Talk:Anatoliy Golitsyn/Archive 1

Yuri Nosenko
I looked through a number of sources describing Anatoliy Golitsyn, and I would like to make some changes. There are many contradictions between different sources. I included a link to Spartacus wiki, but it is probably not so reliable unless supported by other sources (user Mikkalai just deleted my edit of disinformation with the reference to electronic Encyclopedia of Intelligence). What I could not find at all was the relevance of Yuri Nosenko to Anatoliy Golitsyn. Which Golitsyn's claims he was trying to disprove (if he tried to disprove anything at all)? There is no any information about that. Can anyone provide a reliable reference? The story about Yuri Nosenko is even more controversial than the story about Anatoliy Golitsyn, especially his claims about Kennedy assassination (which is not relevant to Golitsyn). I think that discussion of Yuri Nosenko here is like adding insult to injury. Any thoughts? Biophys 17:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * So, I excluded Yuri Nosenko. If needed, a couple of paragraphs about him can be written (if we can found some good sources). In my opinion, it makes more sense to prepare a separate article about Nosenko.Biophys 05:56, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Last edits
The following text was included by anonym. user: By the early 1970s, the leaderships of the CIA and FBI became increasingly sceptical about the claims made by both Angleton and Golitsyn, and considered Yuri Nosenko to be a genuine KGB defector. They concluded that Angleton was suffering from extreme paranoia that may have been clinical, and that Golitsyn was either a Soviet disinformation operative or was a paranoiac himself, and that both men had paralysed Western intelligence for 10 years. Angleton was fired by CIA Director William Colby in December 1973 after Seymour Hersh told him that he had evidence that Angleton had organized a massive spying campaign against thousands of American citizens.

Golitsyn was considered discredited within the CIA even before Angleton's ouster, but the two did not appear to have lost their faith in one another. They sought the assistance of William F. Buckley, Jr. (himself once a CIA man) in authoring New Lies for Old, which advanced the argument that the USSR planned to fake its collapse to lull its enemies into a false sense of victory. Buckley refused but later went on to write a novel about Angleton, Spytime: The Undoing of James Jesus Angleton.


 * What "leaderships of the CIA and FBI" are you talking about (names)? Why Nosenko is related to Golitsyn? This is not explained. What exactly claims by Golitsyn were proven to be wrong? Could you please provide exact citation from the listed books (Mangold and Buckley) to support your text?Biophys 17:14, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Wrong citation
A highly POV segment was inserted by anonym. user in the introduction. It claims to cite Cristopher Andrew. However, in fact, it was authored by Bagley . Moreover, the cited article claims that Vasili Mitrokhin's material "confirmed that Nosenko was a genuine defector". Wrong. I read Mitrokhin's and Cristopher Andrew book. They are very careful and did not many make any final conclusions on this subject.Biophys 15:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The article is a review of Bagley's book, by Christopher Andrew in The Times. 217.134.120.92 15:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

POV problems

 * O'K. Perhaps I was too fast with reverting you. Sorry. But what you are doing is a typical POV-pushing. You wrote in the Introduction that Golitsyn was "described by Professor Christopher Andrew, the Official Historian of the Security Service (MI5), as an unreliable conspiracy theorist." Does it mean that all information passed by Golitsyn to CIA was false? Does it mean that Andrew disagree with Golitsyn's books? And what exactly conspiracy theories he is talking about? This is completely unclear. Andrew wrote a lot of things about Golitsyn. But we should cite only very clear and specific statements to have a good article.Biophys 16:43, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * It's Christopher Andrew's opinion, not mine. I'm interested in facts here. 217.134.238.173 16:59, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I am trying to compromise here. Please stop reverting my changes. What is Andrew's opinion? As I told, it is completely unclear from your fragment what Andrew means by "conspiracy theorist" except a negative attitude toward Golitsyn. To see what Andrew means, one should look at the Andrew's book where he explains everything in more detail (claims about Sino-Soviet split, etc.) Biophys


 * You are not trying to compromise. Andrew calls Golitsyn "an unreliable conspiracy theorist". Its as simple as that. Please stop playing infantile games or I will report you. 217.134.238.173 18:35, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * First of all, you distort opinion of Andrew using his selective citation out of context and putting a puzzling and defamatory phrase in the introduction of BLP. Andrew explained his opinion in detail in his book. This is a reliable secondary source that should be used. Second, please read WP:BLP. Defamatory statements like that should be supported by multiple reliable sources, which is not the case.Biophys 19:42, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The full quote here: "Nosenko’s CIA interrogators, however, found apparent gaps in his story and quickly became suspicious. The intelligence that seemed to exonerate the KGB of involvement with Oswald was, they concluded, Soviet disinformation. Their suspicions were strengthened by a previous KGB defector, Anatoly Golitsyn, an unreliable conspiracy theorist who warned that bogus defectors would be dispatched by the KGB to discredit him. He claimed that Nosenko was one of them."


