truth. Thus ensued one of the most controversial sagas in CIA history that continues today with the publication of a new book by Pete Bagley.

The 2008 Raleigh Spy Conference, an internationally acclaimed event that draws top experts in the field of intelligence to Raleigh each year, will feature Bagley and five other expert speakers under the title CIA’s Unsolved Mysteries: The Nosenko Defection, Double Agents and Angleton’s Wilderness of Mirrors. The final conference schedule is available at www.raleighspyconference.com (click on “event info”).

According to Conference founder Bernie Reeves — editor and publisher of Raleigh Metro Magazine: “Many questions remain from the monumental battle between the Soviet Union and the United States when the wheel of history often turned to the will of agents of deception and moles burrowed inside intelligence and other government agencies. It was indeed a ‘wilderness of mirrors’ that continues today to cast a confused image of history.”

The Conference will open on Wednesday, March 26, at 6 p.m. with registration and a reception, followed by a surprise addition to the speaker line-up: Stanton Evans, author of the controversial new book Blacklisted By History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy And His Fight Against America’s Enemies.

David Robarge, chief historian for CIA, will start off Thursday morning at 9 a.m. discussing the environment at CIA created by the legendary James Jesus Angleton, CIA’s counterintelligence chief who turned the Agency inside out searching for a Soviet mole he thought had burrowed into the highest levels of the US intelligence community.

At 10:30 a.m., former CIA counterintelligence officer Brian Kelley will dramatize for the first time the true story of an American double agent targeted against the KGB. Drawing on newly declassified information, Kelley will trace the deceptions and mystery of the case — involving spy agencies, presidents and KGB sources — and conclude with a stunning surprise involving an American official.

At 1:30 p.m., special guest Pete Bagley will answer questions about his new book on the Nosenko defection and the controversy it has rekindled in intelligence circles. Feelings are running so strongly, Bagley’s scheduled talk in July at CIA about his book was abruptly canceled the evening before. Kelley will join Bagley on stage as moderator.

At 3 p.m., former Time magazine Moscow bureau chief Jerrold Schecter — the author of seminal books on the Cold War — will discuss the political environment that produced the double agents, moles and deception operations that created the wilderness of mirrors that signified the Cold War confrontation of US and Soviet spy agencies.

From 4:15 to 5 p.m. authors at the Conference will hold a book signing. The day will conclude with a Conference Gala from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Amra’s in Raleigh’s Glenwood South district.

Friday, March 28, kicks off at 9 a.m. with a panel discussion featuring all speakers to field additional questions from the audience, introduce special guests and discuss the findings and conclusions from the 5th Raleigh Spy Conference.

At 11 a.m., David Ignatius, Washington Post columnist and former Moscow bureau chief, will present the keynote address. Ignatius, an award-winning journalist and the author of espionage fiction applauded by the intelligence community, will present an overview of the era that created the wilderness of mirrors and the political and historical impact of Cold War espionage.

The Raleigh Spy Conference was founded “to bridge the gap between intelligence and current history,” according to Reeves. “The calculus of modern events is intelligence. We don’t really know what happened until someone declassifies something.”

Association of Intelligence Officers President Gene Poteat says of the Raleigh Conference: “In Washington, it’s difficult for the public to comprehend important intelligence and terrorism issues since everything is partisan and politically charged. Outside Washington, there are few voices for the public to hear, and those heard are often wrong or media-driven. Few are able to explain to the public what really has happened, and is happening, in intelligence, counterterrorism and national security — important issues, which, throughout history, have spelled the survival or loss of this or other nations.

“The annual Raleigh Spy Conference is a rare opportunity to hear it straight, with an unusual ‘insider’s’ perspective and knowledge. Each year this conference opens that door to share remarkable insights and stellar speakers with the public. If one claims a scintilla of world-affairs knowledge, it cannot be true unless the annual Raleigh Spy Conference is on your calendar.”

Tickets to the three-day event are $250 for the general public, $175 for seniors, and $145 for teachers, students and members of the military and intelligence community. Early registration is available by calling Jennifer Hadra at 919-831-0999. For complete information, including accommodations, go to www.raleighspyconference.com.

