Customer Reviews

Yuri Nosenko: Double Agent

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4 star:		(1)
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Based largely on declassified transcripts, this is a very well-done reconstruction of the events surrounding a major scandal that ripped apart the CIA in the 1960s and 1970s. James Angleton was then chief of counter-intelligence, and after his close friend Kim Philby defected to the Soviet Union, Angleton grew increasingly obsessed with finding other Soviet moles in the highest ranks of U.S. intelligence. One defector (Golitsyn) played into the fears of the hawks by emphasizing the seriousness of the Soviet threat; another defector (Nosenko) insisted there was no serious threat. Following closely on the heals of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Kennedy assassination, the choice on whom to believe carried serious implications for U.S. security. In an unsuccessful effort to break Nosenko, Angleton and his staff put Nosenko into solitary confinement for almost three years--and though major inconsistencies were uncovered in Nosenko's story, he was never broken. In the course of the investigation, Angleton's drive to uncover the Soviet mole(s) in the CIA ruined the careers of more than forty people; the scandal that followed led to Angleton's dismissal, and the CIA's inclination to wash its hands of HUMINT (human intelligence sources) in favor of SIGINT (technology-driven intelligence). This opened the way for later Soviet infiltrations (Walker, Ames, Hansen), but also set an unfortunate precedent--the CIA's distrust of HUMINT--that seriously undermined U.S. security in the post-Cold War era.
For more details, see the CIA's dlecassifed version: http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/95unclass/Cram.html

The video is well rounded. The characters are based from the legendary members of the C.I.A. This is a true story. This video is highly recommended for its: to the point approach and gives a cold-war feel in history.

Tommy Lee Jones plays Steve Daley, a CIA officer tasked in the early 1960s with handling Yuri Nosenko, a supposed KGB defector with important information on Lee Harvey Oswald. "Steve Daley" is a pseudonym for "Pete" Bagley who recently wrote the book "Spy Wars" about the controversial Nosenko case. The movie gives an accurate picture of a very complex affair that was never completely resolved to everyone's satisfaction. This movie is the antithesis of a James Bond film of gun battles and car chases; instead, the battles are those of brains and will. The movie seems to largely reflect the opinions of Bagley/Daley, who ultimately concluded that Nosenko was a false defector intended to mislead the CIA about possible Soviet penetration.

Directed by Mick Jackson and starring Tommy Lee Jones as Steve Daley, Josef Sommer as James Angleton and Oleg Rudnik as Yuri Nosenko. Yuri Nosenko: KGB presents a well acted and interesting examination of the defection Yuri Nosenko, an intelligence officer with the Second Chief Directorate of the KGB. How due to the influence of Anatoli Golitsyn a paranoid KGB intelligence officer that defected to the United States in 1961, Nosenko was incarcerated for over three years. It does a good job of representing the conflict that is caused by Nosenko's defection and the damage that it did to the moral of the Central Intelligence Agency. Unfortunately, Yuri Nosenko:KGB fails to properly represent many of the facts of the case correctly, and simply misrepresents many others.

Largely reflecting the pro-Angelton view of Edward Jay Epstein ("Legend"), who was a consultant on the film, it is as accurate as one can hope to get on the Nosenko mystery. The recent film Good Shepard, which includes some of the same characters in composite, is laughable by comparison as history.

This is an excellent companion piece for the movie The Good Sheperd and also for The Company with Alfred Molina and Michael Keaton. It it dead on about the Angleton mole hunt and the CIA and how it crippled this countries intelligence agencies.

Great stuff!

This film is the story of the defection of Yuri Nosenko to the CIA at the height of the Cold War. Tommy Lee Jones plays the real-life role of Nosenko's CIA case officer. Essentially, when Nosenko defected there was a question as to whether Nosenko was a genuine KGB defector, or whether he was deliberately sent by the KGB to confuse the CIA within the "wilderness of mirrors." Was he a genuine defector? Was he sent over to discredit earlier Soviet defectors? Was he sent over to help establish the bona fides of other defectors and sources, such as the FBI's prized "Fedora" source? Each point of view had its champions within CIA. Ultimately, James Jesus Angleton, the head of CIA internal security, determined that Nosenko was not genuine. Other CIA factions vehemently believed otherwise, leading to great dissension within the CIA ranks. Nosenko was kept in solitary confinement for several years, and hard-interrogated repeatedly. He never broke. Ultimately the CIA accepted his defection as genuine. Angleton did not, and this contributed to his eventual forced-retirement from the CIA.

This film is a fascinating story of CIA internal conflict and politics. It gives insight into the difficulty that the CIA faced as it went up against the ruthless and sometimes competent KGB. The viewer can decide for him or her self what to think about Nosenko.

The DVD is not of terribly high quality. The transfer contains some noise and imperfections, but it is not too bad.

Well worth watching for the espionage aficionado. Recommended. RJB.

Great Film however in the end it seems to support Angleton's view if this case. Tommy Lee Jones is always good of coarse.

This wasn't what I was expecting. It was interesting, but slow. I was thinking it was going to be a thriller, but it was nothing more than a historical account of Yuri Nosenko's connection or non-connection with the JFK assassination.