 * This is clearly not a BLP violation. The quote is clearly not "out of context", and is from the United Kingdom's foremost expert on espionage, meaning that his opinion carries considerable weight in this field, far more than the likes of Golitsyn. I shall now endeavour to issue a final warning to this persistent activist vandal. 217.134.88.8 22:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Of course he is an expert. But he explained his opinion in more detail in his book (Sino-Soviet split, etc.). I included this information in the appropriate place (about Golitsyn's book) and in NPOV manner. You are inserting a puzzling and defamatory phrase in the introduction of Biography of a living person, without proper explanation what Andrew actually means. This is POV and WP:BLP violation. Biophys 22:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * It is not "a puzzling and defamatory phrase", it is the considered opinion of the British intelligence establishment's leading historian, who regards Golitsyn as "an unreliable conspiracy theorist". 217.134.238.77 23:33, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Biophys here. There is no need to put the criticism in the lead Alex Bakharev 00:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * But, as his views are matter of extreme controversy among experts (to the point of calling him "conspiracy theorist"), I thought it would be appropriate to point that he ALLEGES sinister plans of vile KGB. Document trail and real-life evidence to support his allegations are flimsy at best. RJ CG 13:26, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with your edit.Biophys 16:10, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Also, Angleton is a discredited figure in intelligence circles and has little credibility. Thus his opinion carries little weight on this issue. Golitsyn devoted his two books to the claim that the KGB was faking the collapse of the USSR, that is undoubtedly a conspiracy theory. BTW, Alex, there is a good reason for my anonymity, certain websites have smeared sceptical Wikipedia users with the label of being government agents. 217.134.225.162 15:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Registering as a WP user does not compromise your anonymity but makes you accountable.Biophys 16:10, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia needs to be "accountable", not me. 217.134.225.162 16:12, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * BTW, Jeffrey Nyquist should be removed from this article as he is not an "American political group" and he is only "known" for writing one out-of-print book - plus he laughably thinks Pat Robertson is "pro-communist" (of course, Biophys does not want us to learn this embarrassing fact and is repeatedly deleting it). His article should be deleted as soon as possible. 217.134.229.43 17:18, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Biophys adding a reference to Nyquist's equally non-notable and non-credible book does not resolve the issue. 217.134.229.43 18:17, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The signs were there
In 1982 I worked in Frankfurt/M for a company which exported Hi-Fi and TV consumer goods to the Comecon (East block) states. East Germany could not get a lousy million DM to buy stuff that had been kind of outdated and which they would have gotten cheaply. But they could not pay, and even the Japanese partner bank of my boss would not lend them the money.

Roumania was keen to buy really old stuff that you could not even sell to Africa - no money, no deal.

Yougoslavian airplanes did not get any fuel on any airport unless the pilot paid in cash.

To the Soviet Union we exported PAL/SECAM TVs and video gear, which baffled me as they had taken up SECAM to isolate themselves from the West who had decided for PAL.

Mismanagement in Poland was such, that they did not even bother to take the boxes of spare parts which were part of the deal from the airport to a store room/workshop. Six months later they would say, it had not been delivered. So, our saleman flew from Frankfurt to Warsaw and went through the airport's extensive box collection, and retrieved the spare parts cartons untouched. That was in 1982. In 1989, a few months before the Wall went down, a friend of ours went through East Germany to Poland, and when he wanted to buy a bottle of lemonade or some such, he found only rhubarb juice on the shelves - everywhere in East Germany.