“Chautauqua of the South” to Debut

If you’ve ever dropped your children off at summer camp and wished you could stay, Raleigh’s Ward Purrington knows just how you feel. For 30-odd years, ever since Purrington first took his own kids to camp and felt the same way, he’s been mulling a grown-up, summertime destination, one with a heavy intellectual bent that also leaves room for good meals and culture, as well as adventures like hiking or learning to tie a fly.

This summer, the Appalachian Institution, the culmination of Purrington’s long-held dream, will open its doors for the first time at Lake Logan in the mountains near Asheville. With it, Purrington hopes to create a lasting summertime community, a “Chautauqua of the South,” in the tradition of the Chautauqua Institution in New York state, where adults leave cars behind, take classes in everything from French cuisine to modern politics, and enjoy great food, music, theater and fellowship.

Over a period of two separate weeks in August, the Appalachian Institution will offer as many as 80 participants five days of activities: morning lectures by visiting scholars on western civilization — part of what Purrington calls “The Great Ideas” program, “set in a serene, scholarly atmosphere, removed from the usual political posturing” — and afternoons devoted to classes including art history, investing or photography. Afternoons can also be spent playing golf or tennis, fishing, boating, or pursuing other outdoor activities.

Every evening after dinner, Purrington plans for cultural entertainment — Shakespeare or music — and has brought on board Alfred E. Sturgis — the music director of the North Carolina Master Chorale and principal conductor of the Carolina Ballet — to serve as the Institution’s music director.

Rustic Beauty

Purrington found the site at Lake Logan fortuitously, when he received a circular in the mail from the Episcopal Church, owners of the conference center. The former executive retreat of the Champion Paper Company, the Lake Logan facility is surrounded by mountain peaks and state and federal-owned timberland. Purrington immediately called up and asked for a tour.

“I was taken with the beauty of the place,” Purrington told Metro, describing Logan as one of the most picturesque mountain lakes on the East Coast, surrounded by 5000-foot peaks and fed by the Pigeon River, known as one of the best trout streams in the North Carolina mountains.

Purrington hopes Lake Logan’s rustic beauty will serve as a perfect venue to consider and discuss the history, accomplishments and values of western civilization. “We often see western civilization denigrated in our society,” he says. “Everyone’s trying to find negatives. But it’s the civilization we exist in, and it’s the most magnificent civilization ever created in terms of its contributions to human knowledge and its contributions to the life of the spirit.”

Purrington’s long-term aims for the Appalachian Institution are expansive. “Eventually, I would hope we could find some property in the mountains that would allow the development of private housing, as well as a lodge of some kind,” he says, possibly using the proceeds from the sale of home sites to finance the facility. “I really see it as a Chautauqua of the South, something that would bring in great programs and great scholars, where people come back year, after year, after year.”

Purrington has reason to be confident. After all, 15 years ago the longtime lawyer’s idea that “it would be great to have a little ballet company in Raleigh” has grown to become the world-renowned Carolina Ballet. And Purrington is a man of many accomplishments: He has served as a member of the North Carolina General Assembly, Utilities Commission, Board of Transportation, and The University of North Carolina System Board of Governors. He was Legislative Counsel to the Governor and served as Secretary of the State Department of Revenue.

This summer, you will find Purrington at Lake Logan, where from Aug. 10-15, the Appalachian Institution’s lecturer in residence will be Dr. Thomas FX Noble, the Robert M. Conway Director of The Medieval Institute and Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame — a specialist in the Carolingian world and in early medieval Rome and the papacy. From Aug. 24-29, Dr. Alan Charles Kors will appear, a professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has taught for more than 30 years, specializing in European intellectual history of the 17th and 18th centuries.

For more information on the Appalachian Institution, go to www.appalachianinstitution.com.

—Liza Roberts

Ex-Spy Creates Parkinson’s Support Group

True to his former posts as an officer and pilot in the US Navy and a field officer in the CIA, Andy Anderson sprung into action after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD) in October 2004.

While Anderson and his wife Marlene researched the disease, the Carteret County residents realized the need for a support group for people struggling with PD in Eastern North Carolina. By the end of 2005, the couple formed Potters for Parkinson’s (PfP), an independent, nonprofit support group named for the group of amateur artists — including Anderson — who donated works to raise funds for the group. In August 2006, 69 people attended the first PfP support group meeting, a number that well exceeded the anticipated 20-25 attendees.

