--- alias: - Bruce L. Solie category: Intelligence & Government created: 2026-09-21 location: Langley, Virginia summary: CIA Office of Security counterintelligence officer who took over the confined defector Yuri Nosenko in 1967, found him genuine in 1968, and told the House assassinations committee he had never tested Nosenko's account of Oswald. tags: - Person - BruceSolie - CIA - CIAOfficeOfSecurity - YuriNosenko - LeeHarveyOswald - HSCA updated: 2026-09-21 --- Bruce Solie testified in 1978: "I have been employed by CIA since August 1st, 1951. Throughout much of that time, I have been with the [Office of Security](/organizations/cia-office-of-security/). During my career, I have been involved in counterintelligence matters for the Office of Security." He went to Geneva in June 1962, the year [Yuri Nosenko](/people/yuri-nosenko/) of the [KGB](/organizations/kgb/) first contacted the agency.[^1] ### Nosenko From August 13, 1965, to October 27, 1967, the [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/) held Nosenko in a cell built for the purpose. On the latter date he was transferred to the Office of Security, moved to a safehouse, "and was interviewed under friendly, sympathetic conditions by his Security Case Officer, Mr. Bruce Solie, for more than a year. It soon became apparent that Nosenko was bona fide." Solie wrote his report through 1968 and had Nosenko polygraphed that August by the Office of Security. Nosenko testified: "Mr. Bruce Solie talking with me every day for a period from the end of '67, the whole '68, 1968, '69, every conversation he was recording. But he never has come and showed his notes, transcriptions or anything. He was returning to every case, to every aspect by 20, 25, 30 times."[^1][^2][^3] ### Testimony To the [House Select Committee on Assassinations](/events/hsca/) on June 1, 1978, Solie rejected the theory that Nosenko had been sent. "I concluded that he was under his own power when he contacted us in 1962. He did it without the knowledge of the KGB, and he went back to the Soviet Union. If he had been dispatched out, it would have been quite logical that there would have been contact with him in the Soviet Union." On Nosenko's statements about [Lee Harvey Oswald](/people/lee-harvey-oswald/): "The record reflects on 3 January 1968, I asked Nosenko to give me an account of everything he did in the Oswald investigation." Asked whether he had questioned Nosenko on what he wrote or compared it with other material, he said: "No, because I had no reason to disbelieve him." Asked whether he believed Nosenko had told the truth about Oswald: "Yes, I have no reason to disbelieve him."[^1] As chief of the Security Analysis Group in June 1976 he identified for the agency's privacy staff the "Spencer Oliver" named in a Freedom of Information request from [James McCord](/people/james-mccord/), "who according to a newspaper article in 1972 was the Executive Director of the State Chairmens Association of the Democratic National Committee" and in whose office telephone "an alleged listening device was found."[^4] ### Wackenhut On July 18, 1978, Solie certified that the committee's staff had reviewed the Office of Security's file on the [Wackenhut Corporation](/organizations/wackenhut-corporation/) "in conjunction with the HSCA's investigation into the deaths of President [John F. Kennedy](/people/john-f-kennedy/) and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr."[^5] [^1]: House Select Committee on Assassinations, security classified testimony of Bruce L. Solie, June 1, 1978, record 180-10110-10010. National Archives, JFK Assassination Records Collection, pp. 5-6, 59, 65-66. [^2]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Family Jewels," memorandum of Howard J. Osborn, Director of Security, to the Executive Secretary, CIA Management Committee, May 16, 1973, with attachments, p. 00023. [^3]: House Select Committee on Assassinations, security classified testimony of Yuri Nosenko, June 20, 1978. National Archives, JFK Assassination Records Collection, pp. 44, 110-111. [^4]: Solie, Bruce L., Chief, Security Analysis Group. Memorandum for the file, "McCord, James Walter, Jr.," June 23, 1976, JFK record 104-10123-10362. [^5]: Solie, Bruce L. Memorandum, July 18, 1978, JFK record 104-10130-10450. National Archives, JFK Assassination Records Collection.