The Eastblock went bankrupt, there was no planning or conspiracy, I believe, based on my experiences. We could have seen they were headed for oblivion, but we saw it all as isolated incidents. (Ally Hauptmann-Gurski) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.209.51.9 (talk) 06:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

BLP violation

 * To summarize, you insert information that living person is dead, and that he did not authored his published books. You do this without supporting sources. This is violation of WP:BLP.Biophys (talk) 02:41, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * "Possibly living" does not mean "dead". Your conduct here is unbecoming of a "scientist". --84.67.24.235 (talk) 20:02, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Please debate specific issues and remember about WP:NPA. Thank you.Biophys (talk) 03:12, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I am referring to your disruptive and thoroughly unscientific behaviour here. Please stop deleting material that doesn't conform to your theories (including relevant links to other Wikipedia articles). There is no evidence anywhere that Bukovsky is reacting to Golitsyn's theories, he has never even mentioned Golitsyn (see WP:OR and WP:SYN). Nothing has been reported about Golitsyn for a quarter-of-a-century, we only have Christopher Story's word (he also claims that congressman Chris Dodd is Stalin's grandson and that the U.S. government is secretly financing al-Qaeda). --84.65.42.182 (talk) 15:25, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Biophys continues to revert this article without addressing the above. --84.70.130.241 (talk) 16:08, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Everything was replied above. What are exactly your points, please?Biophys (talk) 23:05, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I have already replied to your weak responses. You have yet to give any justifications for deleting the Washington Post source, there is no bias there, just historical facts. The same applies to Pipes. You have not found any sources in which Bukovsky even mentions Golitsyn. And any claim from Christopher Story cannot be taken seriously. --84.67.15.192 (talk) 23:50, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Why "he can not be taken seriously" as you tell? Do you think he fabicated the interview?Biophys (talk) 23:58, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * You think Sen. Chris Dodd is Stalin's grandson, as Story claims? Oh please, this is just silly. --84.67.15.192 (talk) 00:03, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Fixed. This is claim by Golitsyn. Story has nothing to do with it.Biophys (talk) 00:07, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * What? The book was published by Story, who claimed that it was from papers sent in the mail by Golitsyn. Even Story admits that he never met the guy. --84.67.15.192 (talk) 00:12, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * But the author is Golitsyn, not Story. Thease are his books. I am going to make "criticism and support" subsections as usual. You can add more about criticism by Daniel Pipes. What exactly did he criticicized?Biophys (talk) 00:19, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Story published a book and put Golitsyn's name on it. That doesn't make it verifiable. Pipes didn't criticise Golitsyn, he was stating some facts. --84.67.15.192 (talk) 00:23, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Which facts?Biophys (talk) 02:59, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

What's the problem
Offliner, please explain why did you revert all my recent edits here. What exactly do you object?Biophys (talk) 03:44, 14 April 2009 (UTC)


 * So, you simply reverted my edits again without even talking.Biophys (talk) 04:09, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Will you please be sensible and stop whitewashing this article. --90.240.188.177 (talk) 17:38, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * What you are telling is not a valid argument. Please do not revert large series of edits as you just did, but address issues one by one. This is BLP article. Telling that someone was "a conspiracy theorist" is a POV which is not supported by sources in this case. More than a half of sources currently cited in this article at least partially agree with his writing. Please do not remove sourced content. Add more instead.Biophys (talk) 21:37, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Please note that I included your citation of Daniel Pipes where it belongs - in the body of article - as an opinion that he had an influence on American conspiracy theorists.Biophys (talk) 22:22, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

You put: "According to Daniel Pipes, Golitsyn's publications "had some impact on rightist thinking in the United States"[17] including political writer Jeffrey Nyquist[18] and Joel Skousen,[19] as well as the John Birch Society.[20]"

This is a deliberate misquote. He didn't mention any of these people or their websites.

What he actually said was "these sensational claims had some impact on rightist thinking in the United States, though Golitsyn persisted with them even after the Soviet Union collapsed, and eventually lost most of his audience." 

BTW, no credible mainstream source has ever described Golitsyn as anything else but a conspiracy theorist. Your sources are from the political fringes and the internet (you even regard the ludicrous Christopher Story as a reliable source). Golitsyn has no credibility amongst the Western intelligence community. Dmitry Medvedev is not spreading Leninist revolution across Europe. Please take your crusade to the blogosphere and stop abusing Wikipedia. --81.79.210.139 (talk) 16:33, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * This article cites a lot of reliable secondary sources (books) telling that intelligence information provided by him was mostly correct (e.g."KGB in Europe" by [Andrew) or that his predictions were reasonable in many important aspects (e.g. "state within the state" by Albats).Biophys (talk) 00:05, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

