Ep 92: Soviet Union (Part 3)

Ep 92: Soviet Union (Part 3)

From Solving JFK by Matt Crumpton

April 8, 2026 · 29 min · Season 3 · Episode 92

About this episode

This episode explores the connections between Lee Harvey Oswald, the KGB, and the CIA during the Cold War, focusing on the implications of Soviet intelligence in JFK's assassination.

In Part 3 of our Soviet Union series, we dig into the Cold War spy games swirling around Lee Harvey Oswald and ask whether the KGB had a hand in JFK's assassination. The trail starts with Pyotr Popov, a Soviet military intelligence colonel who became a CIA defector-in-place in 1952 — and whose tip about a KGB mole hidden deep inside the CIA launched one of the most consequential mole hunts in Agency history. We trace how Popov was burned, how counterintelligence chief James Angleton became obsessed with finding "Popov's Mole," and how Oswald's strangely routed CIA file suggests he may have been used as "flypaper" by the Agency to smoke the mole out. From there, we tackle the riddle of Yuri Nosenko, the KGB officer who defected just months after Dallas and conveniently insisted the Soviets had zero interest in Oswald. Was he a genuine defector — or a Soviet plant sent to clear Moscow of any role in Kennedy's murder? We walk through Pete Bagley's case against Nosenko, the bombshell 1994 admissions from former KGB chief Sergey Kondrashev, new evidence of real Soviet intelligence interest in Oswald, and Professor John Newman's startling theory about who Popov's Mole actually was — a…

People in this episode

Host: Matt Crumpton

Topics covered

  • Cold War
  • spy games
  • JFK assassination
  • intelligence
  • defectors
  • mole hunts

Keywords

  • JFK
  • Oswald
  • KGB
  • CIA
  • Cold War
  • spy
  • defector
  • intelligence
  • mole

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: CIA, KGB

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