Final_Judgment

286 Double Cross in Dallas? [225]
This, of course, is part of the great irony of Angleton's complex life in
that it was Angleton who was the prime mover behind long-term internal
CIA inquiries into possible infiltration of the agency at the highest levels.
However, Angleton's fiercest critics, as we have seen, have suggested
that Angleton was indeed a mole—but not for the Soviets; that instead,
Angleton was a full-fledged co-opted agent for Israel.
In the context in which we have examined Angleton's role in the CIA,
working for—Israel and its Mossad, this appears to be the real driving force
behind Angleton's dealings insofar as the JFK assassination was concerned.
That Trento's story notes Angleton's interest in the Warren
Commission investigation only displays part of the picture, however. JFK
assassination investigator Bernard Fensterwald detailed how very much
interested Angleton was in the JFK assassination.
"The extent of Angleton's involvement in the CIA's end of the
assassination investigation first became underscored in 1974, when Senator
Howard Baker (R-Tenn.) released some information that he had originally
secured while serving on the Senate Watergate Committee.
"Senator Baker disclosed that he had come across at least two CIA
`dossiers' indicating that the Agency may have been involved in domestic
affairs. He disclosed that one of these CIA files, on Warren Commission
critic Bernard Fensterwald, Jr., contained copies of several high-level internal
CIA memos which clearly showed that James Angleton was the key CIA
official in dealing with matters related to the Kennedy assassination.
"In a memo dated January 13, 1969 to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover,
Angleton noted that Fensterwald was setting up a Washington-based
Committee to Investigate Assassinations. In this confidential memo,
Angleton . . . went on to request that Hoover run some kind of vaguely
defined identification check on Fensterwald and three other Warren
Commission critics associated with him. In June, 1976, new information
became available regarding Angleton's key role in dealing with the Warren
Commission investigation.
"The Senate Intelligence Committee reported that at a meeting in late
December of 1963, Angleton had requested that he be allowed to take over
CIA responsibility for dealing with the Warren Commission probe.
"The Senate Committee's Final Report noted that, 'Angleton suggested
that his own Counterintelligence Division take over the investigation and
[Richard] Helms acceded to this suggestion.' Thereafter, Angleton's staff
became responsible for all CIA dealings with the Commission.” 604
So it was that Israel's chief advocate at the CIA became that agency's
number one in-house handler for JFK assassination investigation—some
would call it a "cover-up"—during the Warren Commission's controversial
inquiry into the president's murder.
What's more, Angleton's close friend (and FBI source), William
Sullivan, number three man at the FBI, was detailed as the FBI's liaison
with the Warren Commission.
(In Chapter 17 we shall learn more about how another prominent friend
of Israel helped shape Chief Justice Earl Warren's views about the JFK