JM: Well, two and a half years went by and there was no message from him at all, either from the...

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JM: Two and a half years went by and there was no message from Polyakov at all, no message that CIA forwarded to us or any message from him through the drops. But we were patient and eventually, about six months after that,... we got word from the CIA through their headquarters to our headquarters and then on to New York, that he had made an appearance in Burma and he was the military attaché working out of the Soviet Embassy in Rangoon....

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JM: We got word from Polyakov...

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JM: Yeah, we got word from the CIA that he was in Rangoon...

JM: OK. We'll start again. we got word from the CIA that Polyakov showed up in Rangoon. He was the Soviet military representative and stationed at the Soviet Embassy in the city of Rangoon. It so happened that he made contact with our embassy through an air force lieutenant colonel, who was his counterpart at the American Embassy. this was a routine thing, apparently, from what I learned later, but in Rangoon, where there was not many luxuries, the only way that the diplomats could get a car for transportation, was to buy a used car from another diplomat and they did this quite frequently. Polyakov, as it turned out, took this opportunity to go to the America Embassy and told the colonel that he was interested in getting a car. While he was doing this, he said, I want to make contact with John and that's all he said. The colonel, of course, reported this to the CIA resident, who in turn was aware of the situation and forwarded the word back to us. so that was how he established contact in Rangoon. we got the word and we decided I would go over and re-contact him. because of the conditions that existed in Burma at the time, no visitors were allowed into the country. The only way you could get into the country is if you were a diplomat or a quasi-diplomat. it was determined that through our Defense Department, I could be assigned to one of the military assistant teams and be admitted in that fashion. Well, all of this took a lot of going back and forth. We had heard of his being there in November. this was 1965 and it wasn't until January, mid-January 1966 that I was able to take off for Rangoon, through Bangkok. I eventually worked my way in there, made my introductions to the people in the embassy there. The only people aware of who I was and why I was there was the CIA resident,, the colonel in the military assistance program that was sponsoring me and the ambassador and they knew very little of what was going on, other than the fact that this was an intelligence operation. the CIA chief, of course, did know what was going on, because prior to my going over there, I was debriefed by the CIA and everything was worked out that they would assist me in whatever endeavors that took place. So,, after arriving there and within two or three days, it was decided that the lieutenant, the air force officer, would call Polyakov up at the Russian Embassy and tell him that he perhaps had a car that was for sale. He did this and that same day, Polyakov showed up at our embassy in Rangoon. I was in the office of the lieutenant colonel, sitting near. This was on the second floor of the building. Polyakov walked in the door and I was kind of seated at one side, where he didn't notice me at first. He was greeted by the colonel, they shook hands and he glanced over, saw me and an immediate smile went up on his face. And this is the first time he ever really showed emotion. He actually hugged me and indicated into my ear - by this time the colonel had left - indicated into my ear, where the hell have you been? It had been two or three months since he had been in Burma and I think he expected me much sooner. I says, well, the important thing is that I'm here and we have established our relationship again and I hope to see you frequently. he said that's fine. So we made arrangements that for our initial get together I would pick him up at a certain location, at an intersection. He would get in the back of the car and I would drive to a safe house. this we did., he... again he was very security conscious. I stopped the car, he opened the back door of the car and got in the back and I'm in front, the chauffeur, and said, OK, take off and he kept glancing out the back window. He didn't feel that secure. It was obvious that he was on an edge at this point. Anyway, we got to the safe house, we sat down, we had a very fine two-hour meeting, we kind of reviewed things that went on in the past two years and how things stood

INT: I would quite like you to actually. But just explain that the getting back and the debriefing with the CIA.

JM: OK. The debriefing at CIA basically was supposed to be to turn over, you know, personality information and MO information as to how I handled the situation, so that they in turn could turn it over to the individual that was going to take my place. And much of the interview there dealt with that. However, it was obvious from the questions that were being asked that they meaning Angleton basically and maybe several other people who worked for him, were no means sure of his bona fides. they questioned it, very obviously, and it was no surprise to me, because this had been questioned even before I went to Burma. We entered oh probably thousands of pages of reasons why he was bona fide and they in turn reasons why he was not bona fide and it went back and forth. It got out of his case into many other cases and there was never an agreement between the two agencies. There are our people within the CIA that believed him, there were people that didn't believe him in the FBI, but everybody in the New York office and most of the people in our Soviet division in Washington DC were convinced that he was legitimate and this was not only based on the material he was giving us, but also based on other cases that dealt with this whole matter....