The CIA and the Murder of James Speyer Kronthal

One great CIA mystery buried just about forever – at least in terms of a human lifetime – is that of the strange death of James Speyer Kronthal, seventy-two years ago, in March of 1953.

Kronthal was a double agent, allegedly offered a top post within the CIA by Allen Dulles, just prior to Kronthal’s death. Factually, CIA Chief Dulles was the last person to ever see Kronthal alive..

One of Kronthal’s close friends was the notorious OSS/CIA operative, James Jesus Angleton. At the time, Angleton was an up and coming star in the CIA’s Cold War world, and it is exceedingly likely that Angleton knew about Kronthal’s secret debauched life, and also knew that Kronthal had been compromised. The precise cause of Kronthal’s “suicide” was not and has not been determined, but it’s probable that this was a murder by the CIA, with poison most likely supplied to Kronthal by Allen Dulles.

Stephen Kinzer writes in Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control :

‘On the evening of March 30, 1953, Allen Dulles sat down for dinner at his Georgetown home with one of his senior officers, James Kronthal. The two men had been OSS comrades in Europe and remained close. On this night, Dulles had most unpleasant news. He told Kronthal that CIA security officers – two of whom were eavesdropping at that moment – had discovered his awful secret. He was a pedophile who had been compromised on film and blackmailed into working as a double agent, first for the Nazis and then for the Soviets.

Dulles spoke sadly about the ways personal compulsion can destroy careers. The two men parted around midnight. Security officers accompanied Kronthal home. Later that morning he was found dead in his second-floor bedroom.

Allen probably had a special potion prepared that he gave to Kronthal,’ (CIA agent) Crowley said. “Dr. Sidney Gottlieb and the medical people produced all kinds of poisons that a normal postmortem cannot detect.” ‘

Point being, that in this so-called new age of Washington transparency, it would be nice to have a CIA response to FOIA requests about Kronthal alleging something other than that, “all CIA files on Kronthal have been destroyed by the CIA as a matter of routine procedure..” leading to a resolution of what was most likely a CIA-initiated murder.

For now, we can file Kronthal under all the other alleged CIA/federal government murders of Americans, including JFK; Malcolm X [1], Danny Casolaro, Gary Webb, and Seth Rich.

A final curious element: why didn’t the CIA simply fire Kronthal (quietly – call it a resignation) and Kronthal could then go on his merry way? Probably because the CIA considered Kronthal to be unreliable, he knew much about the agency, and the CIA knew that the other side had the goods on him as well. His downfall was also a product of the times, and the paramount requirement that the new agency (at that time) not be compromised.

[1] Article on Malcolm X: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3rxzndzl7yo which unfortunately provides little detail on the links between the CIA and takfiri extremists, dating back many decades.

Steve Brown