With no neurologists practicing in Carteret County, over half of the PD patients in the support group had not been referred to or seen a neurologist, and only a half dozen had been referred to an occupational or physical therapist. And numerous members of the group had experienced problems with medication management.

After meeting with the group, Marlene and Andy reassessed the group’s priorities and decided that patient education and training of clinicians in Carteret and surrounding counties were more urgent than their commitment to raising funds for long-term Parkinson’s research.

In March 2007, the group sent a team of four clinicians to the National Parkinson’s Foundation’s Allied Team Training Course. The team returned with new ideas to help support group members through movement and dance therapy and other exercise-based programs.

To solve the educational problem in the area, PfP held a Parkinson’s Symposium for Clinicians on December 1, 2007, with four neurologists from Duke University Medical Center as speakers.

In 2008, PfP will continue with its ongoing programs and further its efforts to raise money for Parkinson’s research. To aid the fundraising, Anderson wrote and published Sudden Recall, a fictional novel about a CIA insider’s stories of politics and espionage. Half of the book’s proceeds go to Parkinson’s research and education.

The book will be available for purchase at the 2008 Raleigh Spy Conference (www.raleighspyconference.com). More information about PfP can be found at www.pottersforparkinsons.org. Copies of Sudden Recall can be purchased at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com. More information about the book can be found at www.iuniverse.com.

The Moderate’s New CD Offers Fresh Sound

Based out of our nation’s capital, The Moderate offers a fresh sound wrought with the earnest and heartfelt songwriting of Raleigh-native Jim Dempsey. His distinctive voice on their new CD, AM/FM, echoes the trials and tribulations of a young man dealing with lost love, beauty discovered and just a dash of weltschmerz — that useful German term for world weariness.

Dempsey, at the ripe old age of 25, possesses a quality that makes his voice and choice of lyrics much more mature than his age belies. Influences, such as Ryan Adams and Jeff Tweedy, are evident in Dempsey’s repertoire. His skill as a guitar player is illuminated in full force.

Backed by the infectious beats of drummer Drew Marks (also a young Raleigh boy) and the soothing bass patterns of Mike Maloney — a veteran of the DC music scene — The Moderate radiates a unique feel that blends a modern, alternative soundscape with solid, down-home songwriting.

AM/FM showcases the talents of all three of these gifted music makers. Each song opens a window into Dempsey’s soul, which, unusual in today’s music scene, has quite a bit to tell. Look forward to great things from The Moderate. For more information, visit www.myspace.com/themoderate.

—Dan Reeves

Raleigh Spy Conference To Present Tragic Story Of An American Double Agent

Double agents are a staple of classic counterintelligence offensive operations. Having an intelligence service believe that it has successfully recruited a spy within the ranks of its targeted adversary allows the controlling service to manipulate the double agent in support of a myriad of operational objectives. A well-designed and run double agent operation morphs into the spy versus spy drama played out within the proverbial wilderness of mirrors.

Brian Kelley, who spent more than four decades as an operative working inside US counterintelligence, played the double agent game against America’s adversary services for most of his career. He became aware of a tragic story involving a former high-ranking Soviet defector who became a successful, decade-long, American-run double agent targeted against the KGB. While on a sanctioned operational mission outside the United States, the double agent was accidentally killed by KGB kidnappers. Using recently released information, Kelley has pieced together the incredible story of this American patriot, re-creating the role he played as a double agent and how this operation played against the backdrop of the period and the involvement of many of the key intelligence personalities to be discussed during the Fifth Raleigh Spy Conference March 26-28, 2008, at the NC Museum of History (go to www.raleighspyconference.com).

The highly controversial operation involved both the CIA and the FBI; the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP); touched on American in-place recruited Soviet Intelligence Officers codenamed “Top Hat,” “Fedora,” and “Kitty Hawk”; and involved Presidents Ford and Carter along with Henry Kissinger. The 10-year-old mystery was finally unlocked through information obtained from a prominent KGB defector. To conclude the presentation, Kelley will identify the American official who turned out to be the final player in this amazing story. Just who this US official was will come as a stunning surprise.