The Golitsyn catastrophe
This article fails to quote from any of Golitsyn's 'handlers'/contacts at the CIA, or related agencies such as the FBI, RCMP, MI5 or the French service. It fails to quote the CIA's chief Psychologist's two reports on Golitsyn. It fails to even make a passing reference the CIA's 12 volume history of Counterintelligence under James Jesus Angleton by Cleveland Cram, with its damning verdict on Golitsyn. And it doesn't even mention the dozens of real defectors Golitsyn claimed were all KGB plants who would try to discredit him, even though under DCI head George Kalaris these were all eventually found to be genuine. And it doesn't even mention that Golitsyn and Angleton were both directly involved in the discrediting of dozens of CIA agents and CIA spies (doubles), which caused numerous deaths for treason once their cover was blown and they were shipped back to Moscow to be shot. All the CIA agents have since been cleared of suspicion and many have been awarded six figure sums to compensate. Many other agents of other Western intelligences had their careers ruined.

Golitsyn's influence was seen by CIA reviews well into the late 1970s to have been responsible for the almost catastrophic failure of the Soviet Division from 1962 to 1974 to land any real defectors and genuine information.

It even fails to mention that Golitsyn was the only defector ever to be handed ultra top secret files from the FBI, CIA, French, British and Canadian agencies which was both unprecedented, illegal at the time, and a practice that will never again be repeated due to the damage Golitsyn caused both within CIA and among other agencies such as the FBI, MI5, RCMP, the French SDECE, etc., not to mention the immeasurable damage he could have caused were he to have fallen back into KGB hands.

OK, this fails many of the wiki page guidelines, but I am just a little dismayed at such a skewed article.120.144.154.65 (talk) 08:11, 16 November 2010 (UTC)Daniel

Assertion that his predictions came true
As history has now proven, about 94% of his predictions from his 1984 book "New Lies For Old", have happened; putting Golitsyn in a class of his own in this area of the intelligence community.

A bold statement like this really needs sources.


 * Agreed. As it stands it's original research. --Calair 10:33, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

The source is Wedge, by Mark Riebling. Page 408 of the new edition. Out of 148 falsifiable predictions, Riebling found that 139 were fulfilled by 1993. --50.8.196.77 (talk) 20:55, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom Mangold
Indeed, it was a catastrophe. Tom Mangold's book Cold Warrior (on Angleton) comprehensively demolishes Golitsyn with abundant sources including the first published photos of the man - I'm amazed this Wikipedia entry is so kind to him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.90.202 (talk) 02:47, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

What's the problem?
Let's discuss your reverts:. There are several questions.
 * 1) Why do you mark references to his books as ? There are references to his books; the books are published; the name of author is indicated at title page.
 * 2) Why do you restore this unsourced text: "He was completely fluent in English, and had great familiarity with contemporary American literature"?
 * 3) Why do you modify this segment: "Christopher Andrew disputed the Golitsyn's assessments claim that the "Sino-Soviet split was a charade to deceive the West". If a person X was criticized for something, we must describe what precisely he has been criticized for. Simply a slander (like "he is an idiot") do not belong to encyclopedia.
 * 4) Why do you insert something like "Golitsyn falsely claimed that Rt Hon..." We are not in abusiness of making judgments here.
 * 5) Why did you remove this: "According to Golitsyn, the programs of perestroika and glasnost have been planned by the Soviet and KGB leadership to improve the international standing of the Soviet Union and deceive the West." That is exactly what he claimed.
 * 6) Why do you make this unacceptable comment: rv - vandalism, please explain why you are removing reliably sourced information; Golitsyn is only supported by the John Birch Society and some people on the internet? No one "supports" anyone here. Note that his writings were described as interesting and notable by many authors including Yevgenia Albats. As about "perestroika deception", that was openly claimed by several KGB ideologists, including Filipp Bobkov. Do you suggest to make a separate article like Perestroika deception?Biophys (talk) 19:46, 30 November 2008 (UTC)


 * References to Gorbachev and perestroika only appeared in The Perestroika Deception; we can only take publisher Christopher Story's word that Golitsyn is the author. Story is a thoroughly unreliable source, as demonstrated by his ridiculous website.


