James Jesus Angleton once suggested that whereas a common thug could kill a person, it took the talents of an intelligence services to make a murder appear to be a suicide. Under this precept, which "apparent suicides" of intelligence officers merit re-examination?
Answer:
Apparent suicides, without suicide notes, of suspected moles whose trials (or cases) would be potentially embarrassing to intelligence services. Here are ten examples:
In Germany 6 apparent suicides in same case, Hermann Ludke, a rear admiral in the west German Navy and the deputy chief of logistics for the NATO command, was identified by West German security police as a KGB spy.
Two weeks later, Admiral Ludke was found shot to death with a rifle, an apparent suicide. The same day that Ludke died, General Holt Wendland, the deputy director of west German intelligence, who had also been named as a Soviet mole, was found shot to death in his headquarters, an alleged suicide.
Within two weeks, four other German officials, who were reported to be suspects in the Ludke-Wendland cases, died violently, all alleged suicides.
In France, Georges Paques, who flew out a window, an apparent self-defenestration. Paques had been an aide to nine French ministers while spying for the Soviet union for some 20 years. His trial would have been potentially embarrassing.
In the US, Jack E. Dunlap, an employee of the NSA 1958, was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning - an apparent suicide (See Photo). He also was a Soviet penetration agent, who had concealed in the attic his house a treasure trove of sealed packets of classified NSA documents bearing on its most secret deciphering and interception operation. There were many reasons why it would have been inconvenient to arrest and Jack Dunlap. For one thing, he was a liaison with "Staff D" in the CIA, and could expose areas of CIA-NSA cooperation in domestic interceptions that might be deemed illegal. For another, he had been the personal drive, and aide, to Major General Garrison Coverdale the chief of staff of the NSA. General Coverdale, and after Coverdale left in August 1959, Dunlap to the new NSA. chief of staff, General Watlington. As such, he had top-secret clearance and a "no inspection" status, which meant he could drive off the base with documents hidden in the car and then return without anyone knowing that the material had been removed from the base. Moreover, Dunlap had other high-level connections in the NSA. According to the Carroll Report, which investigated the Dunlap breach, he had helped a ring of officers at NSA pilfer some government property. Dunlap was under interrogation just before he died. His apparent suicide ended the investigation.
John Paisley, an ex-CIA officer, and liaison was the "B" team (which reassessed US intelligence) had been suspected of being a Soviet mole. He was found in the Chesapeake Bay, shot to death and weighed down with weights— an apparent suicide.
Waldo Dubberstein, a CIA and DOD intelligence analyst, who admitted espionage activities, died of gunshot wounds, an apparent suicide.