To augment Kelley’s presentation, retired RCMP officer Dan Mulvenna will present the Canadian side of the story. Mulvenna was a Mountie during the time that the double agent traveled to Canada to meet his KGB handler. He will provide the inside details of what transpired on the Canadian side and will demonstrate the link between this case and one of the biggest mole hunts in the history of the RCMP.

This classic double agent operation will cover all aspects of the counterintelligence discipline, including the application of classic tradecraft, the projected role of a deep cover spy operating as an “illegal” and creative examples of operational deception.

Moving Midway at MOMA

Godfrey Cheshire’s acclaimed documentary, Moving Midway, has been selected for the 37th New Directors/New Films Festival set for March 26 at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. According to the selection committee, composed of representatives from MOMA and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, “New York-based film critic Godfrey Cheshire’s richly observed documentary film about his colonial roots in the American South begins with the impending move of Midway, the old family plantation in Raleigh to a new location to make room for a shopping mall. This coincides with the news that Godfrey and his cousins are kin to the Hintons, an African-American branch of the family. What starts as an investigation of heritage and change develops into an eye-opening family drama. How will the anticipated upheaval affect the family ‘ghosts,’ principally Mary Hinton, eccentric former doyenne of Midway, not to mention Godfrey’s delightfully patrician mother to whom the revelation of newly discovered black relatives is a source of astonishment and possible amusement? A thoroughly entertaining, informative and stimulating film about the Southern plantation as both a symbol and a fading reality.”

Go to www.movingmidway.com for more on the film’s local connections and look for Moving Midway’s upcoming national theatrical release in fall 2008.

Capitol Society Ball Set For April

The North Carolina State Capital Foundation will host the third State Capitol Foundation Society Ball April 2008 at the North Carolina State Capitol. The event features a silent auction, dinner and dancing with proceeds earmarked for ongoing educational and restoration programs at the Capitol.

Goldsboro artist Brenda Behr has donated an original painting, One Nation, the second in a series featuring the four seasons of the State Capitol building for the live auction. In addition, photographs of the State Capitol building by North Carolina-born photographer John Hall will be featured at the gala.

For more information, visit www.ncstatecapitol.org. For sponsorship information, contact Kim Shope, society ball chair, at 919-786-0109.

Veterans Park Planned In Cary

Of the 1600 World War II veterans who die every day, 50 to 60 are from North Carolina. Within five years, Korean War veterans will join this statistic, adding to the history of courage and sacrifice by US servicemen and women.

In an effort to preserve the stories of veterans who have served in the armed forces during war and peacetime, National Veterans Freedom Park (NVFP) is now under way on a 12-acre park in Cary on land donated by Jim and Ann Goodnight. Plans for the facility include parade grounds, an education center, amphitheater, non-denominational chapel and a 150-foot monument designed by artist Howard Meehan. Four sculptures will be designed by Meehan and artist Lawrence Noble, both veterans, to commemorate four points in a veteran’s life: sacrifice, welcome, homecoming and remembrance.

The park’s structure and educational resources will serve as a curriculum supplement for social studies courses in public and private schools. According to NVFP Executive Director Dave Milidonis, “Recent studies show that the lack of historical knowledge among high school students is staggering. The history behind the wars Americans have fought in is not being adequately taught in schools because the stories have either not been collected or are not made available to the public. But the story of freedom and the stories of veterans are linked so closely that you can’t have one without the other.”

To collect these stories and find and restore many of the military records that have been lost over time, the NVFP Foundation is an official collecting partner for the Veterans History Project (VHP), created by Congress in 2000. NVFP has also created the Records Restoration Project, linking resources and activating a network of volunteers to interview veterans and restore lost records as a free service for veterans and their families.

Communities and organizations are invited to be a part of the Records Restoration Project by helping to conduct or edit interviews or by offering facilities for NVFP staff to use to interview veterans. Additionally, fundraising is under way for the building of National Veterans Freedom Park. Each phase of the approximately $20 million park will be paid for before it is built. To find out more about partnering with the Records Restoration Project or donating money to National Veterans Freedom Park, visit www.nationalveteransfreedompark.com or call 919-449-5440.

Somerhill Gallery On The Move