 * There are published books with his name on it. This is enough per WP:Verifiability.Biophys (talk) 02:31, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Fine, I'll delete it.
 * You inserted that segment about the Sino-Soviet split, and there is no "slander" here. Christopher Andrew is MI5's official historian and the foremost British expert in the field. His assessment of Golitsyn gives a good idea of how contemporary Western intelligence agencies view him.


 * There is a slander in the segment inserted by you, not in the segment inserted by me.Biophys (talk)
 * I didn't insert it and there is no evidence that Harold Wilson was a KGB agent. In fact, his policies did very little to aid Soviet interests apart from wisely keeping British soldiers out of the Vietnam War.


 * If you did not insert it, why do you restore it? Making such judgments ("fals") is OR and against WP policies.Biophys (talk) 02:31, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * These claims appeared in The Perestroika Deception edited and published by Story (who admits that he has never met Golitsyn in his life). There is no guarantee that Golitsyn authored this work.


 * There are published books with his name on it. This is enough per WP:Verifiability.Biophys (talk) 02:31, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * None of these "authors" are mentioned in the mainstream media, they reside primarily on the web. Bobkov did not say that he was deceiving anyone. Non-notable conspiracy theories to not belong in an encyclopedia. As a supposed "scientist" you should appreciate the importance of evidence and proof. --84.71.209.150 (talk) 20:30, 30 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The books by Albats ("The state within a state") and Andrew are mainstream publications. We do not need any "evidence" here. We need "verifiability, not truth", please look WP:Verifiability. Yes, Bobkov said that KGB planned the perestroika. It does not mean he is telling "the truth". Biophys (talk) 02:31, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Authorship of The Perestroika Deception
A sentence in this article states:

"In 1995 he published a book containing purported memoranda attributed to Golitsyn entitled The Perestroika Deception ...."

This sentence needs to be fixed. First, what is the antecedent of he? As it stands, the grammatical antecedent is Golitsyn, but in that case, this sentence asserts that "In 1995, Golitsyn published a book containing purported memoranda attributed to Golitsyn" -- which doesn't seem to make sense.

Perhaps this sentence is the result of an edit war of some kind. Can someone suggest a phrasing that is NPOV and yet clear? If Golitsyn is still alive today, sixteen years after the publication of this book, and if this book was published under his name, and in the sixteen years since that time Golitsyn has never disavowed authorship, then I think there is a strong presumption that he is the author unless there is a reputable source suggesting otherwise. (For example, Wikipedia does not say that The Hobbit was "purportedly written by J.R.R. Tolkien" -- it asserts his authorship as a fact.) On the other hand, if Golitsyn is not still alive, then his death ought to be mentioned in this article! &mdash; Lawrence King ( talk ) 20:30, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Is he alive, dead, or missing?
This page has a lot of detail, but it's amazing that the most important fact about Golitsyn is not mentioned: is he alive or dead?

One of the following must be true:


 * Golitsyn is dead, and this fact is uncontested. If that's true, a death date and a source should be supplied.
 * Golitsyn is still alive, and his whereabouts are known. If that's true, the statement that "as late as 1984, [he] was an American citizen" should be fixed!
 * Golitsyn vanished, and his whereabouts are unknown. If that's true, it absolutely should be mentioned in the introduction to the article!
 * Some people claim Golitsyn is dead, and others claim he's alive. If this is true, we need to "document the controversy".  However, I would tentatively suggest this:  If there is truly a controversy about whether he's dead (as seems to be indicated in the section  above), then it seems unlikely that he has made public appearances on a regular basis recently.  In other words, if some people claim he's dead and others claim he's alive, then the ones who claim he's alive probably are claiming that he is missing, right?  (Unless someone has been making public appearances claiming to be Golitsyn, and others deny that this is the same guy.)
 * Some people deny that Golitsyn ever existed.

Which of these is true? Does anyone have any sources on this? Or even an opinion without sources? &mdash; Lawrence King ( talk ) 17:54, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Camp Perry
Can anyone confirm or deny that the above mentioned in the article refers to this camp? A quick google seems to bring up no WP:RS, mainly mirrors of the article. Autarch (talk) 01:24, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I believe that was a misspelling of Camp Peary, which is rumored to host CIA's covert training facility. This obituary states that "In 1964, the C.I.A. put Mr. Nosenko in solitary confinement at Camp Peary, its training site near Williamsburg, Va." I've changed it in the article. Adrian Malacoda (talk) 08:58, 15 May 2014 (